LA/Long Beach Strike Threat: What Importers Should Do Now

At 5 p.m. Pacific on Wednesday, November 4, 2026, a contract extension for about 250 security workers at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach runs out. If there is no deal by then, those watchmen, members of ILWU Local 26, have already authorized a strike.1 The original deadline was Sunday, November 1. The Pacific Maritime Association (PMA), which represents terminal operators, pushed it back three days on October 30.2

250 people sounds small for a port complex that just moved record volume. It isn't. The risk here is not the watchmen. It is the thousands of dockworkers who may refuse to cross their picket line. If you have containers landing in Southern California this week or next, here is what you need to know and what to do before Wednesday afternoon.

Why 250 Workers Can Stop Half a Port

Watchmen handle security at the terminal gates and on the docks. They make up roughly 2% of the ILWU workforce at the two ports, and they work under their own contract, separate from the coastwide longshore agreement that runs through 2028.1 Their previous agreement expired in July 2025, and they have been working under extensions for more than a year of talks.2

The leverage comes from where they work. According to the PMA, Local 26 members staff terminals that handle about 85% of the cargo at Long Beach and 33% of the cargo at Los Angeles.1 The PMA itself has warned that other ILWU workers are unlikely to cross Local 26 picket lines, which could halt vessel, yard and gate operations at the affected terminals.2

Eight terminal locations are named in the dispute. Six of them are container terminals:3

• APM Terminals Pier 400 (Los Angeles)

• Long Beach Container Terminal (LBCT)

• Total Terminals International (TTI) (Long Beach)

• SSA Marine Berth C60 (Long Beach)

• SSA Marine Berth A90 (Los Angeles)

• Pacific Container Terminal (Long Beach)

If your container is scheduled for any of these, you are directly exposed. If it is going to another terminal, you are still exposed indirectly, because a partial shutdown pushes vessels, trucks and chassis onto the terminals that stay open.

We Have Seen This Exact Playbook Before

This is not hypothetical. In late 2012, about 800 clerical workers in ILWU Local 63's Office Clerical Unit walked out at the same port complex. Longshore workers honored their picket lines, terminals shut down, and container ships backed up outside both ports. The strike lasted eight days, ending on December 4, 2012, with a tentative deal reached with help from federal mediators.6

The lesson for importers from 2012: a small local can close big terminals, and the strike itself is only part of the cost. The backlog of ships at anchor, missed rail cutoffs and appointment scrambles took longer to clear than the strike took to settle.

The Timing Could Not Be Worse

The ports are already running hot. The Southern California complex handled a combined record of 2.04 million TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units, the standard container measure) in September.2 The Port of Los Angeles alone moved 1,042,652 TEUs, its busiest month ever, with loaded imports up 19% year over year.5 Together, LA and Long Beach handle roughly a third of all U.S. seaborne containerized goods.4

Rail is already the weak link. As of October 28, about 35,000 containers were waiting to be loaded onto trains at the two ports, and more than 13,000 of them had been sitting for over nine days.3 If you ship inland on through bills of lading (where the carrier moves the box from the port to an inland rail ramp like Chicago or Dallas), your cargo may already be late. We covered how these inland delays compound in our post on the Chicago intermodal bottleneck. A terminal shutdown on top of that rail backlog would push holiday inventory into December.

What Importers Should Do Before Wednesday, 5 p.m. Pacific

You can't control the bargaining table. You can control where your containers sit when the deadline hits. Here is the checklist we are running for Cubic clients right now.

1. Find out exactly which terminal each container is at

Your arrival notice or the carrier's tracking page shows the discharge terminal. Cross-check it against the list above. Do this today for every container that is on the water to LA/Long Beach or already discharged. "Arriving at Long Beach" is not enough information this week.

2. Get discharged containers off the terminal now

If a box is already discharged and released by customs, pick it up before Wednesday afternoon. If your warehouse can't receive it yet, pay for a pre-pull, where your trucker pulls the container to their own yard and holds it. A pre-pull costs a few hundred dollars. A container stuck inside a closed terminal for a week can cost far more in storage, missed sales and rescheduled deliveries.

3. Make sure customs is cleared in advance

A container can't leave the terminal until it is released by CBP and any holds are lifted. Confirm your entry is filed and released for everything arriving this week, so nothing is stuck waiting on paperwork the moment gates reopen. If you're unsure where an entry stands, our customs brokerage team can check it fast.

4. Rethink rail for the next two weeks

With rail dwell already over nine days for thousands of boxes, consider switching high-priority inland cargo to a local transload. That means trucking the container to a nearby warehouse, moving the goods into a 53-foot domestic trailer, and trucking or railing it inland. It costs more per unit, but it takes your cargo out of the on-dock rail queue entirely.

5. Protect your holiday SKUs with air

If you have a small number of high-margin products that must be on shelves by Black Friday, a partial air freight shipment is cheap insurance. You don't need to fly everything, just enough to cover the first two to three weeks of sales while the ocean freight catches up. We broke down when this math works in our ocean vs. air holiday inventory post.

6. Ask about routing for bookings not yet loaded

For cargo that hasn't sailed yet, ask your forwarder whether it can go to a different terminal, or to another port like Oakland, Seattle or Tacoma. The Local 26 dispute only covers LA and Long Beach. Changing ports affects your inland routing and costs, so this makes most sense for cargo that ends up in the Pacific Northwest or Northern California anyway.

7. Document everything for demurrage and detention

If a strike closes your terminal, the free days on your container may keep running. Keep a record of every attempt to pick up, every cancelled appointment and every terminal closure notice. Ask your carrier now whether it will waive demurrage (storage charges at the terminal) and detention (charges for keeping the carrier's equipment) during any closure. These charges add up quickly, as the Samsung vs. CMA CGM case showed.

What Happens If There Is No Strike?

The deadline has already been pushed once, and talks are continuing with the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service.2 It may be extended again, or a deal may land Wednesday morning. The two sides are still far apart, though. The PMA says significant differences remain and points to average full-time pay above $170,000 plus fully paid health care and pensions, while Local 26 says employers haven't made meaningful progress and has not published its demands.1

Our take: plan as if the strike happens, and treat a deal as a bonus. Everything on the checklist above, pulling boxes early, clearing customs ahead, avoiding the rail queue, is something you'd want to do this week anyway given the record volumes and rail backlog. The cost of being ready is small. The cost of having 20 containers trapped behind a picket line in the second week of November is not.

Quick Answers for Importers

When could the LA/Long Beach strike start? As early as 5 p.m. Pacific on Wednesday, November 4, 2026, when the current contract extension expires.

Which workers are involved? About 250 maritime watchmen represented by ILWU Local 26. The main risk is that dockworkers and clerks honor their picket lines.

Does this affect other West Coast ports? The Local 26 dispute only covers terminals at Los Angeles and Long Beach. Other ports could still see knock-on congestion if ships divert.

Will my freight rates go up? Not directly from the contract. The bigger costs are likely to be demurrage, detention, storage, extra trucking and diversion fees if terminals close.

Need Help Getting Ahead of This?

Cubic tracks every container in real time, down to the terminal, and flags shipments at risk before deadlines like this one. If you have cargo heading into Southern California and want a second set of eyes on your exposure, get in touch with our team today. We can check your terminals, arrange pre-pulls, and move urgent SKUs to air or alternate ocean routings before Wednesday's deadline.