Strike grinds coffee shipments to a halt at East and Gulf Coast ports
DeCicco & Sons CEO John DeCicco Jr. details the impact of the port worker strike on the company as he prepares for a fruit shortage.
The ongoing strike by unionized dockworkers at East and Gulf Coast ports has ground to a halt the unloading of imported coffee shipments, setting up a supply squeeze for coffee drinkers in the U.S. — the world's largest coffee-drinking nation.
For the first time since 1977, the International Longshoremen's Association (ILA) and its 45,000 dockworkers went on strike at dozens of ports that collectively handle about half of the country's seaborne imports. The union is demanding better wages and restrictions on port automation, and negotiations are at an impasse with the U.S. Maritime Alliance (USMX), which represents port employers.
ILA President Harold Daggett has signaled the union is willing to persist in its strike to get its demands even if it means inflicting broader damage on the U.S. economy. «I’ll cripple you,» Daggett said about the effects of the strike in a September interview. «I will cripple you and you have no idea what that means. Nobody does.»
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Americans purchased about 164.2 billion six-ounce cups of coffee from October 2022 to September 2023, which equates to about 3.26 billion pounds of coffee, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) data used in an analysis by USAFacts.
A significant portion of the coffee consumed in the US is imported from overseas through East and Gulf Coast ports. (Robert Nickelsberg/Getty Images / Getty Images)
Most of that is imported, as the U.S. produced just 11.5 million pounds of coffee in Hawaii during the 2022-23 season, meaning the U.S. consumed about 282 times as
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