Dockworkers go on strike, shutting container freight operations in NYC, East Coast ports

Dockworkers with the International Longshoremen’s Association went connected strike astatine midnight Tuesday, shutting down instrumentality freight operations successful New York City ports and on the eastbound seaboard and Gulf coast.

The labour enactment is the archetypal large larboard work-stoppage on the seashore successful 47 years, halting operations astatine large ports from New York to cities similar Baltimore, Miami, and Houston. It comes aft months of stalled talks betwixt the ILA and the United States Marine Alliance—USMX—a shipping consortium.

The dockworkers are demanding an summation successful wage and a prohibition connected automation astatine the ports.

Gov. Hochul told reporters Monday that the Port of New York and New Jersey had been moving to wide off-loaded containers from ports successful Brooklyn, Staten Island and Elizabeth, N.J., truthful that cargo did not get stuck down a picket line.

Longshoreman Franky Searle, of Boston, front, displays a placard successful beforehand of an entranceway to a instrumentality terminal adjacent Boston Harbor, Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024 during a dockworkers strike. (Steven Senne/AP)

“In mentation for this moment, New York has been moving astir the timepiece to guarantee that our market stores and aesculapian facilities person the indispensable products they need,” Hochul said aboriginal Tuesday morning.

“It’s captious for USMX and the ILA to scope a just statement soon that respects workers and ensures a travel of commerce done our ports,” she added. “In the meantime, we volition proceed our efforts to minimize disruption for New Yorkers.”

Dockworkers onslaught astatine Boston Harbor, Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024, successful Boston. (Steven Senne/AP)

“I privation to archer you all, what you’re doing is right,” ILA’s planetary president, Harold Daggett, told dockworkers connected a picket enactment successful Elizabeth aboriginal Tuesday morning. “This is going down successful history, what we’re doing here.”

“These companies implicit successful Europe, they don’t springiness a f–k astir us,” Daggett said of the shipping consortium members.

“They’re going to person to springiness a f–k astir us, due to the fact that nothing’s going to determination without us,” helium said to applause.

The onslaught involves dockworkers who grip containerized freight and roll-on, roll-off ships carrying automobiles — the overwhelming bulk of cargo that enters the port.

Bulk-freight, which is not containerized, is expected to proceed to participate and exit the ports amid the strike.