If you’ll remember, there was a bit of a scare back in the fall, right before the election, as the International Longshoreman’s Association (ILA), the union for the longshoremen on most East and Gulf Coast ports and the consortium that manages those ports, the United State Maritime Alliance (USMX) were at loggerheads over a new contract and the issue of automation.
There was a lot of pre-walkout necessary and expensive reshuffling of Christmas orders and commerce in an attempt to beat the deadline and panic at the thought of the devastating effects of what an extended walkout would do to a tottery US economy. POTATUS and Co. were frozen in ‘Y’all be careful out there” mode, adding to a general sense of doom.
At the last minute, a pause in hostilities was hammered out and only a pause.
…The Biden administration was completely hands-off until the union…
