Biden Should Intervene in the East Coast Port Strike

The much-anticipated labor strike at ports along the East and Gulf coasts has begun, and the impact is a bit anticlimactic — for now.

Retailers, manufacturers and other shippers have been building inventory for a while and have mapped out alternative entry points for their goods at West Coast ports. Besides enduring a barrage of news reports of the pending chaos, consumers won’t be affected immediately. The International Longshoremen’s Association, which represents about 45,000 port workers, and the US Maritime Alliance, aren’t close to an agreement.

The calm before the storm won’t last long. Inventories will be whittled down, and the temporary solution of transporting goods from the West Coast across the country by rail and truck will become saturated. There’s just no way to handle all the volume that would flow through ports from Maine to Texas, a massive stretch of coastline that’s home to about half of the US’ busiest ports.

While store shelves and e-commerce deliveries won’t be emptied or halted immediately, a prolonged strike will begin to bite well before the Nov. 5 presidential election. The political pressure will be mounting day by day for President Joe Biden to intervene. Apart from the behind-the-scenes pressure the White House will exert on both sides, the big gun the president wields to resolve a labor dispute is the Taft-Hartley Act, which would force port workers to return to the job during an 80-day cooling-off period while the two sides return to the bargaining table.

It’s a blunt tool that Biden has said he won’t use. Forcing the port workers off the picket line and back to their jobs would undercut his reputation as a pro-labor president. The fallout would likely spill over to Vice President Kamala Harris and her campaign to defeat Donald Trump for the presidency.