THE International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) dockers union in the United States has agreed to suspend its strike of over 30 ports on the East Coast and Gulf Coast to go back into negotiatiotions with management.
The ILA said that it would reconvene the strikes if dock managers do not put in place their demands.
The East Coast and Gulf Coast dockers began their first large-scale strike in nearly 50 years on Tuesday, halting the flow of about half the country’s ocean shipping, after negotiations for a new labour contract broke down over wages.
The strike blocked everything from food to car shipments across dozens of ports from Maine to Texas, a disruption economists claimed would cost the economy billions of dollars a day, threaten jobs and stoking inflation.
The ILA which represents over 45,000 port workers, previously negotiated with the United States Maritime Alliance (USMX) employer group for a new six-year contract ahead of a midnight Monday deadline.
The ILA said in a statement it shut down all ports from Maine to Texas at 12:01am Eastern Time after rejecting USMX’s previous proposal, adding that the offer fell ‘far short of the demands of its members to ratify a new contract’.
The strike, the ILA’s first major stoppage since 1977, is worrying businesses that rely on ocean shipping to export their good or secure imports.
It affects 36 ports – including New York, Baltimore and Houston – that handle a range of containerised goods from bananas to clothing to cars.
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg on Tuesday called on the ocean carriers to withdraw surcharges they may impose in the wake of the strike.
The walkout could cost the American economy over $5 billion a day, the JP Morgan bank analysts estimated.
French shipping group CMA CGM, the world’s third-largest container shipper, on Tuesday issued a force majeure notice over the strike, and said it may charge additional shipping fees for delayed vessels.
- Meanwhile, Boeing has cut health care coverage for 33,000 of its workers and their families as machinists union strikes continue to halt production in the Pacific Northwest.
A press release from the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) emailed on Tuesday that workers were informed of the cuts by US Postal Service notifications to their homes.
The move is being criticised by striking union members as a ‘misstep’ by Boeing.
IAM International President Brian Bryant said: ‘Boeing executives cannot make up their mind.
‘One day, they say they want to win back the trust of their workforce.
‘The next moment, on the heels of many recent missteps by their labour relations team, Boeing executives are now tripping over dollars to get pennies by cutting a benefit that is essential to the lives of children and families, but is nothing compared to the cost of the larger problems Boeing executives have created for their workforce and for the company itself over the last ten years.
‘Their missteps are costing not just the workers but our nation.’
Bryant called for action by Boeing’s new CEO, Kelly Ortberg.
He continued: ‘It’s time for the new CEO to truly engage at the proposal-based level and to take the reins from his subordinates who are fumbling critical decisions like this one.
‘There is no reason the health benefits question could not have been punted on to allow more time for negotiations at the table – it is an unnecessary and cruel decision by Boeing executives that will cost the company much more than it saves them, both short-term and long-term.’
Jon Holden, president of IAM District 751, said his fellow union members, who have been on strike since September 13th, were prepared for this kind of treatment.
Holden said: ‘It’s been a long couple of decades with many threats to their livelihoods and this was an expected action in line with this management team.
‘Over the years, members are often impacted by ill-advised decisions from the C-Suite, yet we stand strong and confident in our efforts to raise the standard for everyone.’
- Nearly 2,700 health care workers at Michigan Medicine voted over the last two weeks to authorise the issuance of notice for a one-day strike.
Represented by SEIU Healthcare Michigan, over 98 per cent of those workers who cast ballots indicated approval for the union’s negotiating committee to issue the notice.
Kasey Helton, an admissions triage associate said: ‘We had our retirement frozen during Covid and we had our raises frozen for two years during the Covid-19 pandemic, and we did that willingly so that we could deliver for our patients.
‘But now we’re in a time of institutional gains, and it’s time to restore those benefits to make support workers that are the foundation of this team, to make us whole, to restore what we sacrificed, so that we can achieve a fair contract along with all the other workers that have that today.’
Gabriella Jones-Casey, director of strategic campaigns for SEIU Healthcare Michigan, said the strike authorisation should serve as a wake-up call to health system administrators that the people they rely on are struggling.
Jones-Casey said: ‘I think at this moment they have an opportunity to do the right thing and ensure that we don’t have workers having to sell plasma to pay their bills, to keep their lights on.
‘That we don’t have workers who are working 15, 20, 30, 40 hours of overtime to be able to keep up with the cost of living at a multi-billion dollar organisation.
‘I think it is a fundamental problem when you have workers who are providing exceptional care and talk about how University of Michigan is a premier institution, and thus they should set the standard much higher for the workers that actually do the work that make them able to say that they are a premier institution for providing of health care services.’
- The International Brotherhood of Teamsters announced that the union has grown by an astounding 50,000 new members in the last two-and-a-half years, a direct result of key investments in strategic organising under Teamsters General President Sean O’Brien and General Secretary-Treasurer Fred Zuckerman since March 2022.
‘The labour movement today is more robust than it’s been in generations, and workers in nearly every sector are showing some real backbone by becoming Teamsters.
- Postal workers in 90 cities, including Denver, held Day of Action rallies on Tuesday.
The public has a right to prompt, reliable service, according to the American Postal Workers Union, but say they’re not getting that service apart from ballots and election mail.
Now union workers are rallying and asking for improved staffing and customer service to provide first class service all year round.
The APWU said, while the number of packages handled by postal workers has increased over the years, the number of clerks has declined by over 10,000 over the past 20 years.
The APWU is also demanding greater transparency, saying there’s also concern over the Postal Board of Governors over limiting public comments in its meetings.
With mail-in ballots getting sent out soon, the APWU said, it shows that items can be sent in a timely manner and wants that to be the standard for anything from the delivery of prescription drugs to personal mail.
