Earlier this month, economists urged focus upon the impending supply chain mess that will surely result if contract renegotiations don’t go well between shipping lines and unions who represent dock workers. Those unions already halted work for 24 hours in early April at all terminals at the Port of Los Angeles and most terminals at the Port of Long Beach. In turn, those 24 hours caused days of bottlenecks.
All told, these contract talks involve around 20,000 West Coast dockworkers, most of whom are represented by the Longshore and Warehouse Union. In a twist, that union recently drew the ire of the NLRB, which ruled that the group illegally sought work that the board had pinpointed for a different union.
On the aviation front: Biden’s inexperienced nominee for FAA chief, Phil Washington, recently saw the writing on the wall and withdrew his own nomination after heated criticism about his lack of specific aviation experience in the policymaking world.
