'Don’t Panic': What VA Consumers Need To Know About Dockworkers Strike

VIRGINIA — The strike by dockworkers at 36 U.S. ports, including thousands of workers in Virginia, could snarl the supply chain and cause shortages and higher prices if it stretches on than a few weeks, but experts warn consumers not to engage in panic buying.

Dockworkers in Virginia are among 45,000 who went on strike Tuesday for the first time in decades, effectively shutting down ports from Maine to Texas, where about half of U.S. imports are processed, as they demand higher wages and a ban on automation.

At the entrance to Virginia International Gateway in Portsmouth, dozens of union members picketed in the rain Tuesday. Derrick Perry, who has worked at the port with ILA Local 1970 for 19 years, told The Virginian-Pilot the workers were asking for wages that compensated them fairly for a dangerous, injury-prone job.

“We’re not being unreasonable, but we want to be compensated for what we do,” Perry told the newspaper.

Stephen Edwards, the Port of Virginia’s CEO, told The New York Times last month that automated technology had helped the port perform well in 2021 and 2022 amidst supply chain issues and a surge of container shipments. And the upgrades also helped when cargo was diverted from Baltimore this year after the Dali cargo ship hit the Francis Scott Key Bridge and that port closed as wreckage was cleared away.

“The semi-automated operations proved themselves all the way through the pandemic,” Edwards said.

In his State of the Port speech this year,Port of Virginia CEO Stephen Edwards said 565,000 jobs are connected to port operations in Virginia, WAVY reported.

The Port of Virginia is the sixth largest containerized cargo complex in the country, according to the authority. A recently expanded central rail yard that moves cargo by rail also uses robots for much of the workload.

The dockworkers' union, the International Longshoremen's Association, points to record profits by shipping companies, which have come in part because of shortages resulting from the pandemic, and to a more generous contract that West Coast dockworkers achieved last year. Longshoremen’s workloads have also increased, and the effects of inflation have eroded their pay in recent years, the union says.

How could the strike potentially impact Virginia consumers?

Experts say it will be a few weeks — if the standoff between dockworkers and port operations lasts that long — before consumers start noticing shortages, although some perishable foods such as bananas and tropical fruits could soon disappear from grocery stores, as virtually all are imported from Central and South America.

Alan Siger, president of the Produce Distributors Association, told The Associated Press that most other fruits and vegetables are grown domestically and aren't processed at ports.

“The consumers are the key factor here, don’t get panicked,” Subodha Kumar, a researcher and professor at Temple University’s Fox School of Business in Philadelphia, told WPVI, the local ABC affiliate.

Some panic buying may be occurring. Elizabeth Hollis, a shopper at a Walmart in Yorktown, Virginia, told news station WAVY that she encountered shelves reminiscent of the COVID-19 pandemic, when toilet paper disappeared from store shelves.

“I didn’t expect that everything was sold out — disinfectant sprays, almost like a little COVID,” Hollis said.

A BJ’s Wholesale Club in Hampton, Virginia also had long lines Wednesday and was running low on toilet paper, WAVY reported.

Importantly, toilet paper and paper towels are mostly manufactured in the United States and supplies won’t be affected by the strike, experts say.

However, some items that could end up in short supply in a prolonged strike include specialty food items such as imported chocolate, meats, and raw products such as sugar and cocoa, CNN reported.

Related: Dockworkers Strike In Baltimore, Supply Chain Concerns Begin

Many major retailers anticipated the strike and moved their holiday merchandise ahead of time. Costco CEO Ron Vachris said in a recent earnings call that while the strike “could be disruptive” and the company has “done a little bit of everything” to minimize the effect on customers.

“We’ve cleared the ports, we’ve pre-shipped,” Vachris said. “We’ve done several different things that we could to get holiday goods ahead of this time frame, and looked at alternative plans that we could execute with moving goods to different ports and coming across the country if needed.”

People looking for French wines, German beers, and imported spirits such as rums and tequilas could also see shortages.

“Over $5 billion of wine comes through those ports every year, 70 percent of our wine imports, most of our wine and whiskey imports, some of our roasted coffee,” Danny Munch, an economist with the American Farm Bureau, told CNN.

“We’re leaning into the big selling time of the year for spirits, leading into the holidays. Even a day strike could have significant repercussions,” Chris Swonger, CEO of the Distilled Spirits Council, told CNN.

The strike, coming weeks before a tight presidential election, could also become a factor in the race if shortages begin to affect many voters. Pressure could eventually grow for the Biden administration to intervene to try to force a temporary suspension of the strike.

Biden in a statement Tuesday urged port employers to make a fair offer to the striking longshoremen.

“Collective bargaining is the best way for workers to get the pay and benefits they deserve,” Biden said. “Executive compensation has grown in line with those profits, and profits have been returned to shareholders at record rates. It’s only fair that workers, who put themselves at risk during the pandemic to keep ports open, see a meaningful increase in their wages as well.”

Ben Nolan, a transportation analyst with Stifel, told The AP the administration isn’t likely to intervene until consumers start to see empty shelves or can’t find critical goods like medicines.

“Medications and other things come in on containers,” Nolan said. “I think if the administration wanted to have a reason to get involved, it’s stuff like that.”

The Associated Press contributed reporting.