Striking port workers get support from Teamsters, UAW, and other unions: 'Solidarity is our power'
The roughly 45,000 longshoremen on strike across more than a dozen major U.S. ports are getting kudos and the rare sympathy strike from fellow labor unions.
Tuesday morning, the International Longshoremen Association (ILA) said it would stage walkouts at ports across the East Coast and Gulf Coast after negotiations with the United States Maritime Alliance (USMX) failed to produce a deal before its labor contract expired. The ILA, in a statement Tuesday, blasted the “greedy” employers unwilling to meet its demands.
“These companies... they don’t give a f—k about us,” ILA President Harold Daggett told members Tuesday in a video published by the union. “Well, we’re gonna show them they’re gonna have to give a f—k about us. Because nothing’s gonna move without us.”
That no-holds-barred rhetoric mirrors similar language used by unions in recent negotiations, including the United Auto Workers (UAW) union, which engaged in targeted, rolling walkouts against the Detroit Three automakers last fall. Almost exactly a year ago, the UAW’s president was wearing an “eat the rich” T-shirt and proclaiming members were there to “finish a fight.”
Like the UAW, the ILA has been criticized for its big demands, including wage hikes of 77% over six years and a ban on automation, and for rejecting an offer that included almost 50% pay raises. The UAW began its strike asking for wage increases of up to 40% before accepting a roughly 25% pay hike over the length of its four-year deal.
“The UAW stands in solidarity with the 45,000 courageous port workers fighting for economic justice,” the union said Tuesday. “Without their labor, nothing in this country moves.”
The ILA also won support from Sara Nelson, the president of the Association of Flight Attendants, who said in a statement that “solidarity is our power.” The Amazon Labor Union said its members would join the ILA on the picket lines on Staten Island’s Port Liberty.
“We are proud to be in this movement every day, and workers have entered a new era of confidence and strength as we claim our fair share,” the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers said in a statement. More than 30,000 members of the union are currently on strike against Boeing.
Although it’s unclear how long the longshoremen will be on strike, each day of the walkouts may cost anywhere between $540 million and $5 billion in economic damage, according to various estimates. Ports and facilities handling approximately 51% of the nation’s overall port capacity are affected by the walkouts, according to the MITRE Corporation, and companies in almost every industry — especially the agricultural and automotive sectors — are expected to take a hit.
One possible solution to the conflict is presidential action. Under the Taft-Hartley Act, President Joe Biden can impose an 80-day period where workers go back to work while negotiators work on a deal. However, the president has said he won’t invoke the act, keeping in line with the ILA’s — and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters’ — wishes.
“The U.S. government should stay the f—k out of this fight and allow union workers to withhold their labor for the wages and benefits they have earned,” Teamsters General President Sean O’Brien said in a statement Monday. “Any workers—on the road, in the ports, in the air—should be able to fight for a better life free of government interference.”
That condemnation from O’Brien trails back to December 2022, when Biden signed the Railway Labor Act to block a national railway strike from a dozen unions representing 115,000 workers.
The Teamsters declined to endorse either former President Donald Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, or Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, because neither promised not to intervene and force a contract between unions and employers.
