Dock strike could cause shortages of appliances in Massachusetts

NORTON - The port strike from Massachusetts to Texas is only a few days old, but it's already having an impact on prices.

The International Longshoremen's Association went on strike on Tuesday , demanding better wages and less automation at East and Gulf Coast ports.

Port strike impact

Yale Appliance has six locations in Massachusetts. Their Vice President of Sales, Dennis MacDonald, is getting COVID-era flashbacks from this strike. He's worried it could create pandemic level delays in kitchen appliances.

"It harkens back to some of the things we saw in the pandemic," he told WBZ-TV. "People still are building their homes and finishing their kitchen projects and getting occupancy permits, wanting to move their families in and builders to finalize in what has already been a gritty economy this year, so we worry for them, and we worry, will the product be in when they need it?"

MacDonald took WBZ on a tour through the company's new 225,000 square foot warehouse in Norton, which houses tens of millions of dollars of appliances. The family-owned company is more than 100 years old and has recently announced a new location on Nantucket.

Price increases

Despite the packed warehouse, MacDonald says the company probably has up to six weeks of product in stock. They have already received alerts from distributors about several upcoming price hikes unrelated to this strike, which will trap imports on container ships with no workers to unpack them.

MacDonald worries that more price hikes will come after distributors face a backlog of deliveries once the ports reopen. Experts have estimated that each day of strike means four to six days of recovery on the back end.

Many retailers post pandemic, "tried to start to get back to a new normal of 'just in time' inventory...and I'm worried for most of them that if they don't have operations like this, they don't have the ability to store things, what happens again? Are we right back where we started? That is a real concern," he said.

Buy now

His advice to customers - which he promises is not a sales pitch - is to buy your appliances now if you're mid-renovation or in need to guarantee access to existing inventory.

Regarding the ILA strike, "I think every hard-working American should have an opportunity to earn, and I can appreciate that," MacDonald said. "I hope cooler heads could prevail and they could figure this out quickly."