Across the East Coast and the Gulf Coast, dockworkers are striking for better pay, and the effects are being felt throughout the United States. In particular, the strike could affect the importation of ingredients from around the world, hurting New York City ’s restaurants in the process, Eater N.Y.
reported on Tuesday. Things like fish, produce, chocolate, wine, and olive oil all arrive via the ports where longshoremen have walked off the job. “It’s a big worry; a lot comes through on the East Coast,” Sal Lamboglia, the owner of Brooklyn’s Cafe Spaghetti and Swoony’s, told Eater.
“For us, we are hoping that we don’t get impacted financially. With availability and prices on food already inflated, I am hoping that they can settle fast and figure it out and do what’s right so we can move forward.” Some 50,000 members of the International Longshoremen’s Association stopped working at midnight on Tuesday to protest low wages and the threat to their jobs from automation, Eater noted.
As such, deliveries into ports up and down the East Coast and the Gulf Coast are being disrupted. The American Farm Bureau Federation said that delays could occur for a whole host of items: cherries, chocolate, canned goods, wine, beer, whiskey, and scotch among them, according to Eater. “Nearly 90 percent of imported cherries, 85 percent of canned foodstuffs, 82 percent of hot peppers, and 80 percent of chocolate that arrive via waterborne vessels are offloaded from containers.