With little more than a week to go, the American Meat Institute (AMI) and other meat and poultry industry groups have sent a letter urging President Barack Obama to intervene and prevent a strike at container ports from Maine to Texas.
The current labor contract between the International Longshoremen's Association (ILA) and the US Maritime Alliance (USMX) is set to expire on Dec. 29. The two sides have been negotiating a new contract since April with little progress, and now seem deadlocked.
A strike was averted in late September when George Cohen, director of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, stepped in. Retailers and others feared a disruption in cargo flow in the critical weeks leading up to Christmas would cripple the economy. Both sides agreed to a 90-day extension to take them beyond the holidays and the election.
At a fruitless meeting Dec. 18, the USMX rejected a proposal by the ILA to extend the talks until Feb. 1. It accused the union of being intransigent on the issue of container royalties, a per-unit fee paid to laborers that has been part of contracts for 52 years, to compensate longshoremen for work lost to them on account of container ship operations. The shippers' group also blasted the union for failing to accept a shorter extension proposed by mediator Cohen
"A strike of any kind at ports along the East and Gulf Coast could prove devastating for the US economy, particularly considering the economic setback suffered by the ports, especially the Port of New York/New Jersey, as a result of super storm Sandy," the AMI and its allies protested in their letter. "We call upon you to use all means necessary, including Taft-Hartley, to keep the two sides at the negotiating table and head off a coast-wide strike."
US exports of beef, pork, poultry and lamb products surpassed $16 billion in 2011 and the meat processing industry employs over 500,000 people. Members of the same coalition sent a similar letter earlier this month urging the resolution of the strike at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. A deal there was reached after eight days. Even so, that strike is said to have cost the West Coast economy an estimated $8 billion.
