Ships Pile Up as Longshore Strike Hits East Coast Ports

Longshore workers walked off the job at midnight at Atlantic and Gulf ports from Boston to Houston. This is the first coastwide strike since 1977 for the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA), and took many by surprise. The workforce loads, unloads, and tracks ship cargo, and maintains port machinery.

The 19,000-worker walkout shut down 14 port complexes, as ILA members drew the line at automation that threatens their jobs. Wages are also an issue; the last contract was negotiated in 2018 before shocks from the pandemic and inflation.

“Employers push automation under the guise of safety, but it is really about cutting labor costs,” Daniel Amaly, a worker at Port Elizabeth, New Jersey, told the press at a midnight picket line.

After daybreak, hundreds of longshore workers picketed and waved signs at honking cars. They cheered when someone said through a bullhorn that 35 ships were in the harbor unable to unload cargo. Speakers blasted classic rock, reggaeton, and merengue.

At another Newark terminal, picketers were joined by two vice presidents of the Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU), which represents workers on the West Coast.

Negotiations with USMX, which represents terminal operators and shippers, broke off in June when the union accused terminal operators of sneaking in automated systems and taking ILA work. Last-minute meetings yielded little progress.

“We are fighting for there to be a future generation of dockworkers,” said a Newark port worker at the picket line this morning, pointing to other blue-collar jobs that are being lost to automation.

A 10-year port worker in Bayonne, New Jersey, said automation was his top issue. “It’s like cashiers and self-checkout. You don’t want the self-checkout to take everybody’s jobs.” (Some workers asked not to be named as they weren’t authorized to speak to the press.)

BIG IMPACT

J.P. Morgan estimated corporate losses at $3.8 billion to $4.5 billion per strike day. Around half of the goods imported into the U.S. come through East Coast and Gulf ports. A week-long strike could create backups that would take a month to unsnarl, business analysts said.

Workers do not receive strike pay, though after two weeks New York and New Jersey workers can receive state unemployment compensation.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers are pleading with the White House to force dockworkers back to work using the emergency powers of the Taft-Hartley Act. “The president can protect manufacturers and consumers by exercising his authority, and we hope he will act quickly,” said NAM President Jay Timmons in a Monday statement.

But when a reporter asked Joe Biden on Sunday if he would intervene, the president said no. Asked why, he said “I don’t believe in Taft-Hartley.” This may give the union considerable leverage.

The union is not striking cruise ships. “We understand that many families plan and pay for cruises vacations on passenger ships more than a year out, and we don’t want them to be disappointed or inconvenienced in any way,” said ILA President Harold Daggett. Union members will also continue to handle shipments for the military, what the union calls a “no strike pledge” for military cargo.

PROFITS UP, WAGES FLAT

Wages have stagnated over the last two contracts while employers have had some of their most profitable years on record. East Coast workers start at $20 an hour and top out at $39. Work rules and overtime can add significantly for workers with seniority.

But shippers have seen profits soar, and can pay much more. West Coast workers, represented by the ILWU, went from $26 to $40 to start in the same 12-year period. Now their starting pay is higher than East Coast workers’ top rate. In addition, ILWU members have a uniform pension across ports, whereas in the ILA, pensions are much lower, where they exist at all. Workers at some ports, like Houston and Philadelphia, have no pension.

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Negotiations have been private, and it’s not clear exactly where the sides stood on Monday. USMX said the union wanted a 77 percent wage increase over the course of the six-year contract. Interviewed on Monday from the picket line, ILA President Daggett said the union wanted a $5 raise for each year of the contract.

By contrast, some carriers quadrupled their profits from 2019 to 2022, and they have continued high. Maersk, the world’s biggest shipping company by revenue, reported $9.8 billion in profits in 2023. An ILA report shows many USMX member companies made significantly higher revenues in 2022 than in 2021, and 2020-2021 were already bonanza years for global shipping.

MARCH OF AUTOMATION

The union wants to strengthen language on automation that the companies are apparently trying to weaken.

Terminal operators and shippers complain that newer terminals in other countries are less expensive to run due to their automated systems. In the U.S., only two terminals are largely automated, within the Long Beach complex near Los Angeles.

“California dockworkers have already lost jobs because of automation,” said a mechanic with ILA Local 1804 on the Elizabeth, New Jersey, picket line. “We are trying to prevent that from happening to us.”

Over the last 60 years, huge technological changes have depressed the longshore workforce on both coasts, even as shipping has steadily increased in value. When the container revolution of the 1950s and ’60s undermined longshore jobs, the ILA negotiated a container royalty on each ton of freight moved, paid annually to workers to offset job losses. That is still in effect, though the ILA says it has been undermined and is negotiating for restoration of the fees.

More recently, East Coast ports have introduced automated systems without consultation with the ILA committee that is set up to consider changes. At several ports, including Mobile, Alabama, and Newark, New Jersey, the union charges that terminal operators have instituted radio frequency ID systems to track and register entering trucks, reducing the work for ILA members without any negotiation of the changes.

“We just caught them in Mobile, Alabama,” said Daggett, interviewed on a picket line by Fox News. “They’re circumventing the contract… If we don’t put our foot down now, they would like to run over us.”

Computer software changes that affect jobs are often implemented without negotiation, workers said.

But even when terminal operators announce changes, the union has little power to enforce anti-automation guarantees in the contract—because even if you do grieve these changes, they end up in arbitration with unsatisfactory results, workers said.

One contract change that would be helpful is elimination of the no-strike clause. That way, if ports implement automation, the workers could walk out and not return until the issue is fixed.

Joe DeManuelle-Hall and Luis Feliz Leon contributed reporting.