The Associated Press (AP) reports a union representing 45,000 striking dockworkers at East coast and Gulf coast ports has reached a deal to suspend their three-day strike until January, to give time to negotiate a new contract. The AP says the International Longshoremen’s Association will resume work on the docks immediately.
Powerful north Missouri U.S. Rep. Sam Graves (R-Tarkio), who chairs the U.S. House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, has been calling on President Biden since Tuesday to invoke the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act and bring the parties to the negotiating table. Congressman Graves, who is the dean of Missouri’s congressional delegation, spoke to 939 the Eagle on Thursday, just hours before the deal was reached. He told us President Biden should use Taft-Hartley, and that the strike needed to end immediately:
“If this goes on a week, it’s going to set us back a month with a backlog and trying to get stuff in. If it goes on two weeks, it’s going to take an entire year to clean out the backlog. And that’s going to have serious impacts,” Congressman Graves says.
The AP says the ports increased their wage offer from about 50 percent over six years to 62 percent. Chairman Graves tells 939 the Eagle that the three-day strike has cost billions of dollars:
“And right now, according to JP Morgan, just one day’s worth of strike costs the economy $5-billion, just in one day. And as this goes on, that’s going to start adding up, it’s going to start adding up and interrupting the flow of goods,” says Graves.
Congressman Graves has been urging his former congressional colleague, President Joe Biden (D), to invoke the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act, which would have forced the two parties to arbitration. President Biden did not do that. The AP reports presidents have invoked Taft-Hartley 37 times over the years in labor disputes.
Congressman Graves represents 39 north Missouri counties, and agriculture is the top industry in his district. He has been worried about farmers being able to get their machinery and chemicals.
