New York | Dockworkers on the US East Coast and Gulf Coast began a strike early on Tuesday, their first large-scale stoppage in nearly 50 years, halting the flow of about half the nation’s ocean shipping after negotiations for a new labour contract broke down over wages.
The strike blocks everything from food to automobile shipments across dozens of ports from Maine to Texas, in a disruption analysts warned will cost the economy billions of dollars a day, threaten jobs, and stoke inflation.
