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ILA Strike Watch 2024: Here’s How Much ILA Members Make & How Much They Demand Ahead of Strike Tuesday

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27 October 2024

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I did the math. Here’s how much ILA members make.

4 days…

East and Gulf Coast ports shutting down next week is practically a certainty. In fact, International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) President Harold Daggett spoke of it this week as something that is happening. And, of course, he blames the employers at the docks, represented by the United States Maritime Alliance (USMX):

“The blame for a coast wide strike in a week that will shut down all ports on the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts falls squarely on the shoulders of USMX,” Daggett said, as reported by the ILA in the News section of its website.

As the ILA has been doing since cancelling June negotiations with the USMX and refusing to reschedule, the union insinuates in its article that those heading up the USMX are liars:

The short article says the USMX has been “engaging in a misleading publicity campaign” and “deceiving the public with misleading calculations.”

The union claims the widespread reporting that it refuses to negotiate comes from a misleading publicity campaign and is untrue because “the two sides have communicated multiple times in recent weeks.”

Of course, communicating and holding actual negotiations are two very different things. Even the ILA’s own article makes it sound like the union is unwilling to negotiate. It makes it clear that the ILA has given the USMX a bottom line on wages. The USMX calls several times a week with a counter offer, which the union calls “insulting” and “a joke.” Thus, the union won’t move forward with negotiations and plans to strike.

To make its position sympathetic, the ILA points to billion-dollar profits employer companies have made “off the backs of [ILA members’] labor.” And the union is correct. There have been billion-dollar profit years lately for some of those employers. Multi-billion profit years even! We won’t mention billion-dollar losses years that came prior.

No matter how you look at it though, dockworkers are vital to importing and exporting goods through the ports, their jobs carry risks, and they deserve to be fairly paid. But how much is a fair wage for their work? And how much do East and Gulf Coast dockworkers make?

The first question is highly subjective. The second one, however, has an answer. In fact, with a little math, we can calculate the average ILA dockworker hourly rate from the wage increase claims the ILA makes in its article.

The Numbers

“Even a $5.00 an hour increase in wages for each year of a six-year agreement, only amounts to an average annual increase of approximately 9.98 percent,” Daggett is quoted as saying.

By that average increase percentage, the fixed $5 increase amount, and the 6-year time span, the average ILA dockworker currently makes about $39 per hour. Those working full-time would make approximately $81,120 annually, assuming 40-hour work weeks with no additional overtime or holiday pay.

When doing the math, you have to take into account that each year dockworkers would be making more money per hour, so the $5 raise would be a smaller percentage of their rate. To get to an average of 9.98% raise each year, the first year’s $5 raise would be approximately a 12.82% increase, and by the 6th year, the $5 raise would be about a 7.81% increase. The accumulative $30 increase over 6 years from $39 per hour to $69 per hour would also be about a 77% wage increase, which is right around the percentage raise the USMX reported the ILA is demanding. That works as something of a double check on the math.

Annually, for full-time ILA members making the average rate, their pay would go from about $81,120 to approximately $143,520.

Is It Reasonable?

If the USMX doesn’t give in to this ILA wage increase demand by Monday or the ILA doesn’t accept a lower offer from the USMX, all the ports on the East and Gulf Coasts will stop operating.

Even if a wage agreement is reached by then, it may not be enough to stop the strike. Daggett has made it abundantly clear that if there isn’t a new contract by the time the current one expires, there will be a strike. By all reporting, a wage agreement had to be reached before the ILA was willing to start negotiations on the rest of the issues, which presumably includes the contentious issue of automation.

I leave it to you to determine if it is reasonable for the ILA to disrupt U.S. supply chains, essentially holding the economy captive, over the wage numbers presented.

The ILA may be right that the USMX presenting the union’s wage demands in terms of a 77% percentage increase without wage amounts is misleading or deceptive. Of course, the ILA is playing the same game by presenting the wage increase as averaging 9.98% per year. And the ILA knows that. That may paint the last lines of the union’s article as tongue in cheek:

“My ILA rank-and file membership are just as good in math as any of the companies,” Daggett continued. “They are well aware of the profits made by the companies they work for and are even more motivated to hit the streets on October 1st if they don’t get the kind of wage increases, they firmly believe they deserve.” [sic]

Frankly, I think the parties should have been hashing this out at the negotiating table for the last several months. Now it looks like everyone, shippers especially, will be paying for this impasse on wages.