PORTLAND, Maine — The union that represents dock workers at East Coast ports, including Portland’s, is threatening to strike if it’s not successful in renegotiating its contract with port operators. A strike could impact several Maine businesses and produce a ripple effect throughout the state’s economy.
The recent round of negotiations between the International Longshoremen’s Association and the U.S. Maritime Alliance, which represents container carriers and port operators in the negotiations — including Port Americas, which operates the Portland Marine Terminal — broke down last week. No new talks are scheduled, both sides told the Associated Press. The current contract expires at the end of September.
Meanwhile, the ILA chapter at the Port of New York and New Jersey, the East Coast’s busiest port, authorized a strike on Tuesday if the contract deal isn’t reached, according to the AP.
The Portland Marine Terminal handles between 3,000 and 5,000 containers a year, on average, Jack Humeniuk, the ILA’s representative in Portland and an employee of Port Americas, told the Bangor Daily News. There are 45 members in Portland’s ILA chapter, he said.
But it’s not just a disruption of container service in Portland that would impact Maine businesses. A strike at ports in New York, Newark, Baltimore, Philadelphia and other East Coast ports would disrupt the entire nation’s supply chain and create a ripple effect throughout the economy.
If the ILA workers strike, “the worst-case scenario” for Maine businesses, Humeniuk said, “is they’d have to move their stuff through the West Coast.”
The contract in question is a master agreement on container service, so it won’t impact the noncontainerized cargo that moves in and out of Maine, such as wood pulp and lumber and fuel, Humeniuk said.
For those Maine businesses that do receive and ship cargo by container — L.L. Bean, Sappi Fine Paper and White Rock Distilleries — a strike at East Coast ports would disrupt their supply chain and force them to seek alternative routes.
L.L. Bean is “a considerable user” of Portland’s container service, Carolyn Beem, a spokeswoman for the Freeport retailer, told the BDN. “It’s a big part of the mix for us,” she said. “In terms of the looming strikes we are looking at contingency planning and routing more to the West Coast.”
The worst-case scenario would be moving merchandise by air freight, Beem said. “That’s just ridiculous with the costs associated with that.”
Another user of Portland’s container service is White Rock Distilleries, the Lewiston liquor company purchased last year by Beam Inc., the producer of Jim Beam bourbon. It receives raw vodka from France at its Lewiston facility and ships out cases of Pinnacle brand vodka.
“We’re definitely monitoring the situation,” said Paula Erickson, a spokeswoman for Beam Inc., “and we definitely have contingency plans in place if something should occur in terms of a strike or disruption at the ports.”
Shifting supply chains and seeking alternative shipping routes would increase costs for White Rock, which employs more than 150 people, but that would be a secondary consideration, Erickson said. The company’s “No. 1 priority” would be to ensure 100 percent uninterrupted production and shipment of the company’s product.
Sappi’s paper mill in Westbrook is also looking at its options if dock workers strike. “We are aware of a potential longshoreman strike and we are working with our supply chain partners to minimize or avoid any service disruptions through strategic contingency plans,” said Joanna Rieke, Sappi’s manager of corporate communications.
It’s not just Maine’s largest shippers that would be affected. A strike at East Coast ports would be felt throughout Maine’s economy as products get backed up at overburdened West Coast ports and the entire supply chain slows. “As it goes further down the supply chain it starts to have an impact on everybody,” L.L. Bean’s Beem said.
For all Maine retailers, a prolonged strike could spell trouble, according to Curtis Picard, executive director of the Maine Merchants Association, especially since it would occur just as stores begin to stock up on Christmas-season merchandise.
However, Picard expects the potential for a strike “is not even on the radar screen of small retailers,” he said.
Picard is watching the situation and expects to reach out to his members within the next few weeks. In the meantime, if retailers are worried about how a strike would affect them, they should call their distributor and get a better handle on where their product is coming from and where the distributor is located, Picard said. “If they’re on the West Coast, they may not have an issue,” he said.
Humeniuk was not at last week’s negotiations in Florida, but said the talks broke down over the use of automation at ports that eliminate longshoremen jobs and the question of port operators providing money to retrain longshoremen for other jobs at the ports. Those issues don’t exist in Portland, he said. Automation is something happening at the big ports such as New York and Miami. Portland doesn’t have any particular issues in negotiation at the moment, he said.
Other key issues at the failed talks were overtime rules and container royalties, which are payments dock workers receive based on the weight of the cargo, according to The Associated Press.
While no new negotiations between the ILA and the U.S. Maritime Alliance are scheduled, Humeniuk expects the parties will sit back down together. “If [the issues] get solved, they’re not going to get solved until the 11th hour,” he said. “Unfortunately for shippers, it’s uncomfortable because you don’t know what to do, but that’s the nature of the beast.”
If a strike or lockout did occur, Humeniuk expects it would be “very short-lived” because the economic impact would be so dramatic that President Barack Obama would likely get involved.
This should really help the U.S. economy get going !!
Time to find a new, non-union, contractor
Oh oh…I love Pinnacle Orange Whipped.
Is this Teamsters union? Collective Bargaining, let it work, drink beer, wear Teva’s.
Does this mean my new Korean piece of junk car might be late getting here? LOL
If you know that your new Korean car is a piece of junk, why are you buying it?
LOL! Good point.
Here’s an idea, let the greedy union members strike and in the meantime hire all new workers. You can’t tell me they would have a hard time filling these positions, and even so they could do it for probably 75% or less of what they pay union members. I never understood why these companies can’t stand up to the unions and say up yours by hiring non-union workers. Unions have no place in our modern society and are a big part of the reason we have so few manufacturing jobs in the US. The main reason unions got started was safety and work conditions, not to milk every last dime out of their employers. Between OSHA and other govt regulators safety is no longer and issue, which leaves me wondering why we still have these antiquated unions.
We still have unions, because we still have greed. The reason we have so few manufacturing jobs in America is because we sent them all to China. These people simply want their share of the American dream. A living wage, affordable health care, and a retirement that doesn’t involve eating dog food. Private union membership is down to 7% in the U.S.. I think you can stop hiding from the scary union monster hiding under your bed. Do you realize that the only reason we exist as a country today is some members of the world’s oldest union, the brotherhood of Free Masons, got together and formed a more perfect union? If you work for a living and are against collective bargaining, you are sadly misguided. If daddy left you the business, then no further explanation of your union bashing is needed.
“We still have unions, because we still have greed.” Yes, they’re called union members.
“The reason we have so few manufacturing jobs in America is because we sent them all to China.” Right again, because the unions have priced themselves right out of a job with their demands for higher pay and more benefits that make their products and services unreasonably priced.
“These people simply want their share of the American dream. A living
wage, affordable health care, and a retirement that doesn’t involve
eating dog food.” I’m sure these union members must be destitute dumpster divers.
Yes, their desire for a decent wage and affordable health care is down right greedy, in your opinion. Dexter Shoe was a profitable company and employed hundreds of central Mainers. They were also non union. Please explain to me how the unions prompted Warren Buffet to pull up stakes and flee headlong to China? In fact, give me one example of a Maine manufacturer that moved to the cheap, juicy Chinese labor that did so because of a union, just one? It is estimated that Maine has lost between ten and twenty thousand manufacturing jobs in the last 20 years. Can you lay one single job loss at the feet of the union? Just one? I can lay thousands at the feet of greed, without even trying. When a profitable business in the U.S. pulls up stakes and goes chasing after the cheap Chinese women and children to do their work, they do it for one reason and one reason alone, greed. Not union workers.
What is the typical wage of a unionized Portland dock worker and what does their benefit package look like?
Not sure. I know when I worked as a chief engineer in the Merchant Marines I was well paid, and with good reason. It was loud, hot, and dangerous as hell. I worked with a lot of dock workers and always found them to be hard workers too.
As far as I know and someone please tell me I’m wrong…is tie up the cruise ships at the Maine State Pier. Sprague has the only working cargo terminal and they are non union.
Coles Express
Coles Express moved to China? lol. I asked him to name one job in Maine that went to China because of a union. We were also talking about manufacturing jobs, not transportation jobs.
You said…Can you lay one single job loss at the feet of the union?
I answered your question with Coles Express. I am correct.
Again, we were talking about manufacturing jobs. You are trying to take me out of context to make a point. Coles Express was transportation jobs, not manufacturing. Besides, deregulation of the trucking industry and the rise of independents was more likely the death knell at Coles, not driver’s compensation. Anyone who reads the thread will agree that it was clearly referencing manufacturing jobs, not transportation. You are not correct.
Easy solution, Buy Local!
You might have taken notice of the commentary on unions posted below, which I believe says: “Here’s an idea, let the greedy union members strike and in the meantime hire all new workers. You can’t tell me they would have a hard time filling these positions, and even so they could do it for probably 75% or less of what they pay union members. I never understood why these companies can’t stand up to the unions and say up yours by hiring non-union workers. Unions have no place in our modern society and are a big part of the reason we have so few manufacturing jobs in the US.”
Did you read that? “Unions have no place in our modern society.”
Let’s talk about the way we looked at unions in 1945.
It must be tough to live in a country that has just been defeated by a world war. As you might expect, the country that wins tries to impose its values on the losers. This happened in 1945 when Eisenhower and his victorious allies set up a German constitution that would eliminate what they considered to be the evil elements of the former German government. I recently learned this when, after opening the Encyclopedia Britannica at random, I read that in Germany “After World War II [,] the right to organize trade unions and to strike was constitutionally guaranteed.“
This must have changed things around 180 degrees for rich and poor alike in 1945 Germany, because “The [previous government had] abolished trade unions, collective bargaining and the right to strike. An organization called the ‘Labor Front’ replaced the old trade unions, but it was an instrument of [their only political] party and did not represent workers.”
So I was suddenly awakened to the realization that in 1945 the right to organize trade unions and to strike was one of the basic rights that — in 1945 — seemed to be one of the basic differences between a democracy for the people — and a military-corporate state.
This is such an interesting concept, that I quickly Googled and learned that Japan [also] has the right to strike enshrined in its Constitution. It was put there after World War 2 as a protection from that government that begins with f. (If I write the entire word it seems to automatically
prevent me from posting on this site. So there are obviously some things that Americans are still not supposed to know or discuss.)
Ok. We, the victors, wrote constitutions for Germany and Japan to ensure that this military-corporate run type of government called f would never again raise its ugly head — in Germany and Japan. So we’re safe, right?
Well, who would know? We hardly ever hear any talk about f nowadays. Although we certainly honor our few remaining venerable veterans and their buddies who died fighting f, we’re not even sure what f is.
But — if you’ve heard anything lately about people going on strike and the official reaction to it, could it be that there are a lot of folks out there who really don’t want you to be able to recognize the manifestations of f when you see it?
The humble Farmer
Unfortunately, Humble, the use of that f word has been politically perverted to mean “anything remotely governmental that my party disagrees with.”
Great post. Thank you.
The fact that you can see a parade of people protesting Obama in which some of the signs call him a fascist and some other signs call him a communist is a further indication that we have many good, honest neighbors who have no idea of what either of those two words mean.
Just goes to show you how the longshoremen unions, long a profit maker for organized crime will do what ever it takes to appease the mob. Failure to embrace technology will only delay the inevitable. This is solely about organized crimes and their union bosses.
They are simply fighting for there jobs, Wouldn’t you? We are so worried about unemployment, However a group of people that are fighting for there jobs instead of being replaced my machines are look down on? I simply do not get it.
It’s time to get rid of the UNION! Unbelievable!
Does this include Searsport? If not, they’re new flashy harbor crane could be getting a workout!
Anyone else find it ironic that unions have traditionally been associated with communism by business owners. Yet, these same business owners are moving their factories to a communist nation and making them richer and more powerful by the second. All the while blaming unions for them moving in the first place, thereby driving them into the arms of communism! lol. So we now have a communist finger up our butts for over $1 trillion and climbing because of those commies and their unions? lol. 7% of the workforce is forcing the titans of industry to support communism? lol. I highly doubt it. I suspect it is the allure of all those Chinese women and children willing to work for $20 a week that might be chipping away at the titan’s “patriotism”. Saint Ronald Reagan would have brought them up on charges of treason for the mere mention of putting a thin dime in the pocket of communism. Last year we sent them $350 billion towards the cause of communism. I tried to figure out how many dimes that was, but my abacus caught on fire.