The recent strike at 36 major container ports throughout the East and Gulf Coast is the first strike to be launched by the ILA since 1977. It has been estimated that the strike would cost the U.S. economy billions per week, or even per day for some higher estimates. Taft-Hartley was not invoked and its potential usage was disavowed despite being used in 2002 against the ILWU on the West Coast. With 47,000 ILA members participating, this was a significant event, despite lasting only 3 days. This didn’t happen in a vacuum, instead occurring within the context of a decline in living standards for the working class as a whole. The immediate source of this decline is no mystery: it is an offensive by the ruling capitalist class. Pay increases for dock workers have not been keeping pace with inflation, a story all too familiar for proletarians around the world. Work conditions have deteriorated and on-call/overtime hours have become the norm. At the same time, various schemes that reduce the workforce and increase productivity (and therefore profits) have been used: from automation, return to office, and closing down shops in response to strikes. This is all taking place within the increase in imperialist tensions, the formations of rival blocs, and the growing risk of another world war, a problem driven forwards by the same force driving the attacks on the working class: the problem of profitability.

Longshoremen and Port Automation

The ILA has been fighting, rather ineffectually, against the tide of automation for the better half of a century. From the “containerization” of the 50’s and 60’s to the fully automated ports of today, longshoremen on both coasts have been battered by an onslaught of new technologies that have reduced hours and crew sizes dramatically. The ILA has taken steps to minimize the negative effects of automation by attempting to adapt to its introduction and occasionally denying its entry into the shipping industry. These approaches towards automation, ones broadly taken by union leadership worldwide, have yielded the same result for the international proletariat: destitution and a defensive, near non-existent, struggle for the economic prosperity unions used to offer. Despite the ILA’s recent historic 3 day strike yielding a $24 dollar (62%) wage increase for members over the next 6 years, union leadership has still abandoned the class struggle for the negotiating table in order to iron out details with USMX, the alliance representing employers of the East and Gulf Coast longshore industry, on a new automation policy. In order to understand the ILA’s hesitancy for militancy in the face of automation, we must look at their history marred with the follies of their past attempts to rectify this issue that has no solution in the current capitalist world order.

During the 1950’s, the US shipping and cargo industry saw the introduction of new container loading technology to shipping lines and port terminals in the main North Atlantic Coast ports. This process, known as “containerization”, entailed reducing loading crew sizes, wages, and hours for longshoreman who saw their work shifting from loading ships with smaller crates by hand to stuffing cargo into large containers that would be lifted by crane onto newly outfitted container shipping vessels. Longshoremen represented by the ILA during this time period would engage in numerous strikes with the hope of curbing this decline in industry standards, with this tension between workers and containerization culminating in the 1964 ILA strike which saw 60,000 Atlantic and Gulf Coast longshoremen picketing from October into February of the next year. After 4 months on the picket line, the bargaining committee, headed by then union president Teddy Gleason, came to an agreement with the New York Shipping Association (NYSA), who was bargaining on behalf of the five major North Atlantic ports, to introduce two key articles to their newly ratified regional contract: the Guaranteed Annual Income (GAI) plan and the “Rules On Containers,” the latter of which has been a staple of the ILA’s master contract to this day. The GAI assured that eligible workers, where eligibility was granted only for those that worked at least 700 hours between April 1, 1965 and March 31, 1966, would receive 1,600 hours of work or pay equivalent to 1,600 hours of work annually. This program was significant because previously longshoremen could not expect set hours as boats came in at irregular intervals and crews were chosen when cargo needed to be transferred from dock to ship in a process known as the "shape up”. The “shape up” continued as such for ports that adopted the GAI with the stipulation that container gang sizes comprised less laborers, meaning that these eligible ILA dock workers could work fewer shifts and expect the same wage. Any new hires were not eligible for entry into this program as the GAI was funded through the decline in working longshoremen and container gang sizes, and as a result, the ILA had not seen a single longshoreman join its ranks between 1965 and 1977. The “Rules on Containers” stipulated that the ILA had jurisdiction over “all container work at a waterfront facility which includes but is not limited to the receiving and delivery of cargo, the loading and discharging of said cargo into and out of containers, the maintenance of containers, and the loading and discharging of containers on and off ships.”⁽¹⁾ - Appendix B of 2018-2024 Rules on Containers (extended to Jan. 2025). Without this adaptation to the introduction of containers in cargo shipping, the ILA would not have been able to continue as an organization as today these functions specified by the “Rules on Containers” constitute the bulk of the work that US longshoremen do.

In 1977, after a 2 month strike that would mark the end of East and Gulf Coast longshoremen picket activity for the next 47 years, the ILA ratified their first master contract which would ensure every port worker from Maine to Texas who was represented by the ILA would have the same wage and expanded the GAI and “Rules on Containers” to all ILA affiliated ports. The job security program (JSP) was introduced alongside the master contract. The JSP was an agreement between the union and ocean carriers, administered by “The JSP Agency Inc.” separate from the master contract, where ocean carriers who serviced the East and Gulf Coast ports that were under ILA jurisdiction would contribute to a fund that would supplement any loss of funding for the GAI, pension, and welfare funds accessible to ILA members. With the GAI now implemented across all ILA ports, the union lost around 100,000 members (165,000 to ~60,000) until they ratified their 1986 contract where the GAI, JSP, and coastwide wages were negotiated out without the presence of a strike.

These wage supplementation programs were the ILA’s main attempts, outside of the persisting Rules on Containers, to adapt to containerization which ultimately proved to be an unsustainable practice for ILA leadership. A decrease in the amount of dues-paying members is a pay cut for every salaried employee of a union, thereby showcasing the lucre of keeping union membership high, regardless of decreases in wages. The ILA had not seen an update to their approach to automation until the ratification of their master contract with USMX in 2004, where, under Article X “New Technology,” it is stated that new technologies will be allowed to be introduced to port terminals as long as longshoremen who are displaced by these advancements are appropriately trained for a new position. In the same section, the contract states that they are agreeing to this position because automation allows for USMX to be more competitive in the market and therefore allows for the ILA’s membership the potential for future growth. Yet another tether between these two organizations’ successes can be found in Section 1 of the 1996 master contract between USMX and the ILA where it is stated that “management recognizes the ILA as the exclusive bargaining representative of longshoremen, clerks, checkers, and maintenance men who are employed on ships and terminals in all ports on the East and Gulf Coasts of the United States…and the ILA recognizes Management as the exclusive employer representative in such ports or districts.”⁽²⁾ This section has been included and expanded upon in every subsequent master contract between USMX and the ILA. This stipulation to only recognize each other as the official employer and the official bargaining representative of port workers from Maine to Texas ensures that in order for the ILA to grow they must be invested in USMX’s acquisition of port terminals not owned by the alliance. However, this interdependence is being challenged by the ILA’s recent rejection of the integration of fully automated ports pushed for by all affiliated shipping conglomerates. Contained in their most recent master contract, 2018-2024, the ILA and USMX agree that “there shall be no fully-automated terminals developed and no fully-automated equipment used during the term of this Master Contract.” It is not clear what the results of the recent rounds of negotiations on fully automated terminals will yield, but it is certain that regardless of the outcome the fight against automation is a doomed one.

Port terminals are incentivized to implement fully automated terminals because they streamline and decrease the cost of unloading containers through the eradication of human involvement. Without humans, terminals can expect improved efficiency to handle larger vessels, less variability in the time it takes to unload vessels, 24/7 operation of port terminals, safer work environments, and of course, a reduction in the cost of labor. With increased profits, port terminals have predicted, and seen, a return on investment in around 6 years after the implementation of fully automated port terminals. These technologies that increase the efficiency of port terminals also decrease the price of commodities received at these terminals, implicating the involvement of the international bourgeois across all industries in the process of fully automating port terminals. By reducing the price of commodities across the board, wages now have an even lower minimum. If USMX and ILA agree to continue their current practices of barring the emergence of fully automated ports, then this will hinder USMX’s ability to acquire fully automated ports and incentivise non USMX container carriers to ship to more efficient East and Gulf coast terminals. This will also incentivise members of USMX to leave the alliance in search of higher profits, leaving those longshoremen without ILA bargaining representation. Either way, the ILA union leadership can expect a decrease in membership, either through the reduced expansion of USMX’s market share of port terminals and the exit of port terminals from the alliance, or through the reduction of workers at terminals who have been fully automated. The results of the next round of negotiations will be a desperate attempt to keep the ship from sinking.

Automation has been an ever-present aspect of capitalist development, from the creation of the functional steam engine to today. In the US, there were 1.79 robots per thousand workers in 2017, up from 0.49 robots per thousand workers in 1995.⁽³⁾ This has resulted in a decrease in labor costs, not only in terms of decreasing the number of workers a firm requires. Over the last 40 years in the US, it has accounted for between 50% and 70% of relative wage decrease for industries experiencing rapid automation.⁽⁴⁾ Worldwide, the developmental momentum of capitalism is even easier to spot. In China, the operational stock of industrial robots has seen a nearly 25,000% increase over the last 20 years.⁽⁵⁾ Global industrial automation has broadly increased year after year with no sign of slowing down. Automation is an inevitable part of the expansion of productive forces and only presents an issue when influenced by capitalist relations. Machine and software automation has generally decreased labor costs, restructured the division of labor, and has increased the mass of commodities produced per unit of time to suit the expanding needs of capitalism. But this alone isn't enough to satiate its hunger: more direct attacks on workers and their living standards are needed.

Wages and working conditions

As is the case across the wider working class, the striking longshoremen demanded higher wages in response to the capitalist assault on their living conditions via inflation. Inflation increases the prices of all goods in an economy, but the only class with no goods (in other words property) to their name is the working class, slashing real wages for all workers at once. The union demand for a 77% increase over the next six years was counterposed by USMX’s 50%, while a settlement of 62% was reached. While this may seem significant, this comes off a 24% increase in inflation over the past five years (notably from 2021 onwards).

Even worse is when the broader picture of stagnant or declining wages is taken into account. According to the union, wages over the past three decades have increased by 2% per year, while inflation in that same period rose by 2.6%, meaning that the longshoremen have endured a slow but painful decrease in living standards while cost of living continues increasing. The $6 hourly wage increase the top-paid workers will receive next year may provide some respite, but it will be just that.

Wage increases themselves are here just a bargain with the devil, stemming from decades of a stagnant workforce. Increased wages represent a settlement whereby port workers take on more and more shifts, more and more overtime in lieu of hiring more workers or increasing automation to handle higher throughput. Nurses, rail workers, teachers, cooks, auto workers, and countless other proletarians have heard this story before! And the effects of this speed-up of work, which has only been accelerating across the board since 2020? In the case of the port workers, overwork for many and deaths on the job for some.

The overall outcome of workers’ struggles in the fight against inflation has been overall negative. Despite the uptick of strikes in 2021 (Kellogg’s, John Deere) and 2023, most settlements have resulted in either:

• An increase of wages below inflation, cementing a drop (sometimes drastic) in living standards for some years
• Wages that make up for inflation, but only towards the end of the contract, until which workers have to endure higher prices and by which point nobody knows what inflation will look like, or
• Wages that drastically increase, above inflation levels, however in contexts where the primary demands of the striking workers had nothing to do with wages.⁽⁶⁾

It is safe to say that the working class has not been able to adequately fight back against the capitalist attack on living conditions. But is this a question of tactics, of the leadership of the unions which direct the vast majority of strikes, or is it a question of which tools properly belong to the working class, which tools can actually set off a real defensive struggle of the working class?

Union sabotage

Despite the genuine attacks the longshoremen face, the union is completely contrary to the necessary task workers today face: constituting a working-class defense that fights on its own terrain. Although the union successfully negotiated higher wages, the port workers have been left out to dry on every other issue. Still do the longshoremen have to work long, odd and inconsistent hours. Still looms the job insecurity caused by the threat of automation, which the strike was originally meant to resolve. Rather than address or alleviate the exploitation the workers face in this industry, the ILA leadership has kept the exploitation but demanded that the price of the workers’ labor power be sold at a higher rate. Not content to stop there, the desire for a more graduated earnings system that rewards “hard-working members” and allows them to “advance faster” (in other words, a system that pushes workers to exploit themselves more often and more efficiently in favor of bosses’ profits) was part of their clarification from perceived “distortions” in USMX’s statement on the strike. By diverting the discontent of the workers they purport to represent, the union serves the bourgeoisie on two fronts. Firstly, their demand for higher wages and a system of progressive earnings encourages the working class to wear down their bodies more for the owners’ profits and encourages a competition among workers that is poisonous to a common class consciousness. Secondly, they divert discontent that could otherwise be the first sparks of an authentic and revolutionary class consciousness that fights for the proletariat on their terrain and ultimately demands the end of the wage system. Instead of organic products of working-class action, union commands come top-down and stifle the kind of thoughts that go beyond wage labor. And how could it be any other way? The union needs to maintain the very system that allows their leadership to have million-dollar, multi-acre mansions, after all.

The union’s true stance on the either/or question of the day is no secret. Either the working class, which has no country, fraternizes across borders despite their national conditions, or they doom themselves in nationalist division and slaughter each other in service of their respective governments. The “I Love America” union, as they call themselves (!!!), makes no secret of their answer to that question. Their rabid insistence to never strike against the American government; to never stop the shipment of matériel used for mass murder overseas; to fight against the perceived evil, foreign capitalist and return the profits to the benevolent, native capitalist to keep the profits in “our nation,” has made their answer quite clear. The union has taken up the mantle of inter-imperialist conflict for themselves, dedicating themselves to “their country” in an economic battle of trying to maintain the profitability of American ports as they seek to out-compete Chinese economic power. In every instance, local and international, they act to stop proletarian collaboration and fraternization. They put workers to the task of killing other workers, whether it be in the shipping of military goods to atrocities overseas or demanding the intensification rate of exploitation. In both cases, the bosses and their state couldn’t be happier!

Conclusion

In order for the working class to move beyond the dead-end of union politics, workers everywhere must put the struggle on their own terms as the first step in the road to self emancipation. Beyond unions collaborating with the bosses and the state or pitting the workers in one region against those in another, working class initiative now is needed to defend against the steady attacks on our class. Workers need to go beyond the union by taking up their struggle in their own hands. Throughout the history of class struggle, workers have independently established organs, such as strike committees and mass assemblies, to take direct ownership of the fight against capital. Not only does this form the basis for militant class activity, it opens up the possibility for the generalization of the struggle beyond workshop and sector. Just going on the defensive will never be enough to avoid the consequences of imperialism and environmental destruction, but as ever capitalism’s most numerous product is its own gravediggers: the international proletariat. What is needed is the creation of the working class’s own revolutionary party, a party which must link together the momentary struggles of the class towards the end goal: the end of the wage system.

For workers' self activity! The working people have no nation and nothing to lose but their chains!

Notes:

(1) ilaunion.org

(2) usmx.com

(3) stlouisfed.org

(4) nber.org

(5) ifr.org and therobotreport.com

(6) See, for example, the 2022 rail workers’ strike-that-wasn’t, which was about ending 24-hr on-call status and more sick time. Now these workers have one yearly sick day, and no change to being always on call. The increased wages are simply a carrot to ensure social peace in spite of brutal work conditions.

Further Reading:

citeseerx.ist.psu.edu

fraser.stlouisfed.org

metrans.org