With another longshore strike set for Jan. 15, the International Longshore Association reached tentative agreement with the United States Maritime Alliance (USMX) Jan. 8 on a new contract covering 47,000 East and Gulf Coast longshore workers.
The sticking point had been an employer push to introduce automation that would eliminate jobs. ILA members waged a three-day strike in October and secured a commitment to raise wages 61.5% over the next six years, to $63 an hour, but left the issue of automation unresolved, with a new deadline of Jan. 15.
ILA’s position appeared to have the support of President-elect Donald J. Trump. After a two-hour meeting with ILA President Harold Daggett Dec. 12 at his Mar-a-Lago resort, Trump said in a Dec. 13 post on his social media network Truth Social that he has studied automation and knows just about everything there is to know about it.
“The amount of money saved is nowhere near the distress, hurt, and harm it causes for American Workers, in this case, our Longshoremen,” Trump wrote. “They’ve got record profits, and I’d rather these foreign companies spend it on the great men and women on our docks, than machinery, which is expensive, and which will constantly have to be replaced. In the end, there’s no gain for them, and I hope that they will understand how important an issue this is for me. For the great privilege of accessing our markets, these foreign companies should hire our incredible American Workers, instead of laying them off, and sending those profits back to foreign countries.”
In a Jan. 8 statement on the ILA website, Daggett credited Trump as the chief reason the ILA was able to win protections against automation.
“You have proven yourself to be one of the best friends of working men and women in the United States,” he said in a public message to the president-elect.
Daggett said while he and his son — Executive Vice President Dennis Daggett — were meeting with Trump, the president-elect spoke by telephone to USMX officials and expressed his support for the ILA.
“President Trump’s bold stance helped prevent a second coast wide strike at ports from Maine to Texas that would have occurred on January 15, 2025, if a tentative agreement was not reached.”
In a joint statement, ILA and USMX said details of the agreement on automation won’t be released, to allow ILA members to review and approve it, but that the agreement protects current ILA jobs and establishes a framework for implementing new technologies.
The transportation industry media site Freightwaves, citing a source with knowledge of the agreement, said it gives terminal operators broader rights to introduce semi-automated rail-mounted gantry cranes and other technology to improve efficiency in container-handling, while the union receives guarantees for new jobs linked specifically to each piece of equipment.
