On Tuesday, tens of thousands of members of the International Longshoremen’s Association at ports from Maine to Texas began striking after their six-year contract expired. Workers at the 36 East Coast and Gulf Coast ports involved are demanding large pay raises and a ban on automation.
This is the first strike at East Coast and Gulf Coast ports since 1977, and given the scale of the work stoppage, it presents an economic headache for President Joe Biden and Harris, the Democratic candidate for president. The longer the strike continues, the more damage it will do to the economy and the more it could hurt Harris.
“Biden and his proxies are stuck between a rock and a hard place,” Dan Bowling, a visiting professor at Georgia State University’s law school who teaches about labor union matters, told the Washington Examiner.
