Siekerka Discusses Port Strike Impacts on Small Business on Fox & Friends

NJBIA President and CEO Michele Siekerka said small businesses will be greatly impacted sooner rather than later by the ongoing longshoremen strike while appearing on Fox & Friends on Thursday morning.

“These small businesses depend on the products that are coming through those containers each and every day to the port,” Siekerka told Fox & Friends host Todd Piro.

“They have small inventory, not like some of our larger companies who we know since the middle of the summer have been growing their inventory to prepare for this. I heard a story the other day from a small business owner. She said, ‘If I’m not receiving my products within the next month, I am out of business.’”

Siekerka told Piro that the estimated economic impact at the Port of New York and New Jersey alone is $250 million to $300 million per day if work does not resume.

“Over a week, that grows to $1.3 billion, the equivalent of 3,700 jobs on an annual basis. And if we go to a month, we’re talking about $7 billion economic impact, (the equivalent of) 9,400 jobs.

As she echoed earlier this week, NJBIA is advocating for the Biden administration to invoke the Taft-Hartley Act to allow negotiations to continue and the ports to remain open.

“Look, we respect collective bargaining,” Siekerka said. “But we don’t have to shut down the port and put all these jobs and these businesses into compromise. We can ask people to stay at the table until they reach a consensus. That’s what would be best for New Jersey small business, for the region’s small business, for our national small businesses.”

To see the full interview, click here.

Siekerka also appeared on Eyewitness News on ABC-7 on Wednesday and reiterated to reporter Anthony Johnson that “small business could get shut down quickly because they rely on (goods) coming in on a regular basis.”