The International Longshoremen’s Association is launching the first strike of its kind in almost 50 years.
Dockworkers from Maine to Texas have walked out on the job at all East Coast and Gulf Coast ports, launching the first strike of its kind in almost 50 years. The International Longshoremen’s Association represents some 45,000 workers at 36 ports who are demanding higher wages and guarantees that jobs won’t be automated.
This is Daniel Amaly, a worker who joined picket lines this morning at Port Elizabeth outside New York City after the ILA’s contract with shipping companies expired.The ILA is fighting for respect, appreciation and fairness in a world in which corporations are dead set on replacing hard-working people with automation. Employers push automation under the guise of safety, but it is really about cutting labor costs to increase their already exceptionally high profits.
And one of the things they’re very concerned about is the push — this is a historic push; it goes back to the beginning of container shipping in the 1950s — to replace them with robots, other forms of automation. Robots don’t go on strike. They don’t have sick kids to take care of at home. They don’t need time off with their families.
If this thing goes on, we’re likely to see serious congestion off the West Coast ports similar to what we saw during the pandemic. You know, container ships turned into floating warehouses. And we are likely to see product shortages and potentially inflation, if this goes on for a few weeks.The president of the International Longshoremen’s Association, Harold Daggett, endorsed Biden in the 2020 election, but, more recently, accused Biden of, quote, “not fighting for us.
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