As East Coast shipping grinds to a halt, one Upstate New York port remains open for business [Video]

Oswego, N.Y. — Ports up and down the East Coast are shut down by a dockworkers’ strike, but the Port of Oswego remains open for business.

The port on Lake Ontario could even see an uptick in shipping thanks to the strike, according to the man who runs the port that’s about 40 miles north of Syracuse.

That’s because union members at this port, designated by Congress in 1799 as the first port of entry into the United States, are under a different contract than the dockworkers now striking. And that contract doesn’t expire for another four years.

As a result, the port continues to operate normally and has seen no negative impacts from the strike that stretches from Maine to Texas, said William Scriber, executive director and CEO of the Port of Oswego Authority.

Instead, the phone in Oswego has started to ring.

Before the strike began, three shipping agents called him to ask about the port’s capabilities and whether it could handle some cargo traffic …