In our spotlight on Business Report tonight, another port strike is looming.

It feels like déja vu, but tens of thousands of longshoreman could walk off the job from Maine to Texas next week if their union in management can't reach an agreement on longstanding contract issues.

The two sides struck a deal back in October, ending a multi-day work stoppage that included significant pay raises for longshoremen but never resolved how to handle the use of automation on the docks.

Now a senior correspondent, Brenda Flanagan, reports that dispute is coming to a head with just days to resolve it.

The October longshoreman strike lasted only three days.

The union hit pause after reaching a tentative agreement to boost wages 62% over the next six years.

But talks continued over a much more complicated issue the use of automated cargo cranes that could cost union jobs.

With a January 15th deadline looming and workers willing to walk out again, a strike could disrupt supply chains of consumer goods.

I see prices rising.

I see prices rising quickly.

I don't see mass shortages.

Supply chain expert Ron Liebman says East and Gulf Coast ports handle more than half the nation's shipping container traffic.

Shipping companies have advised customers to pick up cargo that's already in port before January 15th, and some have rerouted orders to California or Canada.

Timing is everything.

This is purely putting my finger up in the air.

I don't think it's going to be a strike that last weeks and weeks.

I don't think the economy could take it.

As soon as the strike starts and starts the last one in a few days, things starts to get, I would say bumpy.

And the more time moves, the less easy it is to recover from the disruption.

Shipping automation analyst John-Paul Rodriguez says foreign ports have moved quickly to adopt the new technology from Europe to China to Latin America.

But there's not a single US port was in the top 50 in terms of productivity.

And we invented containerization.

So we invented the whole things and now we're lagging behind.

The International Longshoremen's Association has resisted automation for decades.

Union leaders made their position clear in October.

We're going to accept technologies that allow the job to be safer and more efficient.

But we're never, ever going to support automation that displays our workforce robotics over people.

Hell no.

We're never going to accept automation.

It's it's a do or die type of thing on both sides.

So that's why we are facing this current situation, because they cannot make an agreement about two completely different vision or perspective.

But the U.S. Maritime Alliance, which represents ports and shipping companies, noted in December that jobs and automation aren't mutually exclusive, stating Modern technology has proven to dramatically increase the amount of cargo that can be moved through a port annually.

Highly members make more money when they move more cargo and ports need to hire more workers to manage that growth.

The union is facing an evolving workplace, says Rutger's Todd Vachon.

They're good, good jobs that you can get without a college degree, without an advanced degree.

And those workers, if they are laid off, are going to have a real hard time or I would say almost an impossible time finding a job that's going to pay an equivalent pay rate and with equivalent benefits.

He says a compromise might preserve some jobs or even pay laid off workers in exchange for integrating more robotics into port operations.

Although that might impact the wage agreement reached in October, Vachon expects a strike.

The labor market is still pretty tight.

So even though we're having a changing political climate.

I don't think we're going to see any slowdown in the type of strike activity and organizing that we've been seeing really coming out of over the past three or four years.

Union leaders have met with the president elect who chided shipping companies on truth social.

They've got record profits and I'd rather these foreign companies spend it on the great men and women on our docks than machinery, which is expensive and which will constantly have to be replaced.

How would he handle a strike?

Honestly, I don't know which way he'll go, but it's certainly is not in the new administration's best interests to have a long strike and long term inflation.

Negotiators have about a week left to reach an agreement.

I'm Brenda Flanagan, NJ.

Spotlight News.