NORTH BERGEN, N.J.—Tens of thousands of longshore workers at East Coast and Gulf Coast ports suspended their brief strike on October 3 after winning a 62% pay hike over six years, effective immediately. The Biden-Harris administration helped negotiate the deal, taking away from Donald Trump an issue he hoped to use in his bid to get back into the White House.
The big increase in wages was a major factor in the agreement to suspend the strike but other issues, notably automation, remain on the table as talks resume between the International Longshoremen’s Association and port bosses, grouped in the United States Maritime Alliance (USMX).
The union and USMX “reached a tentative agreement on wages and have agreed to extend the Master Contract until Jan. 15, 2025” and “to return to the bargaining table to negotiate all other outstanding issues,” a brief joint statement from ILA President Harold Daggett and USMX said.
“Effective immediately, all current job actions will cease and all work covered by the Master Contract will resume.” The new deadline is after the holidays and after next month’s election.
The union has 85,000 members, more than half of whom work in East and Gulf Coast ports. Their old six-year contract, which expired at midnight at the end of September, had base hourly wages of $20-$39, plus royalties linked to container traffic.
The workers struck at a minute after midnight on October 1, idling 14 ports from Maine through Texas. Workers at those ports, combined, handle more than half of the nation’s containerized cargo.
Key issues are pay, which has now been settled, and port owners’ continuing automation drive. It was ILA’s first strike since 1977.
The workers sought a 77% raise over six years, to make up for losses to inflation, while USMX’s last reported offer was 50%. The agreement basically split the difference.
When the workers walked, they made their position clear, in picketing and signs.
Featured the ILA and American flags
One picket line, in Philadelphia, featured the ILA flag waving just below the U.S. flag. Another from New London, Conn., posted on the union’s Twitter/X feed, read “If it’s a fight they want, it’s a war they’re going to get.”
The ILA strike was important for the workers, the economy, and politically. A long strike threatened to produce shortages of various goods, from bananas to car parts, within weeks, driving up prices. Shippers sped up cargos or diverted them to West Coast ports in anticipation of the strike. No shortages occurred.
But with the strike threatening to disrupt commerce during the holiday season, the pro-worker Democratic Biden-Harris administration swung into action due to its looming political impact, too. Shortages would have angered voters.
Acting Labor Secretary Julie Su, who had said the workers deserved a substantial raise while the port companies and shippers combined to earn billions of dollars, was constantly on the phone with both sides for weeks, cajoling, and mediating. She also met personally with ILA leaders.
Su played the same role, with the same success, to avert a threatened strike by International Longshore and Warehouse Union workers last year against the West Coast ports from Seattle to San Diego.
“I applaud the longshoremen who do such important work and deserve to be valued for it, and the companies for the critical role they play in our supply chain and for recognizing the invaluable contributions of their workers,” Su said in a statement. “I’m so proud to be part of an administration that stands with working people in their fight for good jobs. When unions are strong, our economy is strong, and our country is strong.”
Democratic President Joe Biden congratulated the workers on the tentative wage pact. His statement said it “represents critical progress toward a strong contract.
“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. He also noted keeping the ports open was especially vital for consumers in the Southeast, which has been clobbered by Hurricane Helene.
The corporate class, led by the Chamber of Commerce, pushed Biden to invoke the Republican-passed anti-worker Taft-Hartley Act of 1947, using its “national security” and “economic emergency” provisions to order the longshore workers back to their jobs.
Quizzed by reporters, Biden’s one-word answer to that demand was “no.”
Henry Glover, president of ILA’s New Orleans Local 3000, said the ports agreed to halt automation, too. But he was the only one saying so.
Port automation has been an ongoing conflict for decades between port owners and operators and both longshore unions—ILA in the East and Gulf coasts, inland ports such as Chicago, Detroit, and Cleveland, and on waterways, ILWU on the West Coast.
“We came to an agreement about wages first, right, and no automation, but they have other stuff inside the contract that they have to clear up,” Glover told local broadcast media. “We going to work tomorrow, that’s what’s next, work. That’s what we do, work.”
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