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Members of the International Longshoremen's Association strike for higher wages and protection from automation outside Red Hook Terminal in Brooklyn, New York, on Oct. 2, 2024.
Port workers union suspends strike with tentative deal
The International Longshoremen’s Association announced late Thursday it would suspend the two-day-old strike across America’s East and Gulf Coast ports after reaching a tentative deal with their employers.
The deal reportedly includes a 62% rise in wages over the course of six-year contracts, which works out to about a $4 an hour wage increase per year. Workers won’t see the benefit for a few months though, as their current contract, which expires Tuesday, has been extended to Jan. 15, 2025.
President Joe Biden, who had pressed both sides to come to a deal — in no small part because of the political ramifications of a crucial labor strike five weeks before an election — praised the quick resolution. “I congratulate the dockworkers from the ILA, who deserve a strong contract after sacrificing so much to keep our ports open during the pandemic. And I applaud the port operators and carriers who are members of the US Maritime Alliance for working hard and putting a strong offer on the table,” he wrote in a statement.
With the threat of major economic disruptions from the strike now off the table, the week just got a little bit easier for Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign — and with polls showing essentially a dead-heat race, she’ll take any little advantage she can get.
FILE PHOTO: Docked cargo ships are loaded with shipping containers at Port Elizabeth, New Jersey, U.S., July 12, 2023.
Port strike could be huge headache
Workers and port authorities on the East and Gulf Coasts of the United States are headed for a potential strike on Oct. 1, which poses a huge threat to American businesses, and a political problem for the government of Joe Biden.
Businesses have already been scrambling with alternative routes to avoid pre-Christmas supply chain problems as 47,000 eastern dockworkers press their employers for bigger wage packages. A similar showdown on the West Coast ended with a contract last year after workers staged slowdowns but no strike. Now eastern workers are seeking similar gains.
Any work stoppage could cost the US economy up to $5 billion a day, creating an enormous headache for Biden and Democratic nominee Kamala Harris during the crucial last weeks of the presidential campaign. It would put Biden in a difficult position, since he would be loath to either order workers back to the job, which would anger unions, or let the economy go into a headspin, which would anger everyone else.A SAG-AFTRA placard is placed inside a car in Burbank, California, during an earlier strike in 2023.
Video game’s voices want to be heard
The strike, which began on July 26 after a year-and-a-half of negotiations, halted member performances for 10 major studios — Activision Blizzard, Blindlight, Disney, Electronic Arts, Formosa Interactive, Insomniac Games, Llama Productions, Take 2 Productions, VoiceWorks, and WB Games.
The strike demands are similar to what the union asked of film studios in its strike last year: not only higher wages but also protections against the use of artificial intelligence. A deal struck with the film studios late last year allowed the use of AI to produce “digital replicas” of its members — as long as they were properly compensated. Their union didn’t halt AI, they just got their members paid, a result that’ll surely be in the back of negotiators’ minds amid the video game strike.