A major strike is on the horizon for thousands of maritime workers, posing a threat to East Coast ports responsible for billions of dollars of goods.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The International Longshoremen\u2019s Association (ILA), the largest union of maritime workers in North America, has vocalized plans to go on strike at all of its Atlantic and Gulf Coast ports Oct. 1 if a new contract agreement can\u2019t be reached with the United States Maritime Alliance (USMX). The union is arguing for better wages and continued protections against automation and new technology in its terminals. <\/p>\n
\u201cA sleeping giant is ready to roar on Tuesday, October 1, 2024, if a new Master Contract Agreement is not in place,\u201d ILA President Harold J. Daggett said in a statement Monday.\u00a0 \u201cMy members have been preparing for over a year for that possibility of a strike.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to a statement from USMX, negotiations with the ILA began in the last week of May. Now, the union\u2019s current six-year contract is less than two weeks away from expiring.<\/p>\n
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey told NBC News that while it is not at the table for the ILA-USMX negotiations, the agency is \u201cclosely monitoring developments and remain hopeful.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cFor the over 600,000 regional jobs our port supports and the $240 billion in goods moved through here each year, we urge both sides to find common ground and keep the cargo flowing for the good of the national economy,\u201d Steve Burns, a spokesperson for the Port Authority, added in a statement.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The ILA has argued that the USMX is denying workers fair contracts with adequate wage raises and proper benefits.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cUSMX claims to offer industry-leading wages, however, their interpretation of \u2018leading wages\u2019 is polar opposite to ours,\u201d a statement from the ILA on Monday said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cOur members are struggling to pay their mortgages and rent, car payments, groceries, utility bills, taxes, and in some cases, their children\u2019s education. USMX\u2019s corporate greed has made them delusional \u2014 profits over people. They have taken advantage of a low entry-wage and a tiered progression system for thirty years,\u201d the statement continued.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The union said its rank-and-file members will no longer accept contracts that include small wage increases of a dollar or less. It argued further that for more than three decades, ILA workers only saw annual wage increases of 2.02% per year on average \u2014 with some years having wage raise percentages of zero, according to the ILA statement.\u00a0<\/p>\n
USMX declined to comment on any of the specifics of the current or past contracts.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cSince USMX would rather leak our wage demands to the media, instead of reporting on the record billion-dollar profits of their member companies, I can say \u2018yes, we are looking for a much higher percent increase in our wages,\u2019\u201d Daggett said in a statement.\u00a0<\/p>\n
According to a Sept. 5 statement from USMX, the current offer to the union includes \u201cindustry leading wage increases,\u201d and a retention of the existing technology language in the current agreement, which the alliance argues already formalizes that there will be no fully-automated terminals and no implementation of semi-automated equipment without agreement by both parties. It also boasts higher starting wages, health care coverage and increases to employer retirement contributions.\u00a0<\/p>\n
USMX has released several statements since the initial bargaining meeting in late May, stating that the agency is committed to having negotiations with the ILA.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have tremendous respect for the ILA and its members, but it is disappointing that we have reached this point where the ILA is unwilling to reopen dialogue unless all of its demands are met,\u201d said the USMX\u2019s most recent statement on Monday. \u201cThe only way to resolve this impasse is to resume negotiations, which we are willing to do at any time.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
However, the ILA has said repeatedly that the USMX\u2019s statements are \u201cpropaganda,\u201d and \u201cdesigned to mislead and divide\u201d the union.\u00a0<\/p>\n
According to negotiation updates from USMX, the ILA has not returned to the bargaining table since mid-July. In all of its updates since July 18, USMX has maintained that the union refuses to return to negotiations. <\/p>\n
The ILA did not respond to a request for comment on the USMX\u2019s stance that the union won\u2019t meet to reopen negotiations. <\/p>\n
The ILA and USMX will need to agree upon a new master contract by Oct. 1, before the current six-year contract expires and the ILA pledges to go on strike. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
A major strike is on the horizon for thousands of maritime workers, posing a threat to East Coast ports responsible for billions of dollars of goods.\u00a0 The International Longshoremen\u2019s Association (ILA), the largest union of maritime workers in North America, has vocalized plans to go on strike at all of its Atlantic and Gulf Coast […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":9926,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9925","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9925","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9925"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9925\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}