US Dockworkers return to Work; A Sigh of Relief for Belize  

Forty-five thousand dockworkers at US ports on the East and Gulf coasts have returned to work, ending a three-day strike and alleviating concerns about import shortages on store shelves. The suspension of the strike also halts any further inflation on goods upon their arrival. The International Longshoremen’s Association, representing the dockworkers, has paused the strike until January fifteenth to allow time for negotiating a new contract. This afternoon, Jody Williams, Vice President of the Belize Chamber of Commerce and Industry, told News Five that the suspension of the strike brings a sigh of relief for Belizean businesses.

 

Jody Williams, Vice President, Belize Chamber of Commerce & Industry

“We have so much holidays coming up, and definitely we as Belizeans, we want our products to be on the shelves. We don’t want to have anything that will affect – add more to inflation or that there’s shortages of products in the market. So this is a big sigh of relief for us. The timing was everything, you know, the length of the strike, and this was like, you could say two and a half days. Thankfully, I guess the U.S government and everyone around the world saw the need that they needed to go to the table and to get this resolved as soon as possible because the global implications was very, very high, especially at this timing of the season where we’re coming up to Christmas.”