Biden Resists Using Presidential Power To Break Port Strike, Despite Industry Pressure

A work stoppage that shut down U.S. ports only 34 days before the election is a high-stakes test of Biden’s commitment to collective bargaining.

The longshoremen’s strike that bottled up U.S. ports from Maine to Texas has put Joe Biden in a tough political spot five weeks out from the presidential election.

Tens of thousands of dockworkers walked off the job early Tuesday morning in a contract dispute with the group representing port employers. The work stoppage could deal a serious blow to commerce since the workers handle everything from fruit to auto parts coming into the country via container ship.

A long-lasting strike will pull Biden in opposite directions: The union-friendly president would surely like workers to secure a strong contract with good raises, but he’d also want to avoid any economic damage that could drag down Vice President Kamala Harris and other Democrats this fall.

“Joe Biden became president in part to put more power in workers’ hands, not to take power away from them,” said Seth Harris, a professor at Northeastern University who previously advised Biden on labor issues. “But… there’s going to be mounting and increasingly intense pressure on him if the strike lasts for weeks, and certainly months, to intervene.”

The president could step in and seek a court injunction that would force workers back onto the job for an 80-day “cooling off” period in which talks would continue. But Biden said just ahead of the strike that he had no intention of invoking the Taft-Hartley Act, the 1947 law that empowers the president to intervene in work stoppages that affect national security.