The International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) called out the member companies of its maritime employers for generating record profits days after calling off talks for a new union contract.
According to the ILA, the “enormous” profits and sales raked in by the United States Maritime Alliance (USMX) has the union demanding wage hikes “commensurate with these revenues.”
Reports from CNBC have indicated that the ILA is targeting a wage increase larger than the 32 percent that was negotiated by its West Coast counterpart—the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU)—in its six-year contract signed and ratified last summer. Last July, ILA leadership indicated that the union’s Great Lakes District already secured a 40 percent increase in wages and benefits for a new six-year deal.
The current ILA contract has union members making a range of $20-$37 an hour, CNBC said.
The union, which walked away from master contract negotiations for 45,000 dockworkers across 36 ports from Maine to Texas on Monday, has insisted that the members will go on strike if a new deal is not in place by its Sept. 30 expiration date.
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“The threat of a coast-wide strike on Oct. 1, 2024, is becoming more likely as USMX and its member companies continue to drag their feet,” said ILA president Harold J. Daggett, in a statement.
In the latest snag in ILA’s contract dispute with the USMX, the union is largely upset with the deployment of an automation project by Maersk in Alabama’s Port of Mobile, as well as an increasing number of non-union IT personnel based in an inland port in Charlotte, N.C.
The ILA said it will not meet with USMX until the “auto gate” issue in Mobile is resolved.
“Companies like Maersk are repeatedly trying to eliminate ILA jobs with the introduction of automation while raking in billions of dollars,” Daggett said. “They are in for a rude awakening. This is our time, and the ILA will demand our ILA longshore workers get big boosts in their wages.”
As part of the negotiations, the ILA appears to be ramping up its rhetoric, saying it intends to “expose how their direct employers and ocean carriers, part of USMX, are acting deceitfully.”
According to ILA brass, USMX members are exploring various methods to sidestep the union’s traditional roles, thereby violating the current master contract. Specifically, the union accuses USMX members of employing certain technologies to circumvent clerical tasks, hiding these changes under the guise of technological upgrades that effectively reduce or eliminate jobs traditionally held by ILA clerks.
“The carriers and terminal operators are constantly undermining our collective bargaining agreement, then hide behind people within their companies for not knowing the contract,” said an ILA spokesperson.
The union said maintenance employees have had similar accusations levied against their counterparts, highlighting friction between the ILA and USMX ocean carriers after the shipping companies withdrew from the chassis providing business in 2009.
“Since the advent of containerization in the late 1960s, the ILA has been responsible for the maintenance and repair of these chassis,” the union said. “This sudden shift has raised alarms within the union, which is now determined to preserve and protect its longstanding work jurisdiction.”
The USMX consists of major container shipping liners including Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC), Maersk, Cosco Shipping, Hapag-Lloyd, CMA CGM, Evergreen and Zim, as well as terminal operators stationed across the East Coast and Gulf Coast ports.
The union cited financial numbers from 2022, when supply chains worldwide experienced congestion amid then-record demand for goods, as examples of where the USMX has fallen short in meeting wage demands.
MSC reported revenues of $28.2 billion for the 12-month period ending Sept. 30, 2022, but the ILA questions the figure, saying that this is a low number because the privately held ocean carrier doesn’t have to disclose earnings results like a publicly owned company. Maersk generated revenue of more than $82 billion in the period. Cosco’s revenue in 2022 totaled $63.22 billion, the ILA pointed out.
“When negotiations resume, the union expects to demand salaries and other benefits for ILA members that are as lucrative as the profits of USMX member companies,” said the release.
The union and its employers started regional, local talks in late 2022 with the aim of securing an early agreement for East Coast and Gulf Coast port dockworkers. But the negotiations stalled a year ago and were in limbo until Daggett said they should resume in February.
In the lead-up to the master contract negotiations, the ILA has reigned victorious across multiple labor disputes at its ports. Last year, the union won a years-long legal battle last year that enabled New Jersey to withdraw from a dual-state pact with New York, dissolving a commission that Daggett argued had interfered in bargaining rights of port workers.
And this February, the ILA won litigation that will effectively force the Port of Charleston to employ more unionized dockworkers at a new container-handling terminal.