Thank you! Your submission has been received!
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.
“Dockworkers at ports from Maine to Texas began walking picket lines early Tuesday in a strike over wages and automation that could reignite inflation and cause shortages of goods if it goes on more than a few weeks… “The union’s opening offer in the talks was for a 77% pay raise over the six-year life of the contract, with President Harold Daggett saying it’s necessary to make up for inflation and years of small raises. ILA members make a base salary of about $81,000 per year, but some can pull in over $200,000 annually with large amounts of overtime.” AP News
The left is generally supportive of the strike, arguing that the union’s demands are reasonable.
“Globalization has been a catastrophe for just about every industrial worker in America except dockworkers. People who make things no longer occupy much of a choke point in our economy, but people who transport things still matter a great deal. Hence the tendency for recent large strikes (and threatened strikes) to involve people in the business of moving stuff around: United Parcel Service, railroad workers, stevedores.”
Timothy Noah, New Republic
“The contracts for longshore workers basically mirror those of many American workers during the period when the tax and labor policies of the New Deal were still in place. Between the end of World War II and the mid-1970s… the median wages of American workers rose at the identical rate that productivity rose…
“Since then, as the rate of unionization declined and as companies shifted more revenues to profits and less to wages, that has ceased to be the case… Had the trends in personal income in the years following 1975 matched those in the preceding three decades, the annual income of the median-paid American worker would be doubled—from roughly $50,000 to roughly $100,000…
“The reasons why the only blue-collar American workers able to maintain wage increases commensurate with productivity increases following 1975 were the longshore workers were those of exceptional union power… Economically, then, the ILA is more than justified in its demands and its strike.”
Harold Meyerson, American Prospect
“ILA members worked through the pandemic, risking their own health while delivering critical medical supplies. During the same period, shipping rates soared. Analysts estimate the industry raked in more than $400 billion in profit from 2020 to 2023, more than it had previously made in total since the start of the containerization revolution in the late 1950s… “Despite all the complaints about the strike’s timing, the whining about it being unfair that a pro-union president is facing such a delicate strike (in fact, a president who won’t break your strike presents precisely the ideal conditions for launching one), there is one way for USMX to end all of this: meet the ILA’s demands.”
Alex N. Press, Jacobin
The right is generally critical of the strike, arguing that US ports should embrace automation.
The right is generally critical of the strike, arguing that US ports should embrace automation.
“The International Longshoremen’s Association’s central demand is a total ban on automation involving cranes, gates and the loading and unloading of freight containers — leaving US ports stuck in the last century while the rest of the world moves on. Once again, a powerful union seeks to strangle innovation that would benefit everyone else: Robots can do most dock-cargo work better, faster and cheaper.”
Editorial Board, New York Post
“American ports are less efficient than most in the world owing to union work rules and restrictions on automation. Unlike other private unions, longshoremen don’t have to worry that their demands will bankrupt employers or cause them to lose business. Volkswagen can’t import European-made cars by truck. U.S. businesses and consumers foot the bill for higher port labor costs and reduced efficiency…
“Striking workers at UPS, Caterpillar and U.S. automakers have won rich labor contracts in the past two years, only for the companies to trim their workforces or shift production to Mexico. A strike by longshoremen will do broader economic damage…“We hope you’re stocked up on bananas because supermarkets may soon be out… President Biden wants unions to have extortionary bargaining power, and he’s getting a demonstration of it on election eve. Congratulations.”
Editorial Board, Wall Street Journal
“The strike has put Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, and the Democratic Party in a tough spot. The president can elect to invoke Taft-Hartley and force the striking workers to return to work, but doing so will undoubtedly anger organized labor…
“But the alternative is not much better. If Biden stays out of the collective bargaining dispute as he has pledged to do, he risks hurting the economy so badly that voters, who are mostly motivated to vote by their wallets, punish his party at the ballot box…
“This is why the union chose to strike now. By walking off the job a month before the election, it drastically lowered the odds that Biden would intervene in the strike and thereby give the union more leverage in its efforts to secure a new and more favorable contract. It’s a shrewd move and one that may end up paying off in spades.”
Jeremiah Poff, Washington Examiner
