Thousands of ILA dockworkers plan to strike Tuesday, including in Baltimore

Tens of thousands of dockworkers along the East and Gulf coasts are expected to walk off the job and onto picket lines after midnight Monday in a strike by the International Longshoremen’s Association.

A strike would shut down the Port of Baltimore, where the union represents around 2,400 workers, for the second time this year. The port was largely closed for about two months after the container ship Dali struck the Francis Scott Key Bridge, collapsing the span into the Patapsco River, blocking the channel and killing six roadway workers.

In Baltimore, port officials and the union have agreed upon several locations near marine terminals where members could “peacefully gather” in the event of a strike, a port spokesman said.

Those include areas in front of the Dundalk and Seagirt terminals on Broening Highway and in front of the North and South Locust Point terminals on McComas Street, said Richard Scher, a spokesman for the Maryland Port Administration.

On Monday morning, the union reported no further progress toward settling a labor contract with the U.S. Maritime Alliance, which represents shipping lines and marine terminal operators.

The employers’ group has refused “ILA’s demands for a fair and decent contract and seems intent on causing a strike at all ports from Maine to Texas beginning in almost 12 hours,” the union said Monday in a Facebook post.

The Maritime Alliance has said little since Thursday when it filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board, alleging that the union has refused to negotiate. It couldn’t be reached for comment Monday.

The union called the filing a publicity stunt and has said the two sides have communicated in recent weeks .

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore has been closely monitoring the situation, a spokesman said Monday.

The governor “encourages the United States Maritime Alliance and the International Longshoremen’s Association to continue to talk and progress toward an agreement that properly compensates the men and women of the ILA while maintaining cost effective and efficient cargo flows,” said Carter Elliott, the spokesman.

White House officials met Friday with port operators and urged them to negotiate with the longshoremen’s union. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, acting Labor Secretary Julie Su and Lael Brainard, director of the White House National Economic Council, told members of the United States Maritime Alliance that they should be at the table with the union and negotiating ahead of the contract expiring Monday, according to a White House official who insisted on anonymity.

In a statement last week, the Maryland Port Administration also implored both sides to negotiate to reach an agreement. The current contract expires at midnight Monday.

In Baltimore and elsewhere, ILA dockworkers handle containerized cargo and vehicle shipments. Baltimore is the nation’s largest port for shipments of vehicles in and out of the United States. The union said it would continue to handle military cargo and passenger ships even as it strikes.

In its Monday update, the union took aim at foreign-owned ocean carriers represented by the maritime alliance.

“They want to make their billion-dollar profits at United States ports, and off the backs of American ILA longshore workers, and take those earnings out of this country and into the pockets of foreign conglomerates,” the union said in its statement. “Meanwhile, ILA dedicated longshore workers continue to be crippled by inflation due to USMX’s unfair wage packages.”

The union said shipping costs have increased over the past few weeks from $6,000 per container to an “unheard of” $30,000 for a full container.

“The shippers are gouging their customers that result in increased costs to American consumers,” the statement said.

Port-related economic losses on the East and Gulf coasts could add up to as much as $5 billion a day, said Margaret Kidd, an instructional associate professor of supply chain and logistics technology at the University of Houston. For every day the ILA is on strike, it would take an average of five days to clear backlogs, which means a two-week strike could have implications into next year.

The ILA has not walked out on such a large scale on the East Coast since 1977, when a work stoppage lasted 45 days.

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