• Supply chain strikes were a major headline of 2024 and labor battles are poised to cause more trade shocks in 2025.
• Amazon warehouse workers led by the Teamsters are striking during the holidays, while East Coast and Gulf ports could be brought to a new standstill by a strike in mid-January.
• The Biden administration's Department of Transportation implemented a real-time freight data platform after Covid, FLOW, which now tracks 75% of all container imports.
• "We're scratching the surface of what can be done here," Biden DOT official Andrew Petrisin told CNBC of the government work with major retailers and shippers to stay ahead of shipping congestion, which could be set for changes under the Trump administration.

The Amazon warehouse strikes are the latest supply chain headwind facing companies this holiday season, and labor battles — which have been a prominent feature of trade disruptions this year — will contribute to "another year of disruption" for global shipping in 2025. The worker actions at Amazon organized by Teamsters union members come just weeks ahead of another possible strike by dock workers at 36 ports up and down the U.S. East and Gulf Coast.

"The year-over-year 280% increase in strike activity seen in 2023 didn't slow down last year and we didn't expect it to," said Mike Short, president of global forwarding at C.H. Robinson. "We're already helping shippers prepare for a potential U.S. port strike in January."

Industries like automotive and pharmaceuticals that rely on a just-in-time inventory model need to be implementing and acting on contingency plans, Short said, not only in advance of a new strike but also for any further labor unrest on the horizon in 2025. 

The biggest potential labor disruption could come as soon as mid-January, with a Jan. 15 deadline for U.S. ports and the International Longshoremen's Association to reach a deal on automation at East and Gulf Coast ports. Talks between the parties recently broke down again, while President-elect Donald Trump recently voiced full support for the union position of no automation at ports.

Global shipping giant Maersk wrote in a note to clients late last week that as the Jan. 15 deadline approaches, customers should be making preparations to move containers off terminals prior to any disruptions and to avoid the issue of not being able to access cargo in the event of a terminal closure, and no extra time afforded for last-minute retrievals.

Era of 'black swan' global trade shocks

In recent years, the logistics industry has become familiar with "black swan" events, the biggest being Covid, which brought the global supply chain to a halt. The lessons learned during the pandemic led to new digital solutions for companies to track trade and solve for the lack of communication and data sharing that contributed to massive congestion at ports. Those solutions will continue to play a major role in dealing with trade disruptions.

Andrew Petrisin, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Multimodal Freight at the U.S. Department of Transportation, created the DOT's digital platform for supply chain monitoring, Freight Logistics Optimization Works (FLOW), as a result of Covid, in March 2022. Since its inception, 86 partners including retailers, freight carriers, logistics providers, port operators, and trade associations have been sharing data to provide a more holistic view of trade, identifying trends, strengths, and weaknesses in the U.S. supply chain and infrastructure.

Today, 75% of all U.S. container imports and 80% of U.S. container terminal capacity are tracked by FLOW. Partners include MSC, the largest ocean carrier, as well as its peer companies Maersk, Hapag Lloyd, ONE, and ZIM; retailers including Home Depot, Nike, Walmart, and Target; railroads Union Pacific and BNSF; and logistics providers CH Robinson, DHL, ITS Logistics, and FedEx.

In the past few years, the platform has enabled participants to have a real-time snapshot of port and inland network congestion and monitor unexpected cargo shifts caused by disasters like the Baltimore Bridge collapse, and world events, such as the Houthi attacks in the Red Sea. Data was used by FLOW members during the Key Bridge collapse to better understand how the cargo flows were changing up and down the East Coast, where the cargo was being rerouted, and if the increase in volumes was creating congestion. The effort has also helped to monitor the supply chain for potential spikes in inflation.

"You can look at it as a kind of disruption response tool, or as a black swan event response," said Petrisin. "We have some FLOW members who are building decision-making models to reposition inventories when they see congestion or shift their cargo when they see spikes."

The future of DOT data efforts under Trump

The ocean freight data collected by FLOW, according to Petrisin, is approximately 40 days out, while purchase order data is currently 60 days out, with a goal of getting to 90 days. The further out a logistics company can view the line of sight of their trade, the better the data can be used in forecasting and decision making, especially during disruptions that occur a result of a black swan event.

Petrisin stressed that as Amazon warehouse workers in cities including New York, Atlanta, and San Francisco are taking part in what the Teamsters is calling the largest strike against Amazon, it's not the role of his DOT office to be directly involved.

"We are in a supportive role to make sure both America's infrastructure and America's ports are competitive, and also that workers are compensated fairly," Petrisin said. "When we're looking at on-the-road cargo, over-the-road cargo, obviously it impacts the warehousing sector and domestic manufacturers. So we are keeping a close eye on that with our federal partners."

With the changeover to the Trump administration, some logistics managers have told CNBC they are concerned about the future of the public/private partnership. The FLOW program has bipartisan support when it comes to funding. In the House, a June Republican-led appropriations bill set a DOT budget significantly below President Biden's request, but included $5 million to launch a nationwide dashboard for shippers and carriers to track real-time supply chain movements and better respond to bottlenecks.

While Petrisin will be leaving the DOT with the change in administration in January, he told CNBC that he believes FLOW will continue to play a key role in transportation. "This is still a fairly small team, and we think that we're scratching the surface of what can be done here," he said.

Petrisin, who told CNBC he is not ready to announce his next move yet, said he remains focused on what is still to accomplish in his final month at the DOT. His office is planning to roll out the National Multimodal Freight Network in early 2025 to assist states in directing resources toward optimal freight transportation investments, as well as identify priorities for federal investment, to increase efficiency in the movement of trade.

Petrisin said the ongoing need for FLOW is clear given a highly interdependent supply chain that involves many different parties involved in moving cargo containers.

"I think a lot of the lessons we learned from the West Coast [port congestion during Covid] was how do you manage this interdependency in the way that allows for fluidity and allows for resilience when there are disruptions? No one in this industry is assuming that we're going to be in a world of less and less disruption. I think what FLOW has aimed to achieve is providing at a strategic level information as early as possible, so that folks can be more proactive, look around corners, so when there are changes in volume, you don't get a backup that results in a bullwhip effect."