SAVANNAH ― The Georgia Ports Authority will shutter its marine terminals in Savannah and Brunswick next Tuesday if dockworkers go on strike.
The International Longshoremen’s Association, a union with approximately 2,500 members at Georgia’s ports, have vowed to walk out if its labor contract with shipping companies is not renewed before it expires Monday.
Savannah and Brunswick are the rare East Coast terminals managed and operated by a state authority rather than by shippers who lease out port facilities. The Georgia Ports Authority employs a staff of more than 1,400, including crane operators and other laborers who work alongside ILA dockworkers in loading and unloading cargo vessels.
Savannah is the nation’s third busiest container port while Brunswick ranks second nationally for roll-on, roll-off cargo, such as automobiles and wheeled construction equipment.
Griff Lynch, chief executive of the GPA, said the authority would not consider using its own personnel to keep the terminals open during a strike. He cited the value of the GPA’s relationship with the ILA.
“At some point, this contract dispute will be a distant memory,” Lynch said Tuesday after a Ports Authority board of directors meeting. “The GPA has never even contemplated (keeping the port open) because we respect the relationship with the ILA.”
Stephen B. Morton for The Atlanta Journal Constitution
Stephen B. Morton for The Atlanta Journal Constitution
A strike appears likely as the two sides have not met to negotiate the new contract since mid-July, although ILA representatives say there has been communication in recent weeks with the United States Marine Alliance, which includes the shippers and terminal operators. The Georgia Ports Authority is a government authority and not a member of the USMX.
The ILA contract has a six-year term and covers all major ports along the East and Gulf coasts. The two sides typically agree to a new contract ahead of the deadline — the last strike was in 1977 and lasted seven weeks — but disagreements over wage increases and the use of automation at port facilities have stymied negotiations this time.
Savannah-based ILA leaders did not respond to requests for interviews regarding the potential strike. The ILA’s national president, Harold J. Daggett, put out a statement last week saying a “sleeping giant is ready to roar” should a deal not be reached by Oct. 1.
“My members have been preparing for over a year for that possibility of a strike,” he said.
Stephen B. Morton for The Atlanta Journal Constitution
Stephen B. Morton for The Atlanta Journal Constitution
For the Georgia terminals, the strike threatens at a time when cargo volume is high. The Ports Authority recorded its eighth straight month of year-over-year growth in August and through the first two months of the fiscal year is on pace for its second-best year ever.
However, Lynch acknowledges the surge is due in part to the looming work stoppage as goods manufacturers and shippers “frontload” for the holiday season ahead of the contract deadline. The same cargo volume would have passed through terminals spread out over a longer period, Lynch said.
Should the ILA go on strike, the hope is the issue is resolved quickly, said GPA board chairman Kent Fountain. He’s a ports user himself, an exporter of cotton and peanuts, and said the focus will be on service.
“If we have a work stoppage, and I’m hopeful we won’t, our goal is for it to be as seamless as possible for our customers,” he said.
With the contract deadline looming, U.S. Department of Labor officials have reached out to the negotiators, the news service Reuters reported Monday. The outreach signals the Biden administration may attempt to help facilitate contract talks, as the president did during a dispute involving West Coast ports last summer. A deal was struck nearly a year after the expiration of a labor contract, although union dockworkers continued working rather than strike in that instance.
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