ILA dock workers reach tentative agreement

The International Longshoremen’s Association and the United States Maritime Alliance reached a tentative agreement on wages, ending the strike of approximately 45,000 dock workers. Determined not to work on an expired contract, the ILA has agreed to extend the Master Contract until January 15, 2025, when it will return to the bargaining table the the USMX to negotiate other outstanding issues, such as demands around job protections from increasing automation and increased contribution to workers’ retirement plans. 

US President Joe Biden, who had been receiving pressure from the right-wing to invoke the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act to force dock workers back to work, expressed relief at the end of the strike. “I want to applaud the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) and the United States Maritime Alliance for coming together to reopen the East Coast and Gulf ports,” read the White House statement. “I want to thank the union workers, the carriers, and the port operators for acting patriotically to reopen our ports and ensure the availability of critical supplies for Hurricane Helene recovery and rebuilding.”

Right-wing lawmakers were gearing up to put maximum pressure on the union to end their strike. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis announced a workaround for the strike, ostensibly due to the impact of Hurricane Helene. “There are ships that have nothing to do with these negotiations. They may need a place to be able to come and we just want to send the message: You can come to the state of Florida,” DeSantis said, announcing that Florida National Guard, State Guard, and Highway Patrol would begin to take up much of the work of ILA dock workers. This is despite the fact that Jaclyn Rothenberg, a spokesperson for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), said there were “no issues moving relief supplies for Hurricane Helene through the designated ports being used.”

Workers were demanding a fair share of the billions in profits that the shipping industry had reaped from their labor, especially during the pandemic. “These people are making billions of dollars and yet and still they wanna give us chump change,” a dock worker told On The Line. “It’s not fair to the working men and women who gets out here in the elements and busts their behinds to make sure that their products are going all over this world.”