Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg says port strikes could have a real impact on the economy

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said Thursday in an interview on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that the port strikes could have a real impact on the economy.

“The longer this goes on, the greater economic impact you will see. If you just think about the pace of shipping, it’s obvious that if you’re expecting something overnight, you don’t ship it by sea.” “But it doesn’t take long for this to really make itself felt. Our supply chains are all connected,” Buttigieg told host Willie Geist.

The International Longshoreman’s Association (ILA) began its first strike since 1977 after its six-year contract with the US Maritime Alliance (USMX), which represents port employers, expired Monday evening.

“Many retailers and stores sensed that this could be coming. This is an issue we’ve been tracking for months. And so some of them rerouted to the West Coast or brought forward their orders and got more stuff put into the warehouses,” he added.

US BUYERS are starting to stock up on essentials as port strikes put pressure on prices “higher than ever”.

Buttigieg said the longshoremen’s union is negotiating better wages because shipping companies’ profits have increased “around 350%” in the last eight years. He said workers’ wages only rose about 15%.

“They are negotiating better wages and other issues, and they and the shipping companies and ports have failed to agree on a new contract. That’s what led to this strike, the work stoppage,” he said.

“It is a big problem that needs to be solved,” the transport minister added. “We are in contact with the various parties and are urging them to reconcile their differences and, in particular, are calling on these shipping companies, which have again become extremely profitable in recent years, to submit an offer sufficient to bring the union back in to move the table and get it done.

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The ongoing union strike by longshoremen has shut down several U.S. ports on the East and Gulf Coasts for days, bringing to a standstill trade at the hubs that together handle about half of U.S. imports.

Major retail and business associations are sounding the alarm about the impact the work stoppage could have on the broader economy, and new data shows which companies shipped the most goods to affected ports last year.