Oliver Wells
The International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) reached a tentative deal with the US Maritime Alliance (USMX) conglomerate of port monopolies last Wednesday (01/08), avoiding what would have been a costly strike to the capitalist class. Details of the agreement have yet to be fully released as both sides finalize the tentative agreement. The TA is waiting to be approved or rejected by the rank-and-file.
The ILA represents over 45,000 longshoreman on the east coast, ranging from the Gulf of Mexico to Maine and includes some of the country’s busiest ports.
The union went on a three-day strike last October, which was able to win a compromised concession of a 62% pay raise over six years—lower than the 77% pay raise demanded by workers following years of stagnant wages amid windfall profits for the monopolies. However, the question of automation roll-outs across the ports—which originally sparked the strike after USMX breached their contract with the ILA by unrolling automation at some ports—remained unresolved, with the two sides reaching a tentative contract that workers saw as just “kicking the can down the road.”
Despite the strike costing capitalists billions of dollars a day, the union bureaucracy worked with President Biden to call off the strike and postpone it until the end of his term. Now, days before his inauguration, the ILA bureaucracy has been on increasingly warm terms with incoming president Donald Trump. ILA President Harold Daggett recently claimed that Trump is “a hero to our ILA union and members” and that “President Trump gets full credit for our successful tentative Master Contract agreement.” Trump stated on social media that automation would hurt “American workers” more than it would save money, posing the monopolies as “foreign” and harmful to the nation.
ILA President Daggett has claimed that the new contract includes protections against automation, though specifics have not been released. Monopoly media cites an anonymous source close to the negotiations saying that the TA allows for some automation in exchange for hiring more workers into unionized positions.
A joint statement between the monopoly and union bureaucracy stated that the new agreement will simultaneously “create more jobs while modernizing East and Gulf coasts ports — making them safer and more efficient and creating the capacity they need to keep our supply chains strong,” However, capitalists automate production precisely to layoff workers while increasing the work tempo for the remaining workers in order to maximize their profits.
Photo: Retrieved from ILA website.
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