YGTBFKM Toons: The Union Boss Got An Offer He Couldn’t Refuse

On Tuesday, it seemed as though that Harold J. Daggett, the President of the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) was a union boss who didn’t give a sh*t about what anybody thought of him…except “his men.”

After all, he had threatened to “cripple” the U.S. economy, and appeared fully prepared to do so when he called a dockworkers’ strike all along the East and Gulf Coast ports early Tuesday morning.

However, by Thursday evening, Daggett and his fellow ILA bosses called off the strike by announcing a contract extension until January 15th that included a six-year agreement on wages. It also put off the more contentious issue of automation to be resolved by January 15th—well after the November elections and a week before President Joe Biden leaves office—or, if it’s not resolved, the ILA could strike again (in the dead of winter).

“That outcome defuses a political time bomb for Democrats, especially Vice President Kamala Harris, who needs all the union support she can get but could not afford a prolonged strike that would have soured voters on the economy,” notes Politico.

According to the Washington Post:

With the nation’s economy — and much of the president’s legacy — hanging in the balance just weeks before the election, White House chief economist Lael Brainard told management that they needed to come up with a new offer to the striking longshoremen. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg stressed that Hurricane Helene magnified the importance of a deal. Labor Secretary Julie Su expressed optimism that the union would agree to a temporary extension if raises were included.

[snip]

Less than 12 hours later, White House officials were celebrating a deal to reopen the ports until January — postponing the issue until after this November’s election. The agreement provides collective if temporary relief to skittish Democrats from the White House to Capitol Hill, while buoying Vice President Kamala Harris along with Friday’s strong jobs report.

To their credit, this was a very shrewd maneuver by Biden’s staff.

If the ILA and USMX don’t agree by January 15th, it gives Biden the ability to invoke a Taft-Hartley injunction (or not) without political consequence. If Kamala Harris is the President-Elect, she can (as she has throughout her campaign) pretend it wasn’t her doing. If Donald Trump is the President-Elect, Biden can leave office without invoking Taft-Hartley and force Trump to do it, angering the unions.

Although the union accepted a 62% increase over six years, if automation was the other driving issue of the ILA’s strike, Mr. Daggett lost his mojo and his momentum and that has not gone unnoticed.

In a massive betrayal, the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) shut down the powerful strike by 45,000 dockworkers Thursday afternoon.

[snip]

As with the United Auto Workers’ limited “stand-up strike” last year and the Teamsters union’s empty “strike ready” campaign at UPS last year, the stage is being set for massive automation-driven layoffs. Bureaucrats from each union likewise claimed “historic victories” on wages and other issues, only to allow thousands to begin losing their jobs within weeks of ratification.

[snip]

On Wednesday, Biden, who banned a strike on the railroads two years ago, called the dock strike a “man-made disaster” and called on the union and port operators to “get this strike done.” This amounted to marching orders to the ILA bureaucrats that they could not allow the strike to go on any longer.

While the strike “also put a spotlight on Daggett, the union’s fiery leader, who had been threatening disruptions to the supply chain for over a year and attacked the shipping companies based in Europe and Asia,” Daggett is now free (at least for now) of the criticism he faced for his enormous salary (for a union boss) and lavish lifestyle.

It is quite possible that, before the moratorium on an ILA strike expires on January 15th, Daggett decides to retire, leaving the ILA’s future–and the possibility of Biden invoking a Taft-Hartley injunction on his way out the door–in his son Dennis Daggett’s hand.

In the long run, with the issue of automation still looming large, it appears that the “union boss” was not willing to “cripple” the economy after all. He was made an offer he couldn’t refuse…and he took it.

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