News: Short odds on a longshoremen's strike

Monday, September 30, 2024

Short odds on a longshoremen's strike

Sep 30, 2024

QUICK FIX

P(ON)DER THE WATERFRONT: There’s less than 24 hours until the International Longshoremen’s Association’s collective bargaining agreement with the United States Maritime Alliance expires, and thousands of dockworkers along the Eastern seaboard and Gulf Coast could go on strike as soon as Tuesday.

There have been little outward signs of progress, as the two sides have been at loggerheads since the summer. Last week, USMX filed charges with the National Labor Relations Board accusing the union of bad-faith bargaining and asked the agency to seek a court injunction to force ILA to the table.

Acting Labor Secretary Julie Su, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and other top Biden administration officials huddled with USMX on Friday, though the White House has been unequivocal that it does not intend to invoke emergency powers in the Taft-Hartley Act to head off a stoppage.

The standoff has President Joe Biden and Democrats in a bit of a no-win situation, as our Sam Sutton reports. Intervening would stain his “Union Joe” persona and royally upset labor unions a little more than a month out from the election. At the same time, a strike threatens a multi-billion dollar economic hit that could drive up prices or lead to shortages of all sorts of goods — a disruption that would be acutely felt by voters as they head to the polls.

A strike will also serve as a major stress test of Biden’s desire to beef up the supply chain and insulate it from the types of shocks that dogged the early part of his term under the Covid-19 pandemic. But, as our Ari Hawkins reports for Pro subscribers, it’s unclear how much of a salve those efforts will be for businesses.

ILA leader Harold Daggett is perhaps the key figure in all this, as our Ry Rivard detailed last week. He has been adamant that USMX’s offers have not not gone nearly far enough in boosting dockworkers' pay and shielding their jobs from the creeping threat of automation.

Last year, ILA’s West Coast arm continued to work for a stretch under an expired contract before reaching terms on a six-year deal. However, it's unclear whether Daggett would go that route, given his public comments to date.

GOOD MORNING. It’s Monday, Sept. 30. Welcome back to Morning Shift, your go-to tipsheet on labor and employment-related immigration. Your host and resident Knicks fan is still processing the abrupt end of the Big Jules era. Send feedback, tips and exclusives to nniedzwiadek@politico.com and lukenye@politico.com. Follow us on X at @NickNiedz and @Lawrence_Ukenye.

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Immigration

ABOVE AND BEYOND: Vice President Kamala Harris promised to outdo Biden’s efforts to tighten the asylum process in order to stem border crossings, our Myah Ward and Irie Sentner report.

Speaking from Arizona on Friday, Harris promised to ramp up prosecutions for people who cross the southern border illegally, including felony charges for repeat offenders — a break from her 2019 stance during the Democratic primary, when she supported decriminalizing illegal border crossings.

Her proposal would also make it more difficult to lift the asylum restrictions by requiring the number of average border crossings be lower for a longer period of time than the Biden administration’s current policy.

Meanwhile former President Donald Trump told a crowd in Whitewater, Wisconsin, on Saturday that “if Kamala is reelected, your town, and every town just like it, all across Wisconsin and all across our country — the heartland, the coast, it doesn’t matter — will be transformed into a third-world hellhole.”

Expect immigration to be a major theme of Tuesday’s VP debate between Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.

Related: “Harris touts plan to bring on more border agents, but hiring is already lagging,” from The Government Executive.

AROUND THE AGENCIES

ABOUT FACE: The Federal Trade Commission on Friday quietly pulled out of recently-signed partnerships with a trio of labor law enforcers that was aimed at incorporating labor considerations in merger reviews.

It was a highly unusual walkback: The FTC’s Memoranda of Understandings with the Labor Department, National Labor Relations Board and Justice Department’s antitrust division were less than a month old.

“The agency will continue to closely scrutinize all issues related to mergers, including potential impacts on labor, in accordance with its merger guidelines,” the agency said in a statement.

The FTC did not respond to a request for further comment.

Unions

SHOW GOES ON: Musicians at the National Symphony Orchestra hit the picket line on Friday and reached an 18-month contract just hours later, the Washington Post reports.

Musicians’ base pay will start at just over $165,000 in the first year and they’ll get a 4 percent increase for the second year. The deal is estimated to cost the Kennedy Center an additional $1.8 million.

“The package also includes expanded health-care options, paid parental leave, updates to audition and tenure processes, and funding of a third full-time librarian position requested by the musicians.”

STALLED OUT: Boeing and the machinists union have made little progress in the latest round of bargaining talks and remain far apart on a labor agreement, Barron’s reports.

The union said that the company has not budged on meeting its demands, which include reviving a defined-benefit pension plan that was wound down a decade ago.

Boeing workers have been on strike since Sept. 13.

More union news: “Unions file ILO complaint over Israel's treatment of Palestinian workers since Gaza war,” from Reuters.

On the Hill

EDGING OUT ESG: Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) last week introduced a bill aimed at discouraging the use of environmental, social and governance factors in retirement investment decisions, Pensions & Investments reports.

Cassidy’s bill aligns with a House bill that passed mostly along party lines earlier this month: Georgia Rep. Rick Allen’s Roll Back ESG to Increase Retirement Earnings Act, or RETIRE Act.

More Hill news: “House Dems reintroduce bill to expand VA health care employees’ union rights,” from the Government Executive.

IN THE STATES

ROCKY MOUNTAIN CRACKDOWN: Labor officials in Colorado are making a renewed push to curb wage theft in the construction industry, the Denver Post reports.

Last year, nearly 30 percent of the $2.04 million in wage-theft money that the Denver Auditor’s Office managed to recover came from the construction industry.

“The state’s Department of Labor and Employment recently concluded multiple years-long efforts to hold contractors and subcontractors accountable for misclassifying their workers as independent contractors instead of employees, which costs workers thousands of dollars per year.”

More state news: “Gavin Newsom vetoes third proposal to help noncitizens,” from our Eric He.

Even more: “Maryland Set to Become First East Coast State with Heat Standard,” from Bloomberg Law.

WHAT WE'RE READING

— “Kamala Harris’ Pennsylvania Problem,” from POLITICO.

— “Big Business Backed Mayor Eric Adams. Now It Waits to Learn His Fate,” from The New York Times.

— “How Helene became the near-perfect storm to bring widespread destruction across the South,” from The Associated Press.

THAT’S YOUR SHIFT!

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