The “Ides” of January Have Come Early
The President-Elect endorses longshoremen’s demand for inefficiency.
In a previous post, I forecast that President Trump’s first crisis would come five days before his inauguration. On January 15, 2025 (which, with deliberate inaccuracy, I called “the Ides of January”), the temporary extension of the collective bargaining agreement between the International Longshoremen’s Association and the shipping companies’ bargaining agent, the United States Maritime Alliance, expires, leaving the ILA free to go on strike and shut down all U.S. ports on the East and Gulf Coasts.
The parties agreed on wages in early October, when the union settled for a mere 62 percent pay raise over the next six years. Left for future negotiation was the big issue: whether the ports would be barred from expanding their currently very limited use of automation.
The issue is of vital economic importance. The efficiency of U.S. ports has fallen behind not just the First World but much of the Third. The reason isn’t hard to discern. Two unions monopolize the workers who shift cargoes between ship and shore: the ILA in the East, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union in the West. Both adamantly oppose replacing any of their members with machines. In the past, the ILA has been slightly more flexible, but its boss announced this year that he was going full Luddite.
How would The Donald face down a man who threatens to “cripple” the American economy and whose union has the means to carry out that threat? Yesterday, we learned the answer. He would cravenly surrender.
There was every reason to anticipate that Donald Trump’s deal making skills would face a stiff challenge from a guy who deplores self-checkout at supermarkets and automated toll booths on highways. He hasn’t been asked about mechanical looms, but one assumes that a man of his high principles wears only clothing whose hand-spun fibers were fashioned into garments without the employment of sewing machines. (With a reported $900,000 annual salary, he can afford a personal seamstress.)
How would The Donald face down a man who threatens to “cripple” the American economy and whose union has the means to carry out that threat? Yesterday, we learned the answer. He would cravenly surrender. Here is the President-Elect’s statement, as posted on X/Twitter:
Just finished a meeting with the International Longshoremen’s Association and its President, Harold Daggett, and Executive VP, Dennis Daggett [Harold’s son]. There has been a lot of discussion having to do with “automation” on United States docks. I’ve studied automation, and know just about everything there is to know about it. The amount of money saved is nowhere near the distress, hurt, and harm it causes for American workers, in this case, our Longshoremen. Foreign companies have made a fortune in the U.S. by giving them access to our markets. They shouldn’t be looking for every last penny knowing how many families are hurt. They’ve got record profits, and I’d rather those foreign countries spend it on the great men and women on our docks, than machinery, which is expensive, and which will constantly have to be replaced. In the end, there’s no gain for them, and I hope they will understand how important an issue this is for me. For the great privilege of accessing our markets, these foreign companies should hire our incredible American workers, instead of laying them off, and sending those profits back to foreign countries. It is time to put AMERICA FIRST!
Does Donald Trump believe a word of that balderdash? Did he build his hotels using the labor intensive methods of the architects of the Cathedral of Notre Dame, who completed their magnificent structure in just 182 years? After the fire in April 2019 that destroyed the roof and spire, the cathedral’s machinery-aided rebuilding took 177 fewer years and uncountably fewer workmen. When he attended the reopening, did Mr. Trump castigate the distress, hurt and harm inflicted on the tens of thousands of French workers who could have been employed to rebuild the edifice over the next century or so?
Men have varying opinions of Donald Trump, but only blind partisans think that he is dull-witted enough to imagine that increasing the cost of goods is the road to prosperity. The six figure salaries of featherbedding stevedores are paid by Americans, not by shadowy “foreign companies” (which, by the way, are foreign largely because the Jones Act and other American legislation have made the U.S. shipping industry non-competitive).
So what explains the President-Elect’s embrace of Boss Daggett? I have a couple of theories, which I would like to disbelieve. We do not seem to be witnessing six-dimensional chess.
Perhaps the once and future President believes that he cannot establish his pro-worker bona fides without groveling before organized labor. Given that only six percent of private sector employees belong to unions and the other 94 percent have shown no enthusiasm for joining up, it is strange that this fantasy has captivated not only Joe Biden (soi-disant “most pro-union President in history”) but also some politicians on the Right, such as Vice President-to-be Vance and Senator Hawley for instance.
Or perhaps Mr. Trump lacks the will to face an opponent who is indeed in a powerful position to inflict harm. The easy course is to pay the Danegeld and let the American economy suffer the consequences.
Who knows what thought lay behind that decision? What we do know is that typing AMERICA FIRST! means nothing if it is preceded by an abject, preemptive surrender to someone whose proud boast is that he can and will cripple the American economy.