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Remember the temporary strike by shipping workers that crippled ports on the Eastern and Gulf Coasts in October?
The strike lasted only three days, but cost the American economy billions in lost revenue. The work stoppage was temporarily resolved when the International Longshoremen's Association (ILA) agreed to a 61.5% wage increase over the next six years. The ILA and the United States Maritime Alliance presented other issues, the most important being port automation.
The negotiated contract extension expires on January 15, 2025 – five days before President-elect Trump takes his second term.
DOCKWORKERS' UNION HOLDS NEGOTIATIONS WITH EAST AND GULF COAST EMPLOYERS
However, there is a major glitch, which has not been well reported by the corporate media: the two sides stopped all negotiations in mid-November, with the ILA leaving the negotiating table, saying, “USMX introduced language in their proposal for semi-automatic machines to be used in ILA ports, This union, which rejects the ILA in its entirety, recognized this as a renewed attempt by the USMX to automatically end ILA activities and cut off negotiations.”
The president of the ILA, Harold J. Daggett is not convinced that no machine enters American ports under his control. Mr. Daggett is against almost any use of technology. He opposes the use of EZ Passes on the nation's highways, lamenting the loss of union jobs because EZ Passes allow “drivers to punch through like nothing and get charged by the post … all those union jobs gone,” he claimed in a post on the ILA's YouTube channel in September.
Maybe Mr. Daggett should learn something. According to a recent study by the World Bank and S&P Global Market Intelligence, the ports of the United States are among the most efficient in the world, as the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach are ranked as the two least efficient ports in the world, losing. in ports such as Dar es Salaam in Tanzania and Pointe-Noire in the Republic of Congo.
Yes, ports in the United States are less efficient than ports in third world countries. No US port was anywhere near the top 10 most efficient in the world. The fault – lack of automation. It takes between one and three days to deliver a container ship to the United States. By comparison, Japanese ports take 0.36 days to load a ship of the same size.
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Mr. Daggett focuses on the wrong fight. Instead of fighting automation, you should embrace it. Instead of walking away from the negotiating table to protect old union jobs, he should push USMX to act quickly, while protecting jobs.
It's a simple position to accept automation but guarantee that any union member who loses their job to switch will be hired by USMX at the same salary and benefits package, can avoid a strike and can help the United States turn its ports into land. -section, which takes us out of the nineteenth century and into the twenty-first century.
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The newly appointed Secretary of Transportation, Sean Duffy, will have to face this challenge on the first day of the Trump administration. Secretary Duffy needs to demonstrate that he will shift the DOT's focus away from road and bridge equity and drive efficiency, returning the United States to its rightful place as the world's most developed nation.
The answers are not difficult, they only take courage to start.
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