Tens of thousands of United States dockworkers have continued to strike for a second day, keeping shipments at major eastern dockyards at a standstill.
Containers at 36 ports stretching from Maine to Texas piled up on Wednesday, as the dockworkers appeared no closer to a deal with their employers’ group, the United States Maritime Alliance (USMX).
The stoppage is aimed at securing higher wages and better protections for the 45,000 workers in the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA), but experts fear it could spur stinging economic losses and higher inflation in the month before presidential elections.
The market forecaster Oxford Economics projects the standoff could drain between $4.5bn and $7.5bn from the US economy for every week that passes.
White House officials, fearing an economic dip, urged USMX to engage more with the port workers’ demands, which include a 77 percent wage hike over six years and a ban on automation.
“It’s time for them to sit at the table and get this strike done,” Biden told reporters on Wednesday.
He said ocean carriers had raked in huge profits during the COVID-19 pandemic and should fairly compensate the workers who kept their businesses booming.
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