WASHINGTON (AP) — Top Biden administration officials met Friday with port operators ahead of a possible strike at East and Gulf coast ports, with a union contract expiring after Monday.
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Acting Labor Secretary Julie Su and Lael Brainard, director of the White House National Economic Council, told members of the United States Maritime Alliance that they should be at the table with the union and negotiating ahead of the contract expiring. That’s according to a White House official who insisted on anonymity to discuss the private meeting.
Administration officials have delivered a similar message to the union this week.
If they haven’t been negotiating already at this point, their intention is to force the union into a strike. For whatever reason these companies/organizations always seem to think that forcing a union to strike works in their favor somehow, despite it always costing millions of dollars and an agreement being made anyway.
They love to punish employees by withholding their paychecks for a few weeks or months. With solidarity and support, the executives will regret it.
They can withhold pay all they want. That’s what the strike fund is for.
In this particular case, some of the USMX members may be making money from the strike: Maersk, for example, has seen its shares jump and has raised its prices already.
The strike wil cause a drop in maritine freight capacity which, in turn, will earn some of the carrier more than if they were working normally.
So I’m not sure how it will go, the ILA workers have a massive bargaining chip and I believe they will get a good deal, eventually, but some USMX members might want to stall the negotiations as long as possible.
Well captalists sleep easier when they have a “labor” president who broke the railroad strike last year. All they did was print some scary news stories for a month, get the public opinion whipped up and suddenly the Dems were happy to play Reagan.