Labor unrest threatens to upend Harris’ economic pitch

Tens of thousands of Boeing workers are walking picket lines and other essential workers are threatening to disrupt the economy mere days before early voting starts in some states.

Vice President Kamala Harris has staked her campaign on convincing Americans that they’ll be better off with her in the White House, but another major strike — especially one that could disrupt supply chains with the holiday shopping season looming — could kneecap the economy and sour voters.

On Friday, 33,000 Boeing workers began a strike, adding to the PR nightmare for a blue chip American company trying desperately to pivot away from months of bad news. Workers at ports who unload container ships along the Gulf Coast and East Coast are also barreling toward a strike that could cripple commerce and supply chains across the country.

So far the White House — and Harris’ campaign — have stayed hands off. White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre on Friday said neither Harris nor President Joe Biden planned to walk the Boeing picket lines, as Biden did last year during an auto workers strike. She didn’t say if either had been in touch with the union.

Jean-Pierre said the White House is “very, very closely” monitoring the matter. Acting Labor Secretary Julie Su and others in the administration have been in touch with Boeing and its striking union, as well.

The Trump and Harris campaigns did not respond to POLITICO’s request for comment.

Perhaps the most politically perilous strike could begin as soon as Oct. 1, involving at least 25,000 dockworkers at ports along the Eastern Seaboard and the Gulf of Mexico that would affect most goods coming in and out of ports from New York to New Orleans.

If a separate dockworker union on the West Coast shows some kind of solidarity with other striking port workers, operations could be endangered nationwide. That could create an enormous political headache for the waning months of the Biden administration, especially if food and other items of daily American life are impacted.

So far, national Democrats have said little about the waterfront labor dispute.

But local officials are beginning to grapple with a strike that could begin in two weeks — which is both very soon and also an eternity in both politics and labor negotiations.

“It’s a game changing event that people need to be focused on,” said New Jersey state Sen. Joe Cryan, a Democrat who represents the area near the East Coast’s largest port.

Biden has been dealing with the lukewarm whims of labor since taking office and declaring his intent to be “the most pro-union president” in American history. Harris has said relatively little about the Boeing strike, but met with the Teamsters’ rank-and-file membership on Monday, courting their endorsement.

Biden and Harris have both expressed opposition to Japanese-owned Nippon’s proposed takeover of U.S. Steel, a deal the Steelworkers union strongly opposes.

Labor has not always repaid the favor. The head of the Teamsters, which represents truck drivers and warehouse workers, spoke at the RNC this summer and even in unions where leadership remains allied with Democrats, some of the rank and file love former President Donald Trump — a dichotomy that’s true for the United Auto Workers, as well.

Transportation-related unions, particularly mass transit workers, have repeatedly raised the specter of strikes throughout Biden’s time in office, even if few of those strikes actually came to pass.

The majority of Boeing workers — 96 percent — represented by the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers 751 and W24 voted to strike starting Friday despite the company’s latest contract offer, which included a 25 percent general wage increase over the four-year agreement. On Monday, Boeing CFO Brian West told employees the company is considering “temporary furloughs” for many of its employees, managers and executives in coming weeks.

Democrats have largely walked a tightrope talking about the Boeing strike — but Harris could shore up her standing among rank-and-file union workers by showing more solidarity with them.

Casey Yeager, president of the International Association of Fire Fighters union’s Local I-66, said some of his union’s members were moved by Biden throwing his support behind the union during their more than three-week lockout with Boeing earlier this year over disagreements on pay raises.

The president called for them to get the “pay and benefits they deserve,” a move that Yeager said was “huge” in demonstrating to members that the White House was pulling for them.

While union members generally see Biden as a positive force for organized labor, Harris is still building relationships with labor, despite her speed in consolidating support from major unions after Biden dropped out of the race.

Meanwhile, Trump has stumbled in recent weeks.

Trump advocated for firing striking employees during an interview with Tesla CEO Elon Musk, which prompted United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain to file an unfair labor practice charge against his campaign.

A port strike threatens to upend the campaign at a crucial moment. By all accounts, dockworkers and shipping companies are far apart, and the head of the dockworkers’ union explicitly waived off any attempts at federal help from the Biden administration.

Earlier this month, a Biden administration official urged “all parties to remain at the bargaining table and negotiate in good faith,” and added that the administration has never invoked the Taft-Hartley law to break a strike and was not considering doing so.

“At this time, when you’re in an election, a situation like that could be considered anti-union and could you imagine either party wanting to look anti-union?” said Ronald Leibman, a partner at McCarter & English who specializes in supply chain issues.

It’s unclear how a strike would affect holiday shopping, in part because some retailers have sought to bring over goods ahead of the strike — but that doesn’t mean it couldn’t become a political flashpoint anyway.

Jess Dankert, vice president of supply chain at the Retail Industry Leaders Association, said East and Gulf coast ports handle between 46 and 53 percent of U.S. container imports each month, and many large retailers have contingency plans for the looming strike, bringing in products earlier or rerouting to the West Coast.

“We’re not going to see empty shelves at Christmas time. But there will be significant effects throughout the supply chain networks in terms of delays, costs, congestion and just the ripple effects throughout rail, truck, equipment dislocation — things being in the wrong place,” she said.

Sea-Intelligence, a research and advisory firm for the global supply chain industry, estimates that if there’s a one-week strike in early October, the backlog of containers at ports will not be cleared until mid-November — and if there’s a two-week strike port operations will not return to normal until 2025.