What could a dockworker strike mean for cargo and cruises at PortMiami?

PortMiami is bracing for a halt in cargo shipments this week as the trade hub faces a strike from dockworkers up and down the East Coast in a fight over wages and automation.

The county-owned port has already reserved space for striking dockworkers to protest their private-sector employers if the work stoppage begins as planned at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday. President Joe Biden could intervene and ask a judge to force members of the International Longshoremen’s Association back to work after their contract with cargo carriers expires at the end of the day Monday.

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If not, industry watchers are expecting disruption in supply chains across the country as cargo that’s usually bound for the East Coast and Gulf Coast gets rerouted to faraway ports or isn’t shipped at all.

“The American consumer would feel the impact almost immediately,” Cary Davis, president of an association representing ports across the country, including PortMiami, wrote in a letter last week to Biden. “Warehouses would experience capacity issues, and retailers might struggle to keep shelves stocked.”

The dockworker union wants a halt to automation in ports that will replace humans with machinery in cargo tasks.

While cargo ships would have no dockworkers in Miami or Fort Lauderdale to unload goods, the strike wouldn’t affect parts of the ports serving cruise ships.

The strike would cover workers who handle cargo containers. Cargo analysts are expecting the biggest impact in ports where a large portion of their shipments arrive by container.

Ken Roberts, a Miami-based trade analyst, wrote in Forbes this week that Port Miami is No. 11 among the nation’s ports in terms of goods arriving by container, as measured by value. Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale is No. 14 on the list.

Roberts, president of the World City trade data firm, wrote that the No. 1 container category for Port Everglades is medical instruments. For PortMiami, it’s cigarettes and cigars.

Goods arriving by bulk, such as cement, would not be affected by the strike, so it’s not clear how much disruption is waiting for the building industry in a protracted work stoppage. “We’ll be monitoring this closely,” said Truly Burton, executive vice president of the Builders Association of South Florida.

The potential for a strike has been the focus of growing industry alarm in the weeks leading up to the Oct. 1 deadline. Davis, president of the American Association of Port Authorities, in his Sept. 24 letter to Biden urged the president to use the power of the White House to help broker a deal between management and labor.

Biden could delay a strike by seeking a federal court order under the Taft-Hartley Act for an 80-day cooling-off period, but the White House so far is telling the public it isn’t considering that kind of action, CBS News reported last week.

In a memo Monday to county commissioners, Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said PortMiami picked two areas — one at the foot of the bridge connecting Biscayne Boulevard with the port, and one near the Customs station on port grounds — where union workers can stage picket lines.

“The County supports the rights of our workers to engage in collective bargaining, and the Port is working with its industry partners, including law enforcement, to ensure safety and security of all port users and operations during a potential strike,” wrote Levine Cava, who oversees PortMiami.

While Miami-Dade owns the port and the cranes used by freight companies, cargo operations are run by private companies and their private-sector employees. Those employees are represented by various chapters of the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA).

With a strike looming, cargo companies are already warning customers to expect disruptions in the goods they’re used to getting regularly by global sea routes, said Peter Quinter, a lawyer specializing in trade in the Gunster firm’s Miami office.

“It will be difficult,” Quinter said in an email Monday. “Companies need to plan for interruptions in the supply chain. There will be some shortages, there will be some price increases, but it all depends how long the strike lasts.”

“Containerized cargo means TVs, sofas, electronics of all kinds, clothing, some food, etc. so it is very significant for the U.S. economy and the American consumer,” he said. “Some ocean cargo will instead by transported by air, some will enter through Canada or Mexico, and some will shift to non-ILA ports.”

He pointed out the strike won’t affect fuel deliveries in Port Everglades, which supplies gasoline to much of South Florida.

The union has pledged to continue handling military-related cargo, as well as cruise ship operations so as “to not inconvenience the tens of thousands of Americans who have booked trips in advance.”

The potential strike would affect 36 ports along the coast from Maine to Texas that handle about half of the country’s cargo from ships, according to the Associated Press.

If workers were to walk off the job Tuesday, it would be the first strike of its kind since 1977. That strike lasted 44 days.

Miami Herald reporters Devoun Cetoute, David Goodhue and Milena Malaver contributed to this story.