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Port strike could be huge headache
Workers and port authorities on the East and Gulf Coasts of the United States are headed for a potential strike on Oct. 1, which poses a huge threat to American businesses, and a political problem for the government of Joe Biden.
Businesses have already been scrambling with alternative routes to avoid pre-Christmas supply chain problems as 47,000 eastern dockworkers press their employers for bigger wage packages. A similar showdown on the West Coast ended with a contract last year after workers staged slowdowns but no strike. Now eastern workers are seeking similar gains.
Any work stoppage could cost the US economy up to $5 billion a day, creating an enormous headache for Biden and Democratic nominee Kamala Harris during the crucial last weeks of the presidential campaign. It would put Biden in a difficult position, since he would be loath to either order workers back to the job, which would anger unions, or let the economy go into a headspin, which would anger everyone else.Video game’s voices want to be heard
The strike, which began on July 26 after a year-and-a-half of negotiations, halted member performances for 10 major studios — Activision Blizzard, Blindlight, Disney, Electronic Arts, Formosa Interactive, Insomniac Games, Llama Productions, Take 2 Productions, VoiceWorks, and WB Games.
The strike demands are similar to what the union asked of film studios in its strike last year: not only higher wages but also protections against the use of artificial intelligence. A deal struck with the film studios late last year allowed the use of AI to produce “digital replicas” of its members — as long as they were properly compensated. Their union didn’t halt AI, they just got their members paid, a result that’ll surely be in the back of negotiators’ minds amid the video game strike.