The president of the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) dismissed concerns that the port workers’ strike could affect the lives of American citizens.
In an interview with Fox News, when asked if he was “worried that this strike was going to hurt the everyday American,” Harold Daggett, who serves as the International President of the ILA, explained that “people never” cared about the port workers until they “realized” that the chain of supply was being broken.
“Now you start to realize who the longshoremen are,” Daggett explained. “People never gave a s**t about us until now, when they finally realized that the chain is being broke now. Cars won’t come in, food won’t come in, clothing won’t come in. You know how many people depend on our jobs? Half the world.”
Port workers represented by the ILA, who work at ports located along the East Coast and the Gulf of Mexico, went on strike as of Tuesday as their labor contract expired, and the ILA and the United States Maritime Alliance (USMX) failed to reach an agreement
Under the old contract, about 25,000 port workers were covered.
Roughly 85,000 longshoremen working along the “Atlantic and Gulf Coasts, Great Lakes, major U.S. rivers, Puerto Rico and Eastern Canada, and the Bahamas,” are represented by the ILA, according to the union’s website.
While the USMX reportedly offered a deal of a 50 percent increase in wages for workers “over six years,” the ILA turned this down, a source familiar with the negotiations told CNBC.
Daggett issued a statement explaining that they were seeking a “$5 an hour increase in wages for each of the six years of a new ILA-USMX Master Contract,” as well as demanding there be “no automation or semi-automation,” according to the outlet.
Johnnie Dixon, who serves as the president of the ILA in Fort Lauderdale, explained to CBS News that longshoremen “top out at $39 an hour” and added that they were seeking a 77 percent pay raise “over the next seven years.”
