ILA Suspends Port Strike After Securing Big Raises
The current contract will be extended until after the New Year, but sticking points on automation remain.
by Yaseen al-Sheikh and Paul Blest, More Perfect Union
The International Longshoremen’s Association ended its first strike since 1977 on Thursday, reopening East and Gulf Coast ports and reportedly securing raises of more than 60 percent and more time to negotiate on automation.
The temporary deal extends the life of the current bargaining agreement until January 15, according to a joint statement by the union and the United States Maritime Alliance (USMX), the group representing top shipping companies such as Maersk and Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC). The deal at present constitutes an agreement on wages which, according to multiple reports, includes wage increases of 62 percent — a $4 raise each year in the top rate over the life of the contract, if and when the agreement is ratified.
The issue of automation remains unresolved. But with the deal on wages secure, there is now additional breathing room for negotiations on the matter. The USMX’s current position has been retaining the language of the current contract around automation and semi-automation, while the union is attempting to assert more control over decision-making.
More than 45,000 dockworkers represented by the union, which is predominantly based on the East and Gulf Coasts, walked off the job at 36 different ports earlier this week. Before the temporary deal was struck, there was a serious possibility of a significant halt in the movement of goods throughout the country since the ports impacted by the strike handle half of all imports and exports for the country. American ports from New York and Maine to Texas and Louisiana were affected by the work stoppage.
While much of the media attention around the strike put a spotlight on current pay rates for longshoremen and the potential impact on the American economy, a deeper look finds a similar trend to other major strikes over the past few years — enormous profits for shipping giants, extravagant pay for executives, and an increasing turn towards automation that threatens thousands of good-paying jobs,
Business groups called on the union and the alliance to go back to the bargaining table, and more than 270 trade associations including the National Retail Federation and the National Association of Manufacturers have called on President Joe Biden to invoke the Taft-Hartley Act to end the strike. Biden repeatedly said he wouldn’t do so, telling reporters earlier this week: “There’s collective bargaining, and I don’t believe in Taft-Hartley.”
Biden praised both the union and the alliance after the deal was reached, specifically mentioning the need to get supplies to areas in the Southeast devastated by Hurricane Helene. “I congratulate the dockworkers from the ILA, who deserve a strong contract after sacrificing so much to keep our ports open during the pandemic,” Biden said. “And I applaud the port operators and carriers who are members of the US Maritime Alliance for working hard and putting a strong offer on the table.”
Vice President Kamala Harris also praised both parties and added in her remarks that “our economy works best when workers share in record profits.”
Republican nominee Donald Trump had blamed the strike on “massive inflation that was created by the Harris-Biden regime,” but has not commented since the strike ended.
High profits, small raises
The top rate of pay for members of the ILA currently stands at $39 an hour, and the union had asked for 77 percent increases. The agreement reached brings the East and Gulf Coast longshoremen in line with International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) workers on the West Coast. By the end of their contract, ILWU workers will be making a wage of $60 an hour, and ILA workers expect to see comparable wages under their own new and forthcoming contract.
The dockworkers faced attacks about even their current levels of pay, with critics citing a statistic that more than half of the more than 3,700 dockworkers at the Port of New York and New Jersey in Newark earned more than $150,000 in 2020. But earning this much often requires significant overtime work, as the base rate of pay for dock workers in the current master contract is $81,000.
The ILA dockworkers argued that their wage demands were reasonable, especially because of the profits USMX members have amassed over the last few years since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Industry profits reached more than $400 billion between 2020 and 2023, which some analysts believe is more than the industry had made in total since containerization began in the 1950s.
In contrast, wages for ILA members from 2015 to 2023 had only grown by 15 percent, even though workers kept the ports open during the pandemic.
‘They would like to run over us’
Concerns over automation had exacerbated frustrations leading up to the strike. ILA president Harold Daggett and workers at the Port of Mobile (Alabama) alleged that trucks sent to the facilities are being checked in first elsewhere with an automated gate, in violation of the contract.
The issue of automation was also a major sticking point in major labor actions over the past few years, such as those of railroad workers and Hollywood’s screenwriters. If efficient systems do not have worker protections in place, many of the companies in the relevant industry can be incentivized over time to hire fewer workers and drive up profit margins.
One recent report from the Economic Roundtable found that the process of automation allowed for the active elimination of over 500 jobs at ports on the West Coast from 2020 to 2022. It’s a common issue facing union dockworkers around the world, including in Canada and Europe, as Reuters reported Friday. During the strike, ILA President Harold Daggett gave a fiery interview to Fox News accusing shipping companies of “circumventing the contract” in ports like Mobile’s by using an auto gate system that avoids ILA checkpoints.
“If we don’t put our foot down now, they would like to run over us, and we’re not gonna allow that,” Daggett said.