Employers and the union representing more than 22,000 dockworkers at 30 U.S. ports on the West Coast are unlikely to reach a wage deal by the time the current contract expires next month, but neither side foresees disruptions that would hobble supply chains.

President Joe Biden’s administration is trying to avert another inflation-spawning logjam at the nation’s busiest seaport, just as the economy is starting to recover from the last one.

A year after a giant containership got stuck in the Suez Canal for almost a week and disrupted global trade for months, another Evergreen Marine Corp. vessel has run aground, this time near the U.S. capital.

Container traffic at the Port of Oakland is starting to pick up again amid the supply chain chaos. Cargo imports handled by the Port of Oakland increased 6.5% in November from a year earlier, the hub said in an emailed statement Dec. 15.

The record volume of cargo moving through the busiest U.S. port complex is likely to continue amid high consumer demand for goods, the head of the Port of Long Beach said.

The union representing about 15,000 dockworkers at the largest U.S. ports declined an offer by employers to extend existing labor contracts for a year, setting the stage for heated negotiations.

California will increase weight limits for trucks carrying goods in and out of its ports in an effort to ease supply chain bottlenecks and clear containers off the docks of Los Angeles and Long Beach.

The country's largest ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach will postpone the start of a fee on ocean carriers that fail to clear containers off the docks, which was set to begin Nov 15.

With a near-record 75 containerships waiting outside the U.S.’s largest port complex in Southern California, unionized dockworkers have strengthened their indispensable role in the supply chain.