Ah, the sound of silence.
Gampy POTATUS must really love it. That's probably why he beats feet every week out of his chi-chi digs in the center of Washington to his pricey little retreat on the beach in Rehobeth. Secret Service can keep all those intrusive tourista beach crawlers away from him who'd normally be sharing sand not a meter from the edge of his towel.
JoePa can lay back in his beach chair, his spindly legs akimbo, and peacefully bask in the breezes and ocean warmth.
The "president" is making sure that it's equally as restful and quiet on the normally busy docks of the American East and Gulf Coasts as you might be able to tell from the pictures Bingley snapped of the Port of Bayonne's waterfront yesterday on his way home.
Normally bustling with ships, people, tiny moving parts of every description as freight and cargo goes up, down, sideways, into, out of, is loaded and unloaded from ships and trucks. Humming with activity.
All was still.
There were no ships at the docks. The cranes were lined up like little erector sets. The vast parking lot was two-thirds empty.
Lonely looking.
The head of the International Longshoremen's Association (ILA), a blustering old-school union goon named Daggett (who, in old-school union fashion, lives very well and colorfully), moved his rhetoric from an appeal for compensation thanks to services rendered during COVID...
Listen up and listen good.
— joshua steinman (🇺🇸,🇺🇸) (@JoshuaSteinman) October 1, 2024
International Longshoreman's Association President Harold J. Daggett is about to give you a master class in power.
Not fake, op/ed writing, Davos-flying, “Adults are back!” power,
Not Harvard-educated “norms of state behavior” power.
Real power. pic.twitter.com/KgBB2SrqQQ
...to bellowing threats of economic destruction because the country "owes" the dockworkers for working during the pandemic.
CARS WON'T COME IN, FOOD WON'T COME IN
Longshoremen pres. boasts about a strike hurting everyday Americans: “People never gave a shit about us until now, when they finally realize that the chain is being broke now. Cars won’t come in, food won’t come in, clothing won’t come in.” pic.twitter.com/rHJf1e96YU
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) October 1, 2024
Because, as you know, no one else worked during COVID. There were no other essential personnel doing anything during that time except longshoremen, or so Mr. Daggett would have you believe.
*LAUGHS IN* GROCERY STORE CLERK, NURSE, POSTMAN, TRUCK DRIVER, GARBAGE MAN, COP, ETC
Well, to be fair, most of them weren't making what longshoremen were when they slogged off to the jobs in their stupid face diapers.
I did wonder if any of these feeling neglected longshoremen ever thanked a stockboy at Publix or the mail lady for their work "during COVID." Probably not, right?
The ILA bragged about turning down a last-minute 50% raise offer...
International Longshoremen's Association (ILA) negotiators have turned down a near 50 percent pay increase offer from the United States Maritime Alliance (USMX) as workers continue to strike across U.S. ports.
East and Gulf Coast port workers walked off the job at midnight on October 1 after negotiations failed to produce an agreement on a new master contract between the USMX and ILA members. Among the sticking points between the two parties are arguments over pay and the use of automation at American ports. It is the first strike among longshoremen and other associated port roles in nearly 50 years.
The union has now said it has rejected a "so-called nearly 50 percent wage increase" as it "fails to address the demands of our members adequately."
...and walked out.
So there's silence, and a helluva thank you on the waterfront now - the only thing blowing is the steam off the union leader's shiny pate.
There's silence from Washington, too - after a little "up yours" from the president to Americans worried about the economy.
POTATUS is protecting his buddies, not the middle class he claims to be so fond of. There won't be any Taft-Hartley, get back to work invocation on his watch - no, sir.
THE SPICE SHALL NOT FLOW
I’ve also directed my team to monitor for any price gouging activity that benefits foreign ocean carriers.
— President Biden (@POTUS) October 1, 2024
No company should exploit this for profit.
How about what Mr. Daggett's group and their bi-coastal tantrum has the potential to do to Americans already struggling with the effects of #Bidenomics?
Massive port strike could have ‘devastating consequences’ for consumers, expert says
A dockworker strike at seaports along the U.S. East and Gulf coasts is expected to cause massive problems for global supply chains and the economy. American consumers will likely pay the price.
The International Longshoremen’s Association, or ILA, went on strike early Tuesday at 14 major ports over wage increases and use of automation. In all, the ports threatened with strikes handle $3 trillion annually in U.S. international trade, according to an analysis by The Conference Board.
“A disruption of this scale during this pivotal moment in our nation’s economic recovery will have devastating consequences for American workers, their families and local communities,” Matthew Shay, president and CEO of the National Retail Federation, said in a statement Tuesday. Supply chain dynamics are a key issue for the NRF, the retail industry’s largest trade association, especially ahead of the peak holiday season.
No worries - we OWE them.
What do the dockworkers owe people whose lives depend on what comes into these ports?
What does a president owe the Americans whose welfare he has sworn to protect?
...As a port strike stretching from New England to Texas halted nearly half of all trade coming into the U.S., customs data shows that critical medical devices and drug components for the booming, expensive weight-loss and diabetes drugs from Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly — Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro and Zepbound — are among the trade casualties in the ILA union port work stoppage.
Bills of lading, the digital receipts of freight containers, show that the delivery mechanisms for insulin and weight-loss drugs rely on East Coast ports for incoming trade.
“Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly are both heavily reliant on the Port of Norfolk,” said William George, director of research at ImportGenius, which tracks the customs data.
It's easy to giggle about the Ozempic crowd until you remember it was a diabetes treatment before it became a fad.
People's lives depend on being able to inject it. American livelihoods depend on what comes in on those boats.
...Harold Daggett, head of the International Longshoremen's Association (ILA), made the vow on a picket line in New Jersey on Tuesday, as tens of thousands of dockworkers on the east and gulf coasts walked out in a bid to win a better labour deal.
"We're going to fight for it and we're going to win or this port will never open up again," he said. "I'm not playing games here."
For his part, Trump is all over the map. He openly supports the union's right to negotiate for better wages, which isn't surprising, as well as his antipathy to the foreign interests who are the majority of the shipping company owners and port operator board.
He has a point there.
But he also says he would "never let it come to this," and that I can believe. There's no way, with the power of a T-HA, Trump would allow things to devolve to this point and become paralyzed. It also hammers home what has always been a constant Trump theme - we need to bring things home.
Biden's refusal to interfere in the Longshoreman strike reinforces the message that Trump has delivered for the past decade.
— Craig Fuller 🛩🚛🚂⚓️ (@FreightAlley) October 2, 2024
Trump has argued that globalization threatens our national security.
Everything we import is dependent upon bringing cargo to specific points of entry.…
...These have become choke points.
All you have to do is shut down cargo flows at these choke points, and you shutter supply chains.
Since most of our manufacturing sector has some level of global dependency (raw materials, components, etc) - when you put a chokehold on these entry points, you shut off the oxygen to a large percentage of our manufacturing supply chain—even products manufactured and produced in the US.
This should be illegal.
But it's not.
Union members operate under a scorched earth policy, willing to take us all down if they don't get their way. Their asks are extreme: 77% pay increase and absolutely no automation.
The refusal to accept automation is based on the fact that technology will eliminate union members. Without automation, we will be even more vulnerable in the future.
Worse yet, the counter-party the union is negotiating with includes many companies not based in the United States.
Globalization has left us incredibly vulnerable, and Biden is the only party that can force the Union back to work.
It's a no-win situation for Biden.
If he intervenes, he will upset union members across the country.
If he doesn't intervene, he reminds every American that we are incredibly vulnerable to these choke points and, thus, globalization.
Unfortunately for Biden, his unwillingness to take action proves that Donald Trump's war on globalization has merit.
Again, Trump's not president - we think we know who is. The man is doing nothing to alleviate the impasse.
Biden's VP - now running from the press while running for his job - has nothing to add. Shocker there.
The Biden White House has no answer either. ILA demands are insane and that is just on pay raise not moratorium on automation.
— Jeff Wright (@1991Wolfpack) October 2, 2024
Real Q is how long this goes on? Hard reality will unfold in 2-3 weeks as other industries lay off manufacturing, construction, logistics workers as…
I couldn't even begin to tell you what to stock up on. This situation is so unbelievable and unbelievably complicated now that it's been allowed to progress to this.
FYI, regarding the details, Sal Mercogliano has a terrific background thread on the ILA v USMX and the state of our ports which have a great deal to do with the dispute.
It's a big game of chicken now.
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