He should be prepared to stand up to an arrogant union that he’s previously supported, just as Reagan did.
He should be prepared to stand up to an arrogant union that he’s previously supported, just as Reagan did.
A brief strike by the International Longshoremen’s Association in October came after the union had walked away from negotiations in June over the existence of an automated gate at a port in Alabama. A temporary agreement including a 62 percent pay raise over the five-year life of the contract then got them back to work while negotiations restarted, with a new deadline of January 15 to complete a permanent deal. The ILA has now walked away from negotiations once again, with over two months left before that deadline.
The ILA is being flatly unreasonable, and its misbehavior could sour Trump’s first days in office. He should take a page out of Reagan’s playbook and prepare to turn on a union he has in the past supported, for the benefit of the American people as a whole.
Employers’ group USMX made a proposal that would have allowed the use of semi-automated technology at ports. “The ILA recognized this as a renewed attempt by USMX to eliminate ILA jobs with automation and broke off talks,” the union said in a Facebook post on Tuesday, as reported by Bloomberg. “The employers group said it isn’t seeking to use technology that would eliminate jobs, but would rather improve safety and increase efficiency,” Bloomberg reported.
The ILA has a monopoly on longshore labor on the East and Gulf Coasts of the United States, which ILA president Harold Daggett has threatened to use to his advantage. Daggett makes roughly a $1 million per year and has installed two of his sons as vice presidents and his daughter as political director. The union’s ties to organized crime, which have been part of the popular imagination since the 1954 movie On the Waterfront, are not ancient history, with authorities securing several convictions involving ILA members in the past several years.
Because the government permits labor unions to exercise monopoly power, the president also has power under the Taft-Hartley Act to enjoin strikes that would harm the national economy. George W. Bush used that power during a West Coast dockworkers’ strike in 2002. Joe Biden refrained from doing so in the ILA’s case, while publicly siding with the union.
Before any of this, Donald Trump invited Daggett to his home at Mar-a-Lago in November 2023, according to the ILA. “We had a wonderful, productive 90-minute meeting where I expressed to President Trump the threat of automation to American workers,” Daggett said. “President Trump promised to support the ILA in its opposition to automated terminals in the U.S.”
Trump will be inaugurated five days after the new strike deadline. If the ILA does not return to the negotiating table and goes on strike again on January 15, he should make clear that he will end the strike immediately upon assuming office on January 20. The ILA already has a privileged position in labor-relations law, its members make well above the median pay for American workers, and it has already secured a 62 percent pay increase over five years for doing exactly the same work.
As for Trump’s previous comments supporting the ILA’s position, those were made when he was not yet the president. Winning changes things. PATCO, the air-traffic-controllers’ union, endorsed Ronald Reagan for president in 1980. Reagan even wrote a letter to PATCO president Robert Poli in October 1980 in which he said, “I pledge to you that my administration will work very closely with you to bring about a spirit of cooperation between the President and the air traffic controllers.”
Then, PATCO abused its power and harmed the American people with an illegal strike. After a grace period of 48 hours, Reagan terminated the strikers and decertified the union.
ILA members are not government employees, and a strike would not be illegal, but it would be economically harmful, and Trump would have the power to end it under the Taft-Hartley Act. The roughly 40,000 ILA members do not deserve to be privileged above the tens of millions of workers and consumers who would be harmed by shutting down all major Atlantic and Gulf ports.
Biden sided with these bullies and prolonged this conflict. Trump can end it by standing up to an arrogant union that he’s previously supported, just as Reagan did.