The International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) has settled its East and Gulf Coast contract shortly before a January 15 strike deadline. The deal locks in a 62 percent wage increase over six years and expands existing automation protections. Workers will also see larger “container royalty” payouts.
The agreement will go first to a body of ILA delegates, and then members will vote. The full agreement is not yet public.
ILA members won the big wage promise after striking for three days in October, shutting down container shipping on the East and Gulf Coasts in their first coastwide strike since 1977. But the twenty thousand workers went back to work with the major question of automation still on the table.
Further negotiations broke off in November, when the union and the port employers, organized under the US Maritime Alliance (USMX), deadlocked over the introduction of new technology to automate work. Employers, flush with cash from a recent shipping boom, seek to invest it in automated equipment to reduce human control and blunt the effect of job actions.
The sides reconvened less than two weeks before the strike deadline and quickly inked a tentative agreement.
Around the world, automation threatens to undermine the power of longshore workers, who are often highly organized and control an important choke point in global trade.
Strikes, lockouts, and slowdowns can be extremely costly. Longshore workers in the United States and elsewhere have used this leverage to secure relatively high wage rates.
Port automation isn’t all or nothing —…
Auteur: Joe DeManuelle-Hall
