Dockworkers Strike Could Begin Tuesday, With Talks at an Impasse

Longshoremen on the East and Gulf Coasts is likely to strike on Tuesday, halting most activity at some of the busiest U.S. ports, if their union and employers fail to end a monthslong standoff over a new labor contract.

The walkout by members of the International Longshoremen’s Association would cost the economy billions of dollars a day.

President Biden can use a federal labor law to force the longshoremen back to work, but on Sunday he said he was not considering using that power. In recent days, top government officials have pressed both sides to reach a deal.

“It’s not desirable for the Biden administration and for the economy,” Harley Shaiken, a professor emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley, who specializes in trade and labor issues, said of the strike prospect. “But it looks like it’s going to happen.”

The I.L.A., which has 47,000 members, has not held a strike at all the East and Gulf Coast ports since 1977. The union and the United States Maritime Alliance, the employers’ negotiating group, are at loggerheads over wages and benefits. The union is also resisting the use of automated machinery at the ports.

Recently, big unions like the Teamsters and the United Automobile Workers have gotten much of what they asked for in contract negotiations. The longshoremen have even more leverage.