Retailers brace for US port disruption
US retailers could be forced within days to find alternative ways to import goods unless the threat of a strike by domestic dockworkers at ports stretching from Maine to Texas lifts, the sector's main lobby group warned, reported Dow Jones Newswires.
Contract negotiations between dockworkers and employers at US East Coast and Gulf Coast ports turned frosty last week, raising the spectre of labour unrest during the critical peak shipping season in the fall.
The National Retail Federation urged the two sides to hold fresh talks and said some members already had taken measures to ensure goods reached shelves.
"Now that there is a real risk of disruption, most retailers using the East and Gulf Coast ports will be forced to executive contingency plans within the next week to meet in-store holiday deadlines," said the federation’s chief executive Matthew Shay.
Shay added that a dispute could drive shippers away from East Coast and Gulf Coast ports, citing the shift in their favour that followed a dockworkers' dispute on the West Coast in 2002.
Among retailers, Sears Holdings has "contingency plans in place for these types of occurrences and (we) don't anticipate any disruptions in our inventory," Sears spokeswoman Kimberly Freely said. Freely declined to discuss what the contingency plans are.
Other retailers contacted didn't respond to requests for comment.
A scheduled three-day session of talks between port operators and the main dockworkers' union broke up early last week, with the existing contract due to expire on September 30.
The United States Maritime Alliance, which represents shipping companies and marine terminal operators, last week accused the International Longshoremen's Association of taking an "uncompromising stand" in negotiations. The union has called for fresh talks and asked the port body to stop what it called "inflammatory rhetoric".