This is Going to Get Interesting

Talks between International Longshoreman's Association (ILA) and the East Coast port operators have broken down, and the current contract ends, and a strike could commence, on January 15.

The ILA walked away from negotiations with USMX scheduled to last for four days after just two days.

In a statement issued on 13 November ILA said, that the first day and half of talks had been productive. “However, late yesterday, talks broke down when management introduce their intent to implement semi-automation – a direct contradiction to their opening statement where they assured us that neither full nor semi-automation would be on the table. They claimed their focus was on modernisation, not automation."

The USMX similarly said initial talks had been positive but were unable to make progress on a range of technology. “Unfortunately, the ILA is insisting on an agreement that would move our industry backward by restricting future use of technology that has existed in some of our ports for nearly two decades – making it impossible to evolve to meet the nation’s future supply chain demands,” USMX said.

I think that a strike is likely, though I also think that Trump will go full Reagan/PATCO on the strikers.

Labor unions have experience some success lately and Donald Trump and Evil Minions™ will be determined to roll that back.

Missed in the Run Up to the Election

Boeing machinists have voted to end their strike.

It's a decent contract, though I would have liked to see them get their defined benefit retirement package back:

The Boeing strike is over after 53 days.

Machinists union members voted Monday to approve the company’s most recent contract offer, enabling Boeing to restart work at assembly plants in Everett and Renton and at parts plants throughout the region.

Results announced late Monday showed the offer was approved with 59% of ballots cast in favor. 

………

The 33,000 Machinists in Boeing’s Puget Sound factories walked out Sept. 13, kicking off a strike that has left the company’s factories sitting idle and its financial position increasingly precarious.

Before Monday’s vote, Machinists had rejected two offers from Boeing as they pushed for greater concessions on wages, which have failed to keep up as living costs skyrocketed in the Seattle area over the past decade. The latest contract offer, put forward by Boeing on Thursday, included a 38% general wage increase over the next four years, which compounds to roughly 43% over the life of the agreement.

And still only 59% of union members voted to support this.

………

Under the latest proposal, wages increase 13% in the first year, then 9%, 9% and 7% in subsequent years.

The Machinists also get a $12,000 cash bonus. That sum is a combination of the previous offer’s $7,000 ratification bonus and one-time $5,000 contribution to 401(k) retirement accounts.

The offer did not restore the defined benefit pension plan. Compared with the prior contract that expired this year, the latest proposal would bump up the Boeing matching contribution to the 401(k) to a maximum of 12% of annual income. That’s unchanged from the previous offer. 

Unfortunately, they still have management that will f%$# the workers, the customers and safety

And the Strike is Over Suspended

Following an improved offer on wages, the International Longshoremen’s Association has agreed to suspend its strike until January while further negotiations continue.

Basically, I think that the United States Maritime Alliance expected Biden to invoke Taft-Hartley to force the longshoremen back to work, and Bidens strident refusal to do so, basically f%$# no, forced them back to the bargaining table:

The International Longshoremen’s Association agreed on Thursday to suspend a strike that closed down major ports on the East and Gulf Coasts. The move followed an improved wage offer from port employers.

The strike, which the dockworkers’ union began on Tuesday, threatened to weigh on the economy five weeks before national elections. Employers, represented by the United States Maritime Alliance, have offered to increase wages by 62 percent over the course of a new six-year contract, according to a person familiar with negotiations who did not want to be identified because the talks were continuing. That increase is lower than what the union had initially asked for, but much higher than the alliance’s earlier offer.

As an FYI, that's about a 10.1% a year increase per year when you figure in compounding.

In a statement, the union said that it had reached “a tentative agreement on wages” and that its 45,000 members would go back to work, with the current contract extended until Jan. 15. The union said it was returning to the bargaining table “to negotiate all other outstanding issues.” The alliance issued a similar statement.

The agreement came after the White House pressed both sides to reach a deal to end the strike, the union’s first full-scale walkout since 1977. The wage increase is a clear victory for the I.L.A. and its combative president, Harold J. Daggett, a 78-year-old, third-generation dockworker who has led the union since 2011.

 ………

 A 62 percent increase would raise the top longshoremen’s wage to just over $63 per hour at the end of a new six-year contract, from today’s $39 per hour. And at $63 an hour, the wages of East and Gulf Coast longshoremen would slightly exceed those that will be earned by West Coast longshoremen, who belong to a different union, at the end of their contract in 2027.

In the resumed talks, the issue of how much automation can occur at the ports could divide the sides. The union has also been pressing for improved retirement benefits.

Another potential sticking point is the pay of longshoremen who are just starting out and don’t earn the top wage rate. Mr. Daggett’s son, Dennis A. Daggett, a senior official at the I.L.A., said in an interview on Tuesday on a picket line in Bayonne, N.J., that the union wanted to get higher wages for less experienced members.

This is a good thing, though I would have preferred that the union suspend the strike for a shorter period. If Trump wins, they will have to conclude negotiations with the certainty of a Taft-Hartley back to work order on January 21.

It's On

For the first time in 47 years, Biden has flatly ruled out invoking Taft-Hartley to stop the strike, and is accusing the shipping companies, particularly foreign ones, as profiteering: 

Earlier today, over 45,000 members of the International Longshoremen's Association (ILA) went on strike against the United States Maritime  Alliance(USMX), an association of various shipping employers dominated by multinational shippers.

The strike was the first time that workers in East Coast ports went on strike since 1977.

Unlike previous decades, when the presidential administration would invoke Taft-Hartley to stop a strike, the Biden Administration has vowed not to do this.

"There's collective bargaining, and I don't believe in Taft-Hartley," Biden told reporters on Monday.

………

"We're gonna win this f%$#ing thing," said ILA President Harold Daggett at a rally of dockworkers earlier today. "Trust me, they can't survive too long and we're gonna get what the f*ck we deserve. Believe me."

(%$# mine)

………

As a Vice President of the ILA, who has been at the table with the port employers, Riley says he is impressed by the way the Biden Administration has handled things.

Biden has publicly called out the port employer association United States Maritime Alliance (USMX), whose board is dominated by foreign-flag carriers Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC), Maersk, CMA CGM, and Cosco Shipping.  

"Now is not the time for ocean carriers to refuse to negotiate a fair wage for these essential workers while raking in record profits," Biden said in a public statement, "My Administration will be monitoring for any price gouging activity that benefits foreign ocean carriers, including those on the USMX board."

Even behind closed doors, Riley says that Biden has applied heavy pressure on the foreign owned carriers at the bargaining table.

Here's hoping that the ILA has the USMX's lunch.

BTW, the New York Times coverage is horrible, with the reporters (and their editors) attempting to portray the longshoremen as pampered princesses.

As Atrios says, that f%$#ing paper. 

No clue about the potential repercussions politically though.

And It Is On

So, following an overwhelming vote against the Boeing offer, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers is on strike.

Heard a bit of coverage on NPR today, and once again, they were subtly anti-union in their slant, as they always are.  Remember that at pledge time. 

The numbers are kind of mind boggling, 94.6% voting to reject the contract, and 96% voting to strike.

The IAM members clearly have no f%$#s left to give.

While a lot of this is about the fact that the last deal was not a good one, there were a lot of concessions, I also think that a lot of this is that the rank and file want to make airliners, and they feel that management is an impediment to their doing so.

Boeing Machinists union members voted Thursday by an overwhelming majority to reject management’s contract offer and go on strike.

Boeing’s 33,000 blue-collar workers were instructed to walk out at 12:01 a.m. Friday and stay out indefinitely.

International Association of Machinists District 751 President Jon Holden, who on Sunday urged members to accept the deal, announced the result to raucous cheers and chants of “Strike! Strike! Strike!” to about 80 Machinists late Thursday at the union headquarters in South Park.

“This is about respect, this is about addressing the past and this is about fighting for our future,” Holden told the crowd. “We strike at midnight.”

He said 94.6% voted to reject the contract and 96% voted to strike, more than the two-thirds majority required by union rules to authorize a walkout.

At a news conference after the announcement, Holden said “I’m proud of our members, proud of them for standing up and fighting for more, for each other, for their families, for the community.”

………

Even before Holden delivered the result, a team of union officials outside was busily cutting holes in large metal barrels, carving the initials “IAM” into the side of each and adding a cylindrical chimney on top. They’ll be used as “burn barrels,” with fires lit inside to keep pickets warm in the nights and days ahead.

Inside the hall, buckets were filled with premade “On Strike” signs.

Votes were tallied from polling places across the Puget Sound region, as well as in Moses Lake; Portland, Ore.; Victorville, Calif.; and Edwards Air Force Base in Southern California.

………

They did not even accept that Boeing’s stated wage increase was really 25% over four years as the company presented it, since the Machinists at the same time lost their annual bonus, which might have been worth around 4% each of those years.

Do the math:  25% -(4%  x 4 years) = 9% over 4 years.  Given the Federal Reserve's target of 2% inflation, that is awfully close to running in place.

Brandon Phelps, 35, a former U.S. Air Force mechanic who installed weapons systems on Boeing F-15s in Afghanistan and is now a team lead in the Renton 737 assembly plant, said the increase is just over 10% over four years once that takeaway is considered.

Boeing's, has been very conciliatory since the walkout, with its CFO saying that the aerospace giant is eager to return to negotiations.

Boeing's new CEO is actually in the process of moving to the Seattle area, where he bought a home in the tony Broadmoor gated community, a move likely intended  to mollify the palpable anger of Pacific Northwest employees.

The workers are in the drivers seat here.  Boeing has been hemorrhaging cash for some time, and its credit rating is currently Baa3 according to Moody's, one step above junk bond status, so it is NOT in a position to raise money easily or cheaply.

They need to get their assembly lines up and running quickly, particularly the lucrative 737 lines.