45,000 U.S. dockworkers are threatening to strike.
Transcript:
Conway Gittens: Investors are keeping their eyes on Nvidia this Tuesday. The AI chip leader rolled out a suite of AI products at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, including its first desktop computer. Shares of Nvidia are trading near all-time highs.
In other news, consumers are facing another threat that could prevent inflation from further cooling. A tentative agreement to prevent dockworkers from going on strike is about to expire on January 15. If a permanent agreement isn’t worked out by then, then a workers’ strike could cripple some of the nation’s busiest ports.
At stake is the flow of goods at 3 dozen ports spread from Maine all the way down to Texas. These ports are responsible for receiving more than half of the foreign-made products that enter the U.S., not to mention our exports that are shipped overseas. A value of roughly $2 billion a day, according to the National Association of Manufacturers.
Ahead of a possible strike, retailers have already ordered container ships stocked with goods to keep store shelves full, but if a strike is prolonged, then the law of supply and demand will kick in, leading to higher prices at the cash register. The economy already got a taste of what that could feel like when the International Longshoremen’s Association went on a three-day strike in October.
While workers went back to work after agreeing to a 10-percent pay hike in the first year and 62-percent raise across six-years, the two sides have yet to tackle the more complex issue of automation. Port operators say they need automation to increase productivity but members of the union representing 50,000 dockworkers fear robots will take their jobs.
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