by Samuel Messidor
The International Longshoreman’s Association (ILA) has suspended their contract talks with the United States Maritime Alliance (USMX), a capitalist monopolistic association of shipping and port concerns. The talks for the master contract, covering 85,000 port workers, expires September 30.
The ILA suspended the talks over company infractions of local contracts, in particular shipping giants Maersk and APM Terminals’ use of automation technology in breach of contract, with the union raising the alarm over future layoffs and further automation in the industry. Automation and layoffs to counter the lagging rate of profit is the tendency across the capitalist system, as seen in recent examples in auto, steel, and logistics.
The USMX is already preparing for strike disruptions by re-routing shipping to secondary ports. However, this further strains their members’ profitability considering the ongoing Red Sea anti-imperialist, anti-genocide blockade in support of the Palestinian national liberation struggle, and the Panama Canal drought disruptions. The costs of international shipping have spiked recently also as part of the general, deepening capitalist crisis.
The ILA, based in the East Coast, Gulf Coast, Puerto Rican, Canadian and Bahamian ports, has not struck since the 1970s. On the other hand, their West Coast cousins in the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) has a history of labor slowdowns and strikes, including “hot cargo” strikes against imperialist war, even in the face of massive court-imposed fines for “illegal” work stoppages. The ILA contracts typically give “bonuses” based on a piece rate system, which binds worker pay to productivity, ratchets up tempo, and punishes work slowdowns and stoppages. This is in contrast to the ILWU contracts, which typically use less punishing hourly wage calculations.
The longshoremen are at a critical choke point of the economy, giving their strike threats a lot of leverage. The monopoly media brags that they’re paid relatively well if including top bonuses at top seniority but also admit that pay ranges from $37/hr at the top to as low as $20/hr.
The logistics industries have been automating, cutting workers, increasing work tempo, and increasing the size of cargo for rail, sea, and road deliveries for years. The logistics capitalists need to turn over larger amounts of products at a faster rate to secure their profits, reaching a fever pitch exacerbating the crisis of over-production.
The capitalist drive for bigger and faster transport with fewer workers has meant increased worker injuries and damage to infrastructure and communities, like the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, and the fatal crash at the Key Bridge in Baltimore, in which a massive, under-staffed cargo ship lost power and crashed into the bridge, killing 6 immigrant construction workers. Transportation and warehousing has topped out the non-fatal injury rate in Federal statistics for years. The fatal injury rate in transportation and storage is over twice that of industry in general, and the fatal injury rate for warehouse workers in particular went up 23% between 2020 and 2021.
