What would another potential strike mean for the Port of Baltimore?
BALTIMORE -- The International Longshoremen's Association (ILA) is threatening another strike in January if a deal can't be reached with the United Maritime Alliance (USMX), which means production stoppage at the Port of Baltimore, and ports on the East and Gulf coasts.
Dockworkers went on strike in early October after contract talks between the union and Ports America came to a standstill. An agreement on wages was met, but there was still room to negotiate some of the other sticking points, like healthcare and automation.
The two sides have until January 15 to reach a deal. It is unclear when negotiations will resume.
Strike impact on Baltimore's port
In October, 25,000 longshoremen stepped off the job nationwide after contract negotiations came to a halt. Three days later, a wage deal was met, but other details were left unresolved.
The union agreed to a 61.5% wage hike over five years. One of the main sticking points is over job security and automation.
The strike shuttered ports along the eastern seaboard, including the Port of Baltimore, having a trickledown effect, impacting other third-party industries, like trucking and the railroads. It also impacted local businesses, including restaurants that depend on port workers to eat at their establishments.
The Port of Baltimore includes six public and 31 private terminals with 20,000 workers. While the privately owned docks are run by mostly non-union labor, the public terminals are union shops, meaning that several thousand jobs at the port are impacted, and at a standstill during a strike. There are 12,000 workers that operate the port every day.
Some of these workers were out of a job for the second time this year, months after the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse shuttered the port for weeks.
As these talks continue, there are growing concerns about the economy and if East Coast ports will suffer again.
"People need stuff, and our economy is based on getting that stuff whether it's medical equipment or televisions. There's a lot that comes through the Port of Baltimore and if that's disrupted, it does not stop here," JP Krahel, an accounting professor at Loyola University Maryland, told WJZ.
Negotiations stalled this week
The union says talks broke down this week over job security and automation. The union says USMX brought "modernization" and semi-automation onto the table again.
"The ILA has always supported modernization when it leads to increased volumes and efficiency. For over 13 years, our position has been clear: we embrace technologies that improve safety and efficiency, but only when a human being remains at the helm. Automation, whether full or semi, replaces jobs and erodes the historical work functions we've fought hard to protect," ILA officials said in a statement.
Automation vs. job security
In October, ILA Local 333 President Scott Cowan outlined why he believes it's important to protect these union jobs.
"Protections against automation is – robots don't pay taxes and they don't put food on the table so it's very important to protect these jobs," Cowan said.
In a statement, USMX said it is not trying to eliminate jobs but to increase safety.
"Unfortunately, the ILA is insisting on an agreement that would move our industry backward by restricting the future use of technology that has existed in some of our ports for nearly two decades – making it impossible to evolve to meet the nation's future supply chain demands," USMX said. "What we need is continued modernization that is essential to improve worker safety, increase efficiency in a way that protects and grows jobs, keeps supply chains strong, and increases capacity that will financially benefit American businesses and workers alike."
The union says it does not want its members to pound the pavement again, but it will wield that weapon if it needs to.