Georgia ports remain closed Tuesday as dockworkers across the East and Gulf coasts have gone on strike.
Roughly 45,000 dockworkers from Maine to Texas went on strike earlier this week over wages and the use of automation, which is stopping operations at 36 ports.
While negotiations are ongoing, Georgia Ports Authority said they are ready to reopen whenever a new contract is agreed upon. Currently, the Ports of Savannah and Brunswick remain closed.
Sina Golara, a supply chain expert at Georgia State University, expects that if the work stoppage stretches from days to months, both sides will have no choice but to reach an agreement.
“Hundreds of billions of dollars of goods are flowing in just to Georgia port, and if that flow is stopped … I can characterize that it’s gonna be crippling for the economy.”
The expert added that a disruption of this magnitude could delay automotive shipments, impact the food supply and raise prices if inventories get too low.
“These industries don’t have a lot of inventory to fall back on, and they count on all these imports from the ports to flow smoothly,” he said. “If that flow is blocked, they don’t have much room to reel out things or find products elsewhere.”
He also explained that the longer the strike occurs, the more severe the consequences for heavyweights within the affected industries.
“If it stops in the first few days, it should be have no effects … but if it becomes two weeks, you will begin to have serious effects on consumer’s ability to find a variety of products they want,” Golara notes.
“If it becomes longer than two weeks or a month, you will see significant massive shortages.”
