The three-day strike by the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) might seem like a non-event, but supply chain experts say it will take a little time for operations at East Coast and Gulf Coast ports to return to normal.
That said, the U.S. economy dodged a very big bullet when the ILA agreed to a 62% pay increase over six years and then agreed to table negotiations over automation until January 15. A prolonged strike shutting down 36 U.S. ports would have halted most imports and exports, creating shortages and higher prices.
According to the Association for Supply Chain Management, the general rule for a work stoppage is that it takes five days to recover for every day that a port is shut down. Consumers should not be impacted because of the preparations major retailers took in advance of the strike, increasing their imports in anticipation of what was expected to be a lengthy strike.
“It may be a little early to say everything is completely back to normal, however, we are quickly heading in that direction,” Mike Klage, vice president at NTG Supply Chain Solutions, told ConsumerAffairs.
“Most ports are reporting a faster recovery than the expected ‘a week for every day.’ Looking at vessel berthing schedules in Houston for mid-October for example, we are seeing vessels scheduled to work on or before their original ETA, indicating the port expects to have worked through any backlog by the end of this week.”
Klage says there could be some residual congestion landside as draymen and warehouses handle a couple of weeks of volume in a condensed period, but any delays should be brief.
“Had the strike become prolonged, and vessels started offloading containers en masse at non-US ports, I believe the ‘week for every day’ concept likely would have been more accurate, so the short duration really helped schedules from getting too far off course.”