Bananas May Soon Be Disappearing From American Grocery Store Shelves. Here's Why

The presidential election won't be until November, but that doesn't mean the country's problems are waiting around for somebody new to come and solve them. The most pressing issue looming on the horizon? Labor strikes.

The International Longshoremen's Association (ILA) is the longstanding union of dockworkers located on the East Coast. For 45,000 ILA members, a six-year contract is set to expire on October 1 and negotiations for the new contract have failed to materialize. With less than a week before the deadline, the threat of a strike is very real and potentially devastating economically. JPMorgan analysts predict the strike could cost the U.S. economy upwards of $5 billion per day at a time when the economy is just beginning to recover from the pandemic, the federal reserve has begun cutting interest rates, and inflation seems finally on the mend.

Although the strike would affect all goods coming through every major East Coast port, food will be particularly hard hit due to the fact that it's perishable. Depending on how long the strike lasts and how much food is condemned to the landfill, food prices could start to rise as supply begins to shrink. Most of the world's bananas are grown in India and they have become America's favorite fruit with roughly two-thirds arriving in the U.S. through East Coast ports.

When the British had their banana supply cut off by the Germans during WWII, they used parsnips as a substitute. Hopefully the banana shortage won't be so severe that we have to resort to parsnip pudding or parsnip nut bread, but the outlook is bleak.

The ILA is demanding an 80% pay increase over six years and further restrictions on automation. Compare that to the ILWU contract renewal last year (the ILWU is the West Coast version of the ILA), wherein West Coast dockworkers received a 32% pay increase. Whether it's the sizable pay increase or the corporations' desire for automation, something is keeping negotiations from going through. The ILA has announced a strike will begin the day the contracts fall through, meaning October 1 is a hard deadline.

Back in 2002, President George W. Bush invoked the Taft-Hartley Act to end a strike by 10,500 ILWU workers. With roughly 45,000 ILA workers prepared to strike on October 1, President Joe Biden could follow suit and declare the economic impact too high for a strike to be allowed. The Biden administration has indicated that they are not planning to invoke Taft-Hartley, even as the ILA has publicly rejected the President's intervention even if negotiations are failing. Union activity is on the rise in recent years, which means we may be seeing more strikes like this in the years to come. There's no doubt this will affect the upcoming election.