The Manzanillo Port Strike and Its Deep Impact

The Event

• Time and Place: May 14, 2025, Manzanillo Port, the largest port on the Pacific coast of Mexico.
• Strike Scale: More than 300 customs employees launched a large-scale strike, blocking the two major channels of the south and north, resulting in an average of 4,000 trucks stranded per day and 100,000 tons of cargo backlog.
• Situation on the scene: The driver was stranded in the car for more than 24 hours, the height of the container in the yard exceeded the limit, and the port demurrage soared to US$500 per hour and continued to rise at a rate of 3%/hour.

Protest demands

• Excessive working hours: Monday to Saturday, an average of 16-18 hours a day, no lunch break; 6.7 customs declarations per person per day.
• Backward infrastructure: 30% of customs declarations are still based on paper, and insufficient equipment leads to a 15% error rate.
• Wage delays: wages are delayed by an average of 12 days, and social security is sometimes not paid.
• Insufficient staff: In the past three years, the volume of cargo has increased by 22%, and the number of employees has only increased by 5%.

Chain reaction

• Capacity collapse: Asipona temporarily opened "Gate 15" for emergency response, with a designed traffic volume of 1,500 vehicles/day, but it is far from alleviating congestion.
• Operator response: Contecon Manzanillo gave priority to berthing fresh and high-value goods, but it was still difficult to recover the overall delay.
• Economic impact: 1,500 companies' supply chains were interrupted, cold chain losses exceeded US$20 million, and losses for every 24-hour shutdown were about US$230 million.

Deep-seated contradictions

• Military management disadvantages: Customs has been dominated by the military since 2019, with only 12% investment in digitalization, and a serious lack of specialization and training.
• Insufficient infrastructure: The electronic declaration rate of 65% is far lower than that of international ports, and the expansion of warehousing capacity lags behind, increasing by only 8%; traffic bottlenecks are obvious.
• Lack of labor rights: Overtime and wage arrears are common in the manufacturing industry, and grassroots employees have become victims of "efficiency first".
• Risk of "Golden Channel": Manzanillo Port carries 42% of China-Mexico shipping, and the suspension highlights the fragility of the global supply chain.

Inspiration and Outlook

• Balancing efficiency and fairness: The logistics system needs to simultaneously strengthen infrastructure and human resources investment and improve the level of digitalization.
• Protecting employee rights and interests: Reasonable working hours, timely wages, and social security can avoid similar large-scale labor-capital conflicts.
• Supply chain diversification: Cross-border enterprises should examine their dependence on a single hub and build a more flexible global logistics network.