News / Striking dock unions should pay $2 billion a day, say Republican senators

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Republicans are bringing new legislation before the US senate which, if passed, would fine dockworker unions up to $2bn a day, making strike action practically impossible.

Introduced by Idaho senator Jim Risch and co-sponsored by fellow Idaho senator Mike Crapo and North Carolina senator Ted Budd, the bill would amend the National Labor Relations Act and Labor Management Relations Act to redefine port slowdowns by maritime workers – including no-shows and work-to-rule strikes – as unfair labour practices.

The bill would also make dockworker unions financially liable for damages incurred by their members withholding labour, and issue fines equivalent to double the damages. According to Chamber of Commerce estimates, a widespread strike along the west coast would cost approximately $1bn a day, making unions liable for $2bn a day.

The bill, according to a copy obtained by CNBC, refers to striking workers as a “burgeoning threat to the financial health and economic stability of the United States”, and calls on the Senate “to eliminate the causes and mitigate the effects of such disruptions to commerce in the maritime industry, and to provide effective and prompt remedies to individuals injured by such disruptions”.

The news follows this month’s 9-1 Supreme Court vote ruling that employers can hold individual workers financially liable for any losses incurred during a strike.

Last week, it was widely reported that Julie Su, the Biden administration’s labour secretary, had brokered a ‘tentative agreement’ between the ILWU and the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA). She had been under enormous pressure to broker an agreement before 24 June, when Canadian ILWU dockworkers were due to strike after a breakdown in their contract negotiations.

It avoided a situation where dockworkers would be striking at ports across the entire west coast of North America, coinciding with draught restrictions in the Panama Canal that would have stifled US east coast port capacity too.

ILWU international president Willie Adams told union members it would be at least a month before they would see details of the agreement, adding: “We will not be sharing details of the tentative agreement publicly until we have completed the ratification process. Next month we will have a longshore caucus, which is the highest governing body in the longshore division, and the delegates there will see the contract in its entirety.”

The Biden administration found itself in a similar situation last year, racing to broker a deal with railway unions by 15 September, when they could legally strike. After the agreement was subsequently rejected by rail unions, Congress retaliated by signing into law HJ Resolution 100 in December, banning a strike outright and forcibly imposing the terms of the agreement.