The International Longshoremen’s Association and the United States Maritime Alliance are set to resume contract discussions in November, both parties said in a joint statement on Oct. 25.
Both the ILA and the USMX will continue to negotiate all outstanding issues left after the two parties extended their master contract to Jan. 15 and came to a tentative agreement on wages following a three-day strike earlier this month.
The pending issues are heavily focused on the use of automation at ports as well as jurisdiction protections, healthcare benefits and container royalties.
The tentative wage agreement is contingent on coming to terms on the remaining issues.
“The respective negotiating committees will meet in New Jersey, where they will look to agree on terms for a new Master Contract Proposal that can be presented to the full ILA Wage Scale Committee for approval, and later, to ILA Longshore workers for ratification,” according to the statement.
If a new agreement is not reached by the January deadline, shippers might face another strike that could halt East and Gulf Coast port operations.
“The recent three-day strike got the message across that the union is prepared to fight for their members, including using work-stoppages as part of the process,” Marc Iampieri, global co-leader of the logistics and transportation practice at AlixPartners, previously told Supply Chain Dive. “So, a lot more disruptions may be in store down the road.”
The ILA and USMX may have chosen to resume negotiations in November instead of this month due to the upcoming U.S. presidential election, one expert told Supply Chain Dive.
“The election will be over by November, and we will know who the 47th President of the United States will be. The Presidential election could impact US labor relations, including these negotiations,” Melissa Atkins, a labor and employment lawyer at Obermayer Rebmann Maxwell & Hippel, said in an email.
