The International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) has agreed to suspend its strike for a massive pay increase, just three days after threatening to cripple the country by shutting down ports along the East Coast, including ports in Maine.
“The International Longshoremen’s Association and the United States Maritime Alliance, Ltd. have reached a tentative agreement on wages,” said the ILA, “Effective immediately, all current job actions will cease and all work covered by the Master Contract will resume.”
Union dockworkers promised to renew their recently expired employment contract with the United States Maritime Alliance (USMX) until January 12.
The ILA and USMX have come to a tentative agreement regarding wages and have agreed to return to the negotiation table after the extended contract expires. The negotiations will include “other outstanding issues,” such as port automation.
In video that circulated widely on social media, the ILA President Harold Daggett threatened that his strike could cripple the American economy.
Daggett’s boastful and braggadocios video quickly led Internet sleuths to point up that Daggett earned nearly $900,000 per year as head of the union and lives in a lavish 7,136-square-foot mansion in New York.
His apparent wealth and opulent life-style contrasted sharply with the story of hard-scrabble poverty he projected when promoting the strike.
In addition to higher pay, one of the core issues of the strike was the growing use of automation at American ports, a technological development that has already reduced the number of human workers required to operate major ports. More robots means fewer laborers, and fewer laborers means fewer income-earners sending a portion of their paychecks to the union.
The union had demanded that the USMX promise to ban automation at the East Coast ports, fearing that their jobs could become obsolete if U.S. shipping infrastructure is totally modernized.
The Longshoremen did not provide any details on the wage increase, but the Associated Press reported that USMX tentatively offered union workers a staggering 62 percent pay increase over the course of six years.
The AP claimed the information came from a source briefed on the matter who preferred to remain anonymous.
The union had demanded a massive 77 percent pay increase, claiming that its most recent contract was insufficient.
Under the last contract, union dockworkers start at $20/hr in their first year, with that rate increasing to $39/hr for workers with six or more years in the union.
The ILA complained that its current contract fell significantly behind the wages of dockworkers on the West Coast.
The USMX initially offered the union a 50 percent wage increase after the contract expired on Sept. 30, but the union rejected the deal and began their strike on Oct. 1.
This was the first East Coast dockworkers’ strike since 1977, when a dispute over wages left ports inoperable for 45 days.
The ILA’s Daggett blamed corporate greed for the strike, while demanding a 77 percent pay increase and threatening to cripple the country.
“In today’s world, I’ll cripple you. I will cripple you, and you have no ideas what that means, nobody does,” said Daggett.
He laid out the potential consequences of the strike, claiming that industries across the country would shut down and begin to lay off workers because they would be unable to import the products and materials they need.
The now-concluded strike led to widespread fears of shortages and price increases, and was projected to cost the economy $4.5 billion every day.
Daggett’s promise to cripple the country came as Americans across Appalachia, and especially in North Carolina, struggled to survive in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene.
This wasn’t Daggett’s first foray into the national spotlight. Like many top labor union bosses, he’s had a previous brush with the law.
In 2005, Daggett faced racketeering charges for his alleged ties to organized crime, but he was found innocent and maintained that he was a victim of the criminal group rather than its accomplice.
The strike shut down ports all along the East Coast, with 45,000 workers from Maine to Texas walking off the job, and would have impeded the import of essential supplies in the aftermath of the natural disaster.
The strike could resume in January if negotiations ultimately break down, potentially leaving a newly inaugurated President Donald Trump or President Kamala Harris with a labor crisis in the first month of their presidency.
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