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Instant Reaction: US Dockworkers Suspend Strike · Bloomberg Intelligence

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  Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news from Bloomberg World Headquarters
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  Speaker 1: in New York. I'm Doug Prisoner, and we begin with
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  Speaker 1: this breaking news. The union representing striking US dock workers
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  Speaker 1: at East and Gulf Coast ports has reached a deal
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  Speaker 1: to suspend its strike until January fifteenth. Let's get a
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  Speaker 1: closer look now with Bloomberg's Kate Davidson, Managing editor for
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  Speaker 1: US ECO Policy, joining us from Washington, d C. Thanks
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  Speaker 1: for making time, Kate. As I understand it, both sides
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  Speaker 1: have reached a tentative agreement on wages, right, although this
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  Speaker 1: is step one and trying to get to a new
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  Speaker 1: six year contract, right, that's right.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, one of the bigger issues that was really
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  Speaker 2: holding up an agreement here had to do with automation.
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  Speaker 2: The union workers or some forty seven thousand dock workers
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  Speaker 2: at these ports, you know, stretching from Houston to Miami
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  Speaker 2: to Boston. One of the things that they wanted, we're
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  Speaker 2: greater protections against the kind of automation that we've seen
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  Speaker 2: at ports on the West coast, and so that was
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  Speaker 2: a real sticking point. This tentative agreement doesn't address that,
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  Speaker 2: but it does go some way toward addressing some of
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  Speaker 2: the wage demands. So they've agreed, as you said, to
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  Speaker 2: a temporary deal that would at least allow them to
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  Speaker 2: start moving cargo again. And that was under some you know,
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  Speaker 2: fairly intense pressure from the White House, I think, over
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  Speaker 2: the past few days. And so we in the meantime
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  Speaker 2: between now and January fifteenth, I have to keep working
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  Speaker 2: on that broader contract agreement.
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  Speaker 1: So will work us be back on the docks tomorrow?
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  Speaker 2: That's certainly what it sounds like. You know, the International
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  Speaker 2: Longshoreman's Association said it had agreed to extend the contract
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  Speaker 2: and said work will resume. So I don't think we
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  Speaker 2: know the exact details. We know that they've sort of
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  Speaker 2: began slowing down operations on Monday ahead of the midnight deadline,
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  Speaker 2: so imagine it will take them a little bit of
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  Speaker 2: time to get things up and running. But yeah, I
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  Speaker 2: think that I think that some of those dozens of
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  Speaker 2: ships that we've seen that are now anchored off to
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  Speaker 2: these ports where we'll start getting moving again.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, give me a sense of scale, what does that
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  Speaker 1: look like? Hard to imagine how many cargo vessels are involved.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, so we know that it had gone that we
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  Speaker 2: had seen those numbers and then ticking up over the
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  Speaker 2: last few days. Since just since Monday, I think there
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  Speaker 2: was something like nineteen ships that were just waiting off
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  Speaker 2: the off the coast of some of these ports, and
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  Speaker 2: as of this morning, I think the latest CALLI was
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  Speaker 2: up up to forty three or so. So obviously they're
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  Speaker 2: just unloading many, many, many, many containers of goods. I mean,
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  Speaker 2: these are these are cars, these are you know, clothing,
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  Speaker 2: it's auto parts, it's fresh fruit, all of these things.
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  Speaker 2: I mean that some of the estimates that we saw
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  Speaker 2: for that their lost economic activity was as much as
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  Speaker 2: a billion to five billion dollars a day.
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  Speaker 1: Was it already beginning to impact to the way that
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  Speaker 1: cargo is priced.
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  Speaker 2: So it's interesting there was some debate about that because
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  Speaker 2: it looked like some of the prices had gone up
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  Speaker 2: a bit. But we were starting to hear some claims
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  Speaker 2: from some of the union voices and their allies that
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  Speaker 2: the shipping companies, the shipping lines were price gouging. We
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  Speaker 2: saw the White House warning them against this. There were
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  Speaker 2: some pretty high figures being tossed out there, and some
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  Speaker 2: of these shipping lines pushed back on that they said
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  Speaker 2: that the prices were not going as high as some
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  Speaker 2: people were saying. Oh, they called it misinformation. So certainly
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  Speaker 2: there was starting to be some impact, but nothing major
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  Speaker 2: and certainly not to the highs that we saw during
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  Speaker 2: the pandemic supply chain crunch.
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  Speaker 1: When we think about the approaching holidays fourth quarter, this
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  Speaker 1: is a critical time right for moving cargo. Do we
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  Speaker 1: know that supply chain problems have been alleviated up until
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  Speaker 1: this point.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, So it seems as though, you know, a lot
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  Speaker 2: of the companies involved had gotten much better some of
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  Speaker 2: the issues that we did see during the pandemic, and
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  Speaker 2: they're much better prepared. The conversations around this potential strike
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  Speaker 2: and these negotiations that had stalled back in June were
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  Speaker 2: pretty well known, and we had started to see companies
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  Speaker 2: importing a lot more. We saw them stockpiling inventories because
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  Speaker 2: of this issue and also in anticipation of potentially higher
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  Speaker 2: tariffs that they were sort of bracing for later in
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  Speaker 2: the year or if next year, if there's a change
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  Speaker 2: in the administration in the White House of President former
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  Speaker 2: President Trump comes back in. We were starting to get
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  Speaker 2: a sense that companies were preparing for this a little
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  Speaker 2: bit so, I think that the retailers had taken some
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  Speaker 2: steps in are likely pretty well positioned. There shouldn't be
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  Speaker 2: a major impact, but I think we will find out
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  Speaker 2: more details over the coming week.
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  Speaker 1: Kate, thanks so much for joining us a Bloomberg's Kate Davidson,
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  Speaker 1: Managing editor of US Eco Policy, helping us understand our
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  Speaker 1: breaking story the union representing striking US stock workers at
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  Speaker 1: East and Gulf Coast ports reaching a deal to suspend
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  Speaker 1: to strike until January fifteenth,