Port workers strike across the East and Gulf Coasts

Dockworkers strike outside of the Port of Newark after members of the International Longshoremen’s Association, or ILA, began walking off the job after 12:01 a.m. ET on October 1 in Elizabeth, New Jersey. The strike of over 50,000 workers at ports along the East Coast and Texas comes after the just-expired master contract with the United States Maritime Alliance, or USMX. Workers are striking over wages, technology, and other issues.

Striking dock workers see themselves as essential employees to keep America’s economy humming. That’s why they feel they’re owed more than the port authorities and shipping companies are offering in their new contract.

“What we do here, we, we move the world, everything that’s in your home,” Tyreke Wells, a longshore worker at the Port of New York and New Jersey told CNN Tuesday. “Your furniture, your clothes, everything that goes to Walmart, everything going to Lowe’s, Target, the grocery store, all that seafood.”

Wells said the port workers deserve a better deal.

“People at home need to know that we’re not greedy,” he said. “We’re just working people. Blue-collar people that work a lot of hours to maintain that everything they need they get – and we wanna make sure we get what we need.”

Tyreke Wells speaks to CNN's Vanessa Yurkevich on October 1 in Elizabeth, New Jersey.

Tyreke Wells, one of the nearly 50,000 members of the International Longshoremen’s Association currently on strike, told CNN Tuesday that longshoremen continued to work to docks during the pandemic to make sure the country had the medical supplies it needed. Now the union is looking for a raise in return for their life-saving and tireless work.

Wells said longshore workers sacrificed when most of America was locked down.

“The longshoreman, we worked these docks, these docks, night and day, night and day nonstop,” he said. “But we did everything we can. All our members went to work and we sacrificed.”

Wells said the workers are fighting for better wages.

“We want better health care, better pension money and better annuity,” Wells said. “And we wanna keep out the automation because once you start the automation and the semi automation, you eliminate jobs.”

Longshore workers at the port of Baltimore grew violent shortly after they went on strike in the early hours of Tuesday morning when a dump truck driver tried to enter the port, the International Longshoremen’s Association confirmed.

“Last night some guy in Baltimore in a dump truck tried to run over the pickets,” said Harold Daggett at a mid-morning rally Tuesday at the port of New York and New Jersey.

“Well, he wished he didn’t do that because they ripped him out of the truck,” Daggett said. He appeared ready to speak more on the incident before stopping. When the crowd began laughing, Daggett said, “Alright, I won’t say any more.”

In an interview with Fox 5 in Washington, the driver said he was instructed by police to collect the garbage despite the picket line. He said the longshore workers broke his windshield and lacerated his face.

Cranes and shipping containers are seen at Port Jersey with the New York City skyline in the background during a port strike on October 1 in Bayonne, New Jersey.

Despite a wide gap in negotiations between the union and the shipping companies, Bank of America predicts that the port strike will last no more than a few weeks, at most. The bank’s analysts believe President Joe Biden will intervene and end the strike by invoking the Taft-Hartley act.

“Our base case is a port strike lasting no more than a few days or weeks before the Taſt-Hartley Act is invoked to reopen the ports,” the bank wrote in a note to clients. “We see Biden needing to balance the need to appear pro-labor and supporting the workers in their negotiations, but also the need to keep an eye on supply chains and economy which could be disrupted by prolonged port strikes.”

But the Biden administration hasn’t sounded too keen thus far on invoking Taft-Hartley just yet, with President Biden saying “I don’t believe in Taft-Hartley.”

And workers can still slow the pace at the ports to a crawl, even if they are officially back at work.

Dockworkers at the Maher Terminals in Port Newark are on strike on October 1 in New Jersey.

It takes a lot fewer jobs to move cargo across docks than it used to. The International Longshoremen’s Association, which went on strike at East and Gulf Coast ports early Tuesday, say saving jobs from future automation advances is a key issue in the strike.

Some other ports around the world use greater automation to track and move cargo than at US ports. The ILA said that if it doesn’t draw the line on greater use of automation, that it will cost members their jobs and the pay rate won’t matter.

“The rest of the world is looking down on us because we’re fighting automation,” said Dennis Daggett, the ILA’s executive vice president and son of union president Harold Daggett, in remarks on the picket line outside the Port of New York and New Jersey Tuesday morning. “Remember that this industry, this union has always adapted to innovation. But we will never adapt to robots taking our jobs. Robots don’t pay taxes. Robots don’t serve the community. Robots don’t spend money in the community. But guess who does? The ILA.”

The United States Maritime Alliance, the management group that operates under the acronym USMX, said it is offering to keep the contract language on the use of automation unchanged, but the union said that’s not enough. Face-to-face talks broke down in June after the union charged a small port in Gulfport, Mississippi, had used automation to check and let in trucks without union workers, which the union argued violated its labor contract.

But Harold Daggett said in an interview on the picket line that the USMX does want fully automated terminals and that the union needs better protections against introduction of technology.

“They’re making billions and billions of dollars,” he said. “They don’t want to share it. They’d rather see a fully automated terminal right here on the East Coast so they can make more money. They’re money crazy… But they want to get rid of our jobs out of the United States. So that’s why we’re all fighting here.”

A large oak lies on a home after it fell due to Tropical Storm Helene in Anderson, South Carolina, on September 27.

Some of those urging government action to block or quickly end a strike say the recent damage caused by Hurricane Helene is another reason not to have ports shut down by a strike.

On Monday, ahead of the walk-out, Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, citing the hurricane damage, asked the ILA to take that into consideration and delay any walkout. So did Matthew Shay, CEO of the National Retail Federation.

“Particularly with what’s happening in the Southeast with the hurricane, the worst possible time to shut these ports on the East Coast (is) when these people are in dire circumstances and need relief,” he told CNN Monday.

But few if any relief supplies would be arriving in the hurricane-battered Southeast via ship.

The only cargo ships that call on the East or Gulf Coast ports are bringing goods from other countries, not from other US cities Under US maritime law, those ships, owned and operated by foreign carriers, are prohibited by law from moving goods between two different US cities. There are limited US flag ships which move military cargo or goods between the mainland and US territories such as Puerto Rico or the US Virgin Islands.

A ship is also a much slower way to move goods to the affected areas than truck or rail.

A dockworker strikes outside of the Port of Houston Authority today in Houston, Texas.

There are numerous ways the workers can slow the flow of freight while strictly following rules in the current contract. In a video posted in early September, ILA President Harold Daggett said if members were forced back to work, they would likely only move a small fraction of their normal cargo volumes.

“Do you think when (members) go back to work, that those men are going to go to work on that pier?” he said on the video message. “It’s going to cost the companies money to pay their salaries, while it goes from 30 moves an hour to maybe eight.”

The shipping lines realize the problem with having Biden order the union back to work, said Peter Tirschwell, vice president of global intelligence and analytics at S&P Global Market Intelligence and chairman of the TPM shipping conference.

“A senior ocean carrier guy told me yesterday, ‘If they are forced back to work, they can make life miserable for everybody,’” he told CNN last week.

A view of closed entrance to the Maher Terminal, as members of the International Longshoremen’s Association union, which represents roughly 45,000 workers, strike in Elizabeth, New Jersey, on October 1.

Stuck on the sidelines and watching with great concern are businesses that depend on the movement of goods.

More than 200 business groups sent a letter to the White House last week asking the Biden administration to step in to prevent a strike, saying the country relies on moving both imports and exports through these ports.

“The last thing the supply chain, companies and employees… need is a strike or other disruptions because of an ongoing labor negotiation,” read the letter.

The US Chamber of Commerce sent a follow-up letter Monday urging President Joe Biden to exercise powers under what is known as the Taft-Hartley Act, which became law in 1947, to keep the ports open and longshore workers on the job. President George W. Bush applied the act in 2002 to halt an 11-day lockout of union members at West Coast ports.

But Biden told reporters Sunday he has no intention of using the powers he has under Taft-Hartley.

“No,” Biden said. “Because it’s collective bargaining, and I don’t believe in Taft-Hartley.”

A ship carries shipping containers through Upper Bay in New York on September 30.

There are also disputes between the union and management about the use of automation in the ports, which the union said would cost some members their jobs. The USMX said it is offering to keep the same contract language on use of automation in place.

“They have language in there now that’s not strong enough,” ILA President Harold Daggett told CNN. “Because what happens is they come in with new technology… and that means the trucks are coming in and they’re already checked in somewhere else and not using the checkers in the ILA.”

Absent stronger language preventing certain automation at the ports, Daggett said he won’t return to the negotiating table.

“It’s not fair,” Daggett said. “And if we don’t put our foot down now, they would like to run over us, and we’re not going to allow that.”

Longshoremen strike at midnight at Bayport Terminal on October 1 in Houston, Texas.

The USMX, which declined to comment Tuesday, has complained the union is not negotiating in good faith, saying the two sides haven’t met in person since June. The USMX said Monday it had increased its offer to wage increases of more than 50% over the proposed six-year contract. ILA President Harold Daggett on Wednesday told CNN the union is seeking a $5-an-hour pay increase each year over six years, with top pay climbing from $39 an hour to $69. That would equate to a 77% pay hike over the life of the contract.

Shipping rates soared during and immediately after the pandemic, as supply chains snarled and demand surged. Industry profits topped $400 billion from 2020 to 2023, which is believed to be more than the industry had previously made in total since containerization started in 1957, according to analyst John McCown.

“Since Covid, they’re making billions and billions of dollars,” ILA President Harold Daggett told CNN. “But they don’t want to share it. They’d rather see a fully automated terminal right here on the East Coast so they can make more money.”

The union says it has continued to talk with the USMX, just not in face-to-face negotiations. Ahead of the strike, it said management knows what it is demanding in order to get a deal done and that any strike would be management’s fault, not the union’s. It said its demands are reasonable given the level of profits in the shipping industry.

Daggett praised the Biden administration’s efforts, in particular Acting Secretary of Labor Julie Su, whom he called “terrific.” “She’s knocking down doors. She’s trying to stop this. She’s trying to get us… fair negotiations,” Daggett said. “It’s the companies that don’t want to sit here and be fair. So that’s why we’re out here fighting for our livelihood.”