President-elect Donald Trump has expressed support for tens of thousands of unions this week porters in one the case with major shipping companies.
Negotiations between workers and management are deadlocked over the company’s plan to move forward automation of the port, and the union said it would cut jobs.
“I’ve studied automation, and I know everything there is to know about it,” Trump said in a message posted Thursday. Social Truth. “The amount of money saved is nowhere near the hardship, pain and harm caused to American Workers, in this case, our Longshoremen.”
The pledge to support port workers echoes Trump’s campaign promise to protect blue-collar workers threatened by global capitalism, portraying automation as an unwelcome change imposed on workers by foreign shipping companies, some experts said.
Trump’s rejection of automation highlights the tension found in his economic policy, however, some experts added.
Like the tariffs, the policy aims to protect a small pool of workers at the expense of importers and consumers who may face higher costs as a result of a missed opportunity to improve their supply chain, some experts said. Others, however, defended Trump’s attempt to protect port workers from technological change.
The Trump transition team did not respond to ABC News’ request for comment.
Here’s what to know about the labor dispute over automation on East and Gulf Coast docks, and how Trump might approach the economy in his second term.
Porters and freight companies are at loggerheads over automation
A strike in October on the Eastern and Gulf Coast docks threaten to overturn the economy and raise prices, but the workers and management it was over a stoppage with a provisional agreement after three days.
The deal includes a 62% pay increase over the course of the six-year contract, but the two sides have yet to finalize it due to disagreements over plans for automation.
The standoff is based on the installation of cranes that would facilitate the retrieval and storage of cargo containers, said John McCown, a non-resident fellow at the Maritime Strategy Center, which follows the shipping industry closely.
Cranes already help remove containers from a ship and place them in a nearby port terminal, but shipping companies have sought to use additional automated cranes once the goods have reached shore, McCown said.
The cranes work like an old-fashioned juke box, he added. “You push a number and it picks up a record and goes to play a record,” McCown said, noting that the cranes would similarly mechanize the sorting and hauling of containers.
The U.S. Maritime Alliance, or USMX, the organization that represents shipping companies in the negotiations, said Thursday that the automation would improve efficiency and increase capacity. Those improvements will benefit U.S. businesses and consumers who depend on foreign goods, the group added.
“We need proven modern technology to improve worker safety, increase port efficiency, increase port capacity and strengthen our supply chains,” USMX. he said in a statement
USMX did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment.
The plans have been condemned by the International Longshoremen’s Association, or ILA, the union representing dockworkers. The union has pointed to the huge profits that shipping companies have made during the pandemic, and that more automation would invest those profits in job-cutting machines instead of increasing pay. Workers have also discussed the supposed productivity benefits of the technology.
“This is not about safety or productivity, it’s about job loss,” ILA President Dennis Daggett, he said in a statement earlier this month. The union has demonstrated that the automated cranes at issue “are no more productive than traditional equipment operated by human workers,” Daggett added.
In response to ABC News’ request for comment, the ILA shared a statement from Daggett praising Trump.
“In my career, I’ve never seen a politician, let alone the president of the United States, truly understand the importance of the work our members do every day,” Daggett said.
Striking workers at the Red Hook Container Terminal in Brooklyn, members of the International Longshoremen’s Association rallied yesterday, October 2, 2024, after starting work in Brooklyn, New York.
Spencer Platt/Getty Images
What could Trump’s run-off mean for his 2nd term?
In a social media post defending workers and opposing port automation, Trump criticized foreign-owned shipping companies for what he described as penny pinching.
“Because of their great privilege of access to our markets, these foreign companies should be hiring our awesome American workers, instead of firing them, and sending those profits to foreign countries,” Trump. he said. “It’s time to put AMERICA FIRST!”
The framework presents US workers as victims of foreign companies, which it believes aim to use America’s economic resources at the expense of its citizens. As such, Trump’s intervention in the case backs up the ILA’s long-standing fight against automation, Peter Cole, a professor at Western Illinois University who studies the history of porters, told ABC News.
“The ILA will really benefit if Trump pushes employers to delay automation,” Cole said, noting that Trump’s explanation reflects a larger political shift in the US against unrestricted global trade.
“Presidents of both major parties have supported more manufacturing domestically,” Cole said.
However, Trump’s opposition to automation risks imposing higher costs on consumers and even some domestic manufacturers, as productivity gains would help lower supply costs that would otherwise be passed on to buyers at the end of the chain, some experts said.
Trump wrongly claims that foreign shipping companies would bear the cost of automation, as he claims foreign countries would. pay the cost of tariffs, David Autor, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who specializes in technological change and the workforce, told ABC News.
“The assertion that raising tariffs in our ports will force foreigners to cover these costs is nothing but naive,” said Autor. “It is simply a lie.
Autor said that port workers would have a hard time if automation were to go ahead and put many of them out of work. “It won’t be good for the way of life on the boats and we shouldn’t do the opposite,” said Autor, adding that workers should receive compensation or other protections in such situations.
