The Dock Strike Mess

WHILE President Nixon's New Economic Policy aims to bolster the U.S. trade balance, much of the nation's commerce with the world remains in the Limbo Phase, stalled by a devastating dock strike. First the West Coast was shuttered by a walkout in July; it ended at least temporarily when Nixon invoked the Taft-Hartley Act's 80-day cooling-off period Oct. 6, but many ports are still clogged with backed-up vessels. Then, in October, some East and Gulf Coast dock workers walked out. Last week that stoppage spread to all but seven fairly small ports in the South, stranding some 200 ships. As the shutdowns drag on and fan out, the enormous number of businessmen who rely on shipping is increasingly hurt.

About $3,000,000 worth of West German and Japanese Christmas toys were tied up in Philadelphia, where the port was closed last week after a temporary injunction barring the strike had expired. Other shipments were stalled in New Orleans. The Crescent City's Grunewald Music Co., a dealer for Yamaha pianos, was forced to lend a piano to the local Playboy Club when a new one was stranded on a ship. Because of the growing trend toward using foreign-built components in U.S. products, the strike is bound to have a large effect on some major American manufacturers. For example, tractor parts produced by International Harvester's British subsidiary, used in the making of products in Illinois, have been halted on the East Coast.

The nation's farmers, who look increasingly to foreign markets to absorb U.S. abundance, are hard hit. A bumper soybean crop in Alabama spilled out of all available storage elevators and was kept temporarily on barges. While dock workers ignored a state court's back-to-work order, one group of farmers threatened to load the crop onto ships themselves. Barges carrying the Midwest's feed-grain harvest to port were backed up at a score of wharves along the Mississippi River and the sight of corn piled high on the ground has become common. Illinois farmers have already lost some $15 million in unrecoverable sales.

Freeze Peril. Deprived of cargo from the liners' holds, railroads, truckers and import-export dealers have lost millions of dollars. Shipowners, who were already suffering from a worldwide decline in orders (TIME, Aug. 9), found themselves idler than ever. New York Shipping Broker Theofilos Vatis estimates that North Atlantic freight rates for grain have fallen 20% in the past few weeks.

The primary issue in the East and Gulf Coast strikes remains wages. It has been enormously complicated by a dispute over a New York provision for a guaranteed annual wage and by leadership tensions within the International Longshoremen's Association. Union President Thomas W. Gleason met with shipowners in Miami last week. No significant progress was reported, but President Nixon evidently remained reluctant to invoke Taft-Hartley on the East and Gulf coasts, preferring to give the disputants more time to work it out for themselves. Meanwhile, shippers who tried to avoid the dock mess in the U.S. by diverting their vessels to Canadian ports along the St. Lawrence face another peril. Winter weather will probably choke the seaway with ice in mid-December, stranding for three months any ships that have not made it out to open water.

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