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After just three days, the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) announced last night that they will be temporarily suspending their strike, now that the United States Maritime Alliance (USMX) has come to the table with a better deal.
A joint statement from the ILA and the USMX says that they have come to a tentative agreement on wages and will “extend the Master Contract until January 15, 2025 to return to the bargaining table to negotiate all other outstanding issues.” A person with inside knowledge of the negotiations told the Associated Press that the USMX increased their offer of a 50 percent raise over six years to 62 percent.
President Joe Biden released a statement in support of the workers:
I want to applaud the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) and the United States Maritime Alliance for coming together to reopen the East Coast and Gulf ports. Today’s tentative agreement on a record wage and an extension of the collective bargaining process represents critical progress towards a strong contract.
I congratulate the dockworkers from the ILA, who deserve a strong contract after sacrificing so much to keep our ports open during the pandemic. And I applaud the port operators and carriers who are members of the US Maritime Alliance for working hard and putting a strong offer on the table. I want to thank the union workers, the carriers, and the port operators for acting patriotically to reopen our ports and ensure the availability of critical supplies for Hurricane Helene recovery and rebuilding. Collective bargaining works, and it is critical to building a stronger economy from the middle out and the bottom up.
As did Acting Secretary of Labor Julie Su:
As President Biden, Vice President Harris and this administration have said again and again, collective bargaining works. I congratulate the International Longshoremen’s Association and the United States Maritime Alliance for reaching a tentative agreement on a strong wage package that allows the East Coast and Gulf ports to reopen while the parties finish bargaining on a new contract.
I applaud the longshoremen who do such important work and deserve to be valued for it, and the companies for the critical role they play in our supply chain and for recognizing the invaluable contributions of their workers. I’m so proud to be part of an administration that stands with working people in their fight for good jobs. When unions are strong, our economy is strong, and our country is strong.
It’s true!
While the strike only lasted three days, that did not stop geniuses like Marjorie Taylor Greene from making extraordinary claims about its impact. Just nine hours after the strike began, Greene announced that our nation had already run out of toilet paper.
“Toilet paper is always the first to go,” she tweeted. “ILA strike started last night halting imports and exports from Maine to Texas. We shouldn’t be dependent on foreign countries for all of our needs! Put America FIRST!!!”
Community notes on her post explained that it would have been impossible for this to have occurred (for any other reason than people panicking and running out to hoard all of the toilet paper) just nine hours after the strike went into effect, particularly since nearly all of our toilet paper is, in fact, manufactured in the United States. Greene … did not respond.
Indeed, despite the fact that the ILA has historically been a more conservative union (and far less well-paid) than its counterpart on the West Coast, the ILWU, and despite the fact that the union president is a Trumper, conservative media spent much of this week tearing them both apart — fear-mongering about the strike while accusing ILA President Harold Daggett of being in cahoots with the mob. On the other hand, Democratic politicians and left-leaning news outlets (like us!) have been sympathetic to the strikers’ concerns, because we all want workers to get a fair wage regardless of what their union president’s deal is.
This is a victory for dockworkers, but also for workers everywhere, because it has demonstrated the power of a strike and the power of collective bargaining to get workers their fair share.
PREVIOUSLY ON WONKETTE!
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