A friend who deals with freight mentioned an expected ILA (International Longshoremen's Association) strike that would basically shut down major ports from Texas to Maine starting October 1. It sounds like it wouldn't be expected to be too long in the grand scheme of things, but the logistical knots might affect things especially since that's when the holiday stuff starts really hitting.
#%&@$%#$@
Except the minimal impact part.
Welllllllllll.....crap.
Richmond, Virginia is a major port city, so I'm getting some local news on this. Negotiations have been stalled since early summer and the current agreement expires Monday. The strike could begin as early as 00:01 Tuesday (12:01AM for you twelve-hour weirdos :smiley_knipoog: ).
Virginia has a lot of ports and relies heavily on shipping. I know that the ports themselves have some buffers and aren't too worried about their own impacts over a short strike, but I expect Virginians to generally feel the pinch in both deliverables and the economy, especially river cities like Richmond.
I expect upcoming shopping trips to be frustrating and expensive.
I discussed this with our Produce manager. She had NO CLUE this was happening. No word from the bigger warehouse we use in Mass., nothing. Now she's aware and says she will keep an eye on the situation.
Then I talked to our freight manager. He had *heard* about it, but nothing in depth.
Hopefully, he'll keep an eye on the situation as well.
At work we get our material from the U.S.,China and Mexico. Our office manager threw out on a group chat about it. I knew about it already ,but many were like " what's she talking about".
Our U.S material suppliers get there material from Brazil, Africa, and other countries. Our supply chain knows about it but not sure what we can do, we are already on a 9 to 15 week lead time from many suppliers.
I just saw this on the news today - UFOZS 9 days ahead of the media!
If the west coast strike a while back is a guide it's a backup of 1 week for every 1 day a port is closed.
As I recall they said it took about 6 months to catch back up during that strike.