ILA Strike – Secretary of Labor’s Unbelievable Statement About Negotiations
On Tuesday, the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) went on strike, shutting down all of America’s East and Gulf Coast ports.
Acting Secretary of Labor Julie Su issued a brief and, frankly, poor statement on the situation. Situation is too encompassing of a term. The statement showed no concern for or understanding of the situation. The statement was about negotiations. And really, it was an attack on the party that has been actually trying to negotiate in the lead-up to the strike. It seems like the Biden/Harris Administration is trying to win the presidential election with union votes alone and could care less about the damage the ILA strike does to the economy.
I’ll give you the whole statement for you to judge for yourself. Then I’ll break down the problems with the statement. If you think I’m wrong, let me know in the comments.
Full Statement from Secretary of Labor Julie Su
WASHINGTON – Acting Secretary of Labor Julie Su issued the following statement on negotiations between USMX and the International Longshoremen’s Association:
“Over the last week and more, I have spent hours on the phone and in meetings with the parties urging them to find a way to reach a fair contract. This country’s port workers put their health and safety on the line to keep working through the pandemic so we could get the goods we needed as COVID raged and these workers will help communities recover from the devastating effects of Hurricane Helene. As these companies make billions and their CEOs bring in millions of dollars in compensation per year, they have refused to put an offer on the table that reflects workers’ sacrifice and contributions to their employer’s profits.
“The American economy has defied all expectations thanks to the Biden-Harris administration’s leadership. There is room for both companies and their workers to prosper. The parties need to get back to the negotiating table, and that must begin with these giant shipping magnates acknowledging that if they can make record profits, their workers should share in that economic success.”
Agency: Office of the Secretary
Date: October 1, 2024
Release: Number 24-2087-NAT
Breakdown of the Statement
Since the statement is short, I can go right through it line by line. I’ll put Secretary Su’s words in bold and then make comments.
“Over the last week and more, I have spent hours on the phone and in meetings with the parties…”
This is very unspecific. Last week and more… Days more? Weeks more? Months more? Hours… How many hours? 2? 7? 20? Even a general feel would be nice. Few? A Handful? Several? Many? We don’t know how much time or over what kind of period the secretary spent in meetings with the parties before the strike happened. If it wasn’t much, it would be downright negligent. If there was a great deal, Secretary Su and the Biden/Harris Administration would show themselves as very poor negotiators or mediators.
The Biden/Harris Administration has been near silent in the lead-up to the strike despite letters from retailers, shippers, and even congress members begging the White House to do something to get negotiations happening before the long-laid-out strike deadline hit. Reportedly through that time, the administration had not been very actively involved trying to see the parties get a deal done. That would make me lean toward negligence in just allowing things to reach disastrous port shutdowns with little effort to prevent it. However, the next lines from her statement make me think Secretary Su and the Biden/Harris Administration are poor negotiators/mediators. I haven’t ruled out the the possibility they are both negligent and bad negotiators/mediators.
… urging them to find a way to reach a fair contract.
This would seem fine if it didn’t ring of ILA rhetoric. The parties should reach a fair contract for both sides. However, because Su’s words mirror ILA rhetoric about fair wages, it makes one suspect the Biden/Harris Administration is just taking the side of the union rather than setting itself up to mediate fairly between the parties. Unfortunately, Secretary Su’s words through the statement will confirm those suspicions.
This country’s port workers put their health and safety on the line to keep working through the pandemic so we could get the goods we needed as COVID raged and these workers will help communities recover from the devastating effects of Hurricane Helene.
In the last post, I wrote about President Biden letting no disaster go to waste when he brought up Hurricane Helene in talking about the ILA strike. Secretary Su really doubles down on the rather disgusting political axiom with the hurricane and COVID. Even CNN had to point out that “the strike will not delay the vast majority of supplies getting to hurricane victims, because few if any relief supplies would be arriving in the hurricane-battered Southeast via ship.” Maybe Secretary Su means that striking dockworkers will have time, when they’re not picketing, to help their communities recover.
With the contract that was negotiated last year on the opposite side of the country, International Longshore & Warehouse Union (ILWU) members received an enormous bonus for their work through COVID. Bringing up the pandemic seems to only be promoting the demands of the union side in this contract dispute. Praising the union and its members wouldn’t be a bad thing if it was done evenhandedly with praising or bringing up the importance of the employers as well. Secretary Su, in line with the Biden/Harris administration, has clearly chosen the side and rhetoric of the union.
This sentence could just be translated as: “Yay union! Union members, vote for Harris.”
As these companies make billions and their CEOs bring in millions of dollars in compensation per year, they have refused to put an offer on the table that reflects workers’ sacrifice and contributions to their employer’s profits.
If she hadn’t already, here’s where Secretary Su goes too far. She lays attack on the employer side of the negotiations. The ILA is the party that cancelled negotiations in June and refused to reschedule for the parties to even come to the table. The USMX implored the union to reschedule and negotiate. Additionally, employers called the union repeatedly with wage offers, offering more than a 32% raise and eventually increasing it to a 50% raise over the length of the contract before the union went on strike. A 50% raise may seem unfair to ILA members, who make well more than the average American already, but the USMX has at least been actively making offers and trying to get the union to negotiate. Rather than negotiating, the union is holding the U.S. economy ransom with the aid now of Biden/Harris Administration political rhetoric.
As for profits and compensation, carriers among the employers at the ports have had years with profits in the billions. They’ve also had years of billion-dollar losses. I’m sure there are CEOs of these companies making millions as Secretary Su points out. However, she doesn’t bring up ILA President Harold Daggett’s $728,000 salary, according to Politico, or his 76-foot yacht he recently sold, or his homes in New Jersey and Florida worth (in 2023) 2.36 million and $1.38 million, respectively, according to Newsweek. I wonder why not.
The American economy has defied all expectations thanks to the Biden-Harris administration’s leadership.
Secretary Su is probably right here. Who could have expected the economy to do so poorly under Biden/Harris Administration? Inflation has been shocking throughout the Biden/Harris term, though maybe it shouldn’t have been with the trillion dollar bills they helped push through or the executive orders hindering U.S. oil production or their failed border policies that streamed millions of illegal immigrants into the country and put additional strain on the economy.
The Biden/Harris Administration does like to pretend jobs recovered by the reopening of the locked-down economy were new jobs they created. That kind of claim should have been expected, but even that job recovery was slower than it should have been, maybe because Democrats tried to keep everything locked down as long as possible. I’m sure Su is trying to say the Biden/Harris Administration leadership helped the economy. Well, Biden/Harris certainly did bolster Big Pharma as the administration pushed for anyone who refused to have a COVID vaccine injected into them to be fired. But if the Biden/Harris Administration did so well on the economy, who would have expected, because of how tough the economy has been for people under this administration’s term, the number one issue for voters going into the presidential election would be the economy?
There is room for both companies and their workers to prosper.
This cements that Secretary Su is putting a positive spin on the economy. It also seems to be implying the companies are not allowing their workers to prosper. What’s not implied is that these well-paid workers are shutting down a crucial part of their employers’ businesses and a crucial piece of the U.S. economy at the same time. Do all the families struggling from paycheck to paycheck in this economy have room for more inflation, endangered jobs, and possible shortages from this strike?
The parties need to get back to the negotiating table…
That’s what literally everyone except the ILA has been saying, especially the USMX.
… and that must begin with these giant shipping magnates acknowledging that if they can make record profits, their workers should share in that economic success.
This final statement is incredible. The workers do share in that economic success with jobs that pay much more than the average American worker makes plus excellent benefits and container royalties on top. Getting back to the negotiating table needs two sides willing to sit down and negotiate. Secretary Su and the Biden/Harris Administration demands negotiating starts when the employer side acknowledges the rhetoric of the union. The administration has disqualified itself from mediating negotiations, showing itself to be completely on the side of one party and against the other.
Perhaps the plan from the Biden/Harris Administration is to intimidate and pressure the employers to give the union 100% of what it wants, no matter how much more expensive it makes it to move goods through the port, no matter how much inflationary pressure that may put on the economy, no matter how long the ports have to be shut down, and how much damage is done to the U.S. economy.
I hope the Biden/Harris Administration really thinks whatever union votes it can keep because of this are worth it.
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