Port Workers Go On Strike
Thousands of dockworkers at ports from New England to Texas went on strike just after midnight on Tuesday as they rally for higher pay and more job security.
The work stoppage, the first at East and Gulf Coast ports since 1977, follows a lengthy impasse in labor talks between the International Longshoremen's Association (ILA) and the United States Maritime Alliance (USMX), a shipping industry group representing terminal operators and ocean carriers.
The strike was expected to involve 25,000 workers, according to USMX, and close 14 ports: Baltimore; Boston; Charleston, South Carolina; Jacksonville, Florida; Miami; Houston; Mobile, Alabama; New Orleans; New York/New Jersey; Norfolk, Virginia; Philadelphia; Savannah, Georgia; Tampa, Florida; and Wilmington, Delaware.
"USMX brought on this strike when they decided to hold firm to foreign owned Ocean Carriers earning billion-dollar profits at United States ports, but not compensate the American ILA longshore workers who perform the labor that brings them their wealth," ILA President Harold Daggett said in a statement posted on social media. "We are prepared to fight as long as necessary, to stay out on strike for whatever period of time it takes, to get the wages and protections against automation our ILA members deserve."
The ILA is demanding sizable wage hikes and a complete ban on the use of automated cranes, gates and container-moving trucks in unloading or loading freight.
The union said it "shut down all ports from Maine to Texas ... as tens of thousands of ILA rank-and-file members began setting up picket lines at waterfront facilities up and down the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts" after the last USMX offer "fell far short of what ILA rank-and-file members are demanding in wages and protections against automation."
The Port of New York and New Jersey quickly said it was closing numerous facilities Tuesday due to the strike. The Port of Virginia did the same.
Workers began picketing at the Port of Philadelphia shortly after midnight, walking in a circle at a rail crossing outside the port while chanting "No work without a fair contract," the Associated Press reported, adding that the ILA had message boards on the side of a truck saying, "Automation Hurts Families: ILA Stands For Job Protection."
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