East Coast Longshoremen Approve Contract, Avert Strike

Oliver Wells

East coast longshoremen with the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) approved a 6-year contract last week, making concessions on pay and automation. The deal comes after ILA leadership reached a tentative agreement with the US Maritime Alliance (USMX), an alliance of shipping and port terminal monopolies, in mid-January. The agreement is expected to be signed on March 11 and applied retroactively to when the previous contract expired last October.

ILA president Harold Daggett bragged that they now have “labor peace for the next six years” thanks to the contract. Daggett initially claimed last June that the ILA stopped negotiations with USMX after “discovering” automation at ports, such as gates that automatically process trucks that have been in place since 2008. While at the time of contract negotiations last year ILA bureaucrats stated that they are “not taking this lightly,” the new contract allows such automation to take place.

The contract carries the stipulation that USMX has to hire workers whenever they introduce new technology and that they cannot fully automate the ports. However, port monopolies were not fully automating to begin with, since monopolists tend to automate in waves in response to economic crisis.

Automation increases the exploitation of workers by ramping up the tempo of production, forcing fewer workers to work faster and harder to keep up with technology in what is already a dangerous job.

The deal also provides a 62% pay raise over the course of the 6-year contract, a compromise from the 77% increase initially demanded by the union. The pay raise represents a tiny fraction of the massive profits brought in by the monopolies involved through their exploitation of the longshoremen. For example, USMX member and shipping monopoly Maersk reported 2024 to be its third most profitable year, bringing in over $50 billion in profits over the last 4 years.

While union bureaucrats often portray the struggle for better wages as “profit sharing” with capitalists, the reality is that workers produce all value, not just a portion to be shared with their exploiters.

Both the monopolists and union bureaucrats praised Trump for the deal in January. ILA leaders Harold Daggett and his son Dennis Daggett both gave Trump “full credit” for the deal after Trump repeated their rhetoric of depicting the union struggle as American workers against foreigners. Harold had previously stated that ILA stands for “I Love America” and promised to handle American military cargo during their strike.

The ILA went on a three-day strike at the start of October 2024 after they were unable to reach a deal with the monopolies, mainly over automation. Despite having the upper hand—bourgeois analysts estimated that the strike cost capitalists billions of dollars a day—ILA union bureaucrats called off the strike after the Biden administration intervened and partial agreements were reached around pay. The fight over automation was postponed until after the elections in mid-January, leaving many workers feeling betrayed.

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