Port strikes put Democrats in a bind just weeks ahead of Election Day

WASHINGTON — A dockworkers’ strike threatens to harm shipping, manufacturing, pre-holiday retail inventories — and Vice President Kamala Harris’ bid for the presidency. The International Longshoreman’s Association went on strike at 14 ports along the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico at midnight Tuesday, just hours before Harris’ running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, squares off in a debate in New York with former President Donald Trump’s pick for the No. The dockworkers are demanding a pay raise and restrictions on the use of automation at ports, which they say could lead to job losses. As polls show Harris trailing Trump on the question of who is best suited to handle the economy, the work stoppage puts Democrats in a bind. But, with voters already casting ballots in some states, they can’t afford to alienate union allies — the ILA is getting support from the AFL-CIO, the Teamsters and other labor organizations — by forcing an end to the dispute. Various agency heads briefed President Joe Biden and Harris that the potential for disruption — including in fuel, food and medicine — would be minimal in the short term, the White House said Tuesday. The White House also said Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, acting Labor Secretary Julie Su and national economic adviser Lael Brainard are in direct contact with the USMX and the ILA to keep the negotiations moving forward. It is “time for Washington to put so much pressure on them to take care of us, because we took care of them,” Daggett said. “I don’t believe in Taft-Hartley,” Biden said Sunday. “It is time for USMX to negotiate a fair contract with the longshoremen that reflects the substantial contribution they’ve been making to our economic comeback,” Biden said, seeming to put the onus on USMX rather than the union. And in an echo of Daggett’s assertion that dockworkers should be paid back for “taking care” of the shippers and port operators, Biden pointed to laborers’ actions to support commerce at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. “Ocean carriers have made record profits since the pandemic, and in some cases profits grew in excess of 800 percent compared to their profits prior to the pandemic,” he said. “It’s only fair that workers, who put themselves at risk during the pandemic to keep ports open, see a meaningful increase in their wages, as well.” A Democratic strategist who works with labor unions shot down the Trump-centered theories about the strike, however. “They’ve been talking about this strike publicly for nearly a year now because it’s when their contract expires,” the strategist said. The dockworkers strike began at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday, when their contract with the USMX expired. In 2020, the group endorsed Biden, calling him a longtime defender of unions. Senator from Delaware,” Daggett said in a statement at the time. At that time, Daggett forcefully condemned Trump for appointing “anti-union and right-wing conservative judges who look to further weaken labor laws protecting workers” and warned that Trump espoused anti-union policies. In November, Daggett met with Trump at his resort in Palm Beach, Florida, to talk about labor interests. “We had a wonderful, productive 90-minute meeting where I expressed to President Trump the threat of automation to American workers,” Daggett said in a statement he released in July, after the first assassination attempt on Trump. Daggett noted at the time that he and Trump are both from Queens, New York, and from the same generation. Harold Daggett, center, with picketing workers outside the APM container terminal at the Port of Newark in New Jersey on Tuesday. Michael Nagle / Bloomberg via Getty Images At that point, Harris had not yet joined the race, and the Democratic Party was imploding after a devastating debate for Biden in late June. “President Trump promised to support the ILA in its opposition to automated terminals in the U.S.,” Daggett said in the statement. “The strike was caused by the massive inflation that was created by the Harris-Biden regime,” Trump said. “Everybody understands the dockworkers because they were decimated by this inflation, just like everybody else in our country and beyond.” The longshoremen’s union has not endorsed in the presidential race. It backed Biden in 2020, and its political action committee has given far more heavily to Democrats than Republicans in congressional contests. A former senior official at another major union acknowledged the peril for Democrats but said Daggett’s goal is to win a better deal for the workers, not push the presidential election in Trump’s direction. He didn’t set the date,” said the former official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid upsetting friends in the labor movement. – This Summarize was created by Neural News AI (V1). Source: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/port-strikes-democrats-bind-just-weeks-ahead-election-day-rcna173500