Employers seek to turn public opinion against the union by exaggerating damages.
Excerpts from the UK-based Handy Shipping Guide:
So, here we go again, the analysts and experts speaking volumes and saying little as the specter of a West Coast port strike looms, or doesn’t dependent on who you read. The facts are simply that a contract between the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) and the employers representative group, the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA), has expired, meaning from today, all freight passing through the ports responsible for around 35% of all US imports, will be at the whim of union workers.
It is customary to wheel out the scare stories at times like this, and it is true that historically these negotiations can break down resulting in closures such as the one in 2012 which closed parts of the Ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles for several days, but the $1 billion per day this is said to have cost is a figure that seems curiously rounded considering that the ships involved simply diverted to other local ports.
This time it’s $2.5 billion a day that is the sum which is being bandied about in the trade press and beyond as the ‘cost to the nation’ but this assumes complete closure of all thirty West Coast ports by a major strike, something which hopefully will not occur. There is however some history to these affairs and there have been some acrimonious disputes in the past but usually matters are resolved within a few weeks of the end of cessation of any agreement.
The reason for this is simply that unions such as the ILWU naturally wish to argue from a position of strength, something they have as soon as formal agreements cease, as on this occasion. Public opinion soon turns on any outfit that the public perceives as holding the country to ransom.