As many in the U.S. settled in for the long holiday weekend, the National Retail Federation (NRF) and more than 150 local, state, and national trade associations — including The Toy Association — co-signed a letter delivered to the White House.
In the letter dated July 1, 2022, the coalition of trade associations urged President Biden and his administration — including Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Department of Transportation, Secretary Marty Walsh, Department of Labor, and Secretary Gina Raimondo, Department of Commerce — to continue working with the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) and Pacific Maritime Association (PMA) to ensure that a new labor agreement can be reached without disruption to port operations.
A copy of the letter received by the Toy Book can be read here.
The existing contract expired at the end of June and has been a growing concern over the past year. A joint statement issued by the ILWU and PMA on Friday says that while there will be no extension of the existing contract, work is expected to continue without a stoppage or lockout.
Labor concerns on the West Coast have been just another piece of an increasingly complex supply chain puzzle for the toy industry and everyone else using ocean freight. Paired with the continued logjams of the past two years, COVID-19 concerns, inflation, the continuing Russia-Ukraine War, and other factors, a breakdown of labor talks could have disastrous consequences that all parties appear eager to avoid.