A looming strike at east and Gulf coast ports was averted Friday as shippers and longshoremen extended talks for 30 days.
The news was well-received in Savannah, the No. 2 East Coast port which handled nearly 3 million cargo containers last year.
Curtis Foltz, who runs the state ports at Savannah and Brunswick, said business had dropped 5 percent since September when shippers began re-routing cargo in anticipation of a possible strike.
The strike, which was scheduled to start at midnight Dec. 29, would have slashed Savannah’s port business by 80 percent, with repercussions statewide.
“We believe that the two parties are committed to concluding a mutually acceptable contract that will avoid any disruption to our customer supply chains ,” Foltz said in a statement Friday.
Georgia’s public and private ports account for roughly $40 billion in statewide economic impact and support more than 150,000 related jobs, according to a University of Georgia study.
Metro Atlanta, a major distribution hub, reaps roughly 70 percent of the ports’ economic benefit.
Nearly 15,000 members of the International Longshoremen’s Association at ports from Boston to Houston threatened to walk off the job without a new contract. The talks with the U.S. Maritime Alliance, a consortium of shipping companies and terminal operators, had bogged down over container royalties, which are payments to longshoremen based on the amount of cargo handled.
George Cohen, a federal mediator, announced Friday morning that the royalty spat had been settled.
“While some significant issues remain in contention, I am cautiously optimistic that they can be resolved in the upcoming 30-day extension period,” Cohen said in a statement.
The Obama administration, already buffeted by “fiscal cliff” negotiations, wasn’t keen for a major ports strike to inflict further economic pain on the nation. A White House spokesman Friday morning urged the longshoremen and shipping interests to settle the conflict “as quickly as possible.”
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