Hope you’ve stocked up: At midnight, the longshoremen of the East Coast and Gulf officially went on strike. From Maine to Texas, our ports are about to deal with some wild backlogs.
The union that represents these dockworkers, the International Longshoremen’s Association, is demanding a 77 percent increase in pay over the next six years—up from their current rate of $39 per hour—and assurances that bosses won’t seek to automate their jobs away. (Given that their compatriots on the West Coast secured a 32 percent pay raise last year, it’s possible they’ll settle for a fair bit less than 77 percent.)
Union boss Harold Daggett (who makes $710,909 annually in total compensation, in case you were curious) said the quiet part out loud: “Today’s world…[corporate bosses] they’re not making millions no more, they’re making billions, and they’re spending it as fast as they make it. I want a piece of that for my men. Because when they made their most money was during COVID, when my men had to go to work on those piers every single day, when everybody stayed home and went to work. They died out there with the virus, we all got sick with the virus, we kept ’em going.… I want to be compensated for that. I’m not asking for the world…we have to fight for what we rightfully deserve.”
“These people today don’t know what a strike is,” continued Daggett, getting a little darker, presaging the chaos.
“When my men hit the streets from Maine to Texas, every single port locked down. You know what’s going to happen? I’ll tell you. First week, be all over the news every night, boom, boom, second week. Guys who sell cars can’t sell cars, because the cars ain’t coming in off the ships. They get laid off. Third week, mall starts closing down. They can’t get the goods from China. They can’t sell clothes. They can’t do this. Everything in the United States comes on a ship. They go out of business. Construction workers get laid off because the materials aren’t coming in. The steel’s not coming in. The lumber’s not coming in. They lose their job. Everybody’s hating the longshoremen now because now they realize how important our jobs are.…I will cripple you, and you have no idea what that means.”
(Language, sir!)
The current ILA contract specifies pay of $39 per hour for longshoremen (so roughly $80,000 annually), with starting salaries a bit lower. This doesn’t account for overtime, which is generous. For longshoremen who log aggressive overtime, we’re talking $200,000 annually. This is some of the highest pay available for a job that does not require a college degree.
Yet Daggett is threatening to hold entire sectors of the economy hostage so that his guys can get a raise—and dictate to their bosses that they shan’t be replaced by technology that could in some cases make backbreaking work a lot less awful and dangerous while, yes, probably eliminating some number of jobs.
Negotiations have reportedly stalled since June.
We’re about to face a new round of COVID-esque shortages and skyrocketing prices because *this* deal isn’t good enough for the people who take containers off of ships and put them into trucks https://t.co/QlfuvQeLpz pic.twitter.com/86CdUCQ7NM
— Mason (@webdevMason) October 1, 2024
Good luck to those in western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee who will now get to work on rebuilding their communities, devastated by Hurricane Helene, without being able to use…any imports (like lumber). Good luck to those who need imported medication. Good luck to those who were already struggling with high food prices; they just got a lot worse.
Brandon won’t save us: Technically speaking, President Joe Biden has the power to stop the strike via the Taft-Hartley Act if he attempts to claim that the strike would threaten national security or safety, which would then kick off an 80-day cooling off period. Biden has said he does not believe in Taft-Hartley, and will thus not be doing so.
It’s all kind of crazy, and threatens to upend the economy in advance of the election next month. Possibly the most bizarre part of this is that the same union controls all the ports on the East Coast, and in the Great Lakes region, and in the Gulf, so there isn’t a readily-available option to bypass this. If monopolies are so bad because they leave consumers with higher prices and no choice to seek out competitors, then what exactly do leftists make of this union stunt?
Here’s the absurd kicker: Daggett and Co. have decided that they’ll still work passenger cruises so as “to not inconvenience the tens of thousands of Americans who have booked trips in advance.” After all, he reasons, “many families plan and pay for cruise vacations on passenger ships more than a year out, and we don’t want them to be disappointed or inconvenienced in any way.”
sorry but cruises are literally the first thing i would choose to disrupt if i were union queen pic.twitter.com/V5ux0hITVD
— Liz Wolfe (@LizWolfeReason) October 1, 2024
Scenes from New York: Councilman Shaun Abreu is has gotten the rest of city council on board with a rat contraceptives pilot program.
QUICK HITS
Israeli troops crossed the border into Lebanon for the first time since the 2006 war. Israeli officials say they’re conducting “limited operations focused on Hezbollah infrastructure near the border” between Israel and Lebanon, according to a U.S. State Department spokesman. “Israel has a right to defend itself against Hezbollah,” said the spokesman, adding “we want to ultimately see a diplomatic resolution to this conflict, one that allows citizens on both sides of the border to return to their homes.” There’s a vice-presidential debate tonight. You know what that means: It’s time to circulate a petition to my bosses to exempt me from having to watch it, since it may actually kill me. “Students across New York City are waiting up to an hour for school buses as a driver shortage and conflict over a contract hamstring the city’s ability to find a solution,” reports The New York Times. Rates of breast cancer are climbing, with sharpest increases occurring among women in their twenties. TDS is next-level:
i’m catholic, this is an extremely common prayer (little cards printed with it scattered about most churches). the “devil” and “evil spirits” here are not meant metaphorically, but literally — the invisible agents of your adversity. this is a request for protection, basically. https://t.co/efVrsiVu0p
— Mike Solana (@micsolana) September 30, 2024
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