Port strikes put Democrats in a bind just weeks before Election Day

WASHINGTON — A longshoremen’s strike threatens to hit shipping, manufacturing, retail inventories ahead of the holidays — and Vice President Kamala Harris’ bid for the presidency.

The International Longshoreman’s Association struck at midnight Tuesday at 14 ports along the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico, just hours before Harris’ running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, weighed in on the former president’s choice in a New York debate Donald Trump is taking on the nation’s second-largest job, Ohio Sen. JD Vance.

Dockers are demanding a pay rise and restrictions on the use of automation at ports, which they say could lead to job losses. They are at an impasse with the United States Maritime Alliance (USMX), which represents shipping and port operations companies.

At a time when polls show Harris trailing Trump on who is best suited to handle the economy, the walkout puts Democrats in a bind. As the party in power in the White House, they are more likely to be blamed for significant economic disruption. But with voters in some states already casting their ballots, they cannot afford to anger union allies – the ILA receives support from the AFL-CIO, the Teamsters and other union organizations – by forcing an end to the dispute.

Biden and Harris have been informed by various agency heads that the potential for disruptions – including in the areas of fuel, food and medicine – will be minimal in the short term, the White House said on Tuesday. The White House also said Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, acting Labor Secretary Julie Su and national economic adviser Lael Brainard are in direct contact with USMX and the ILA to advance negotiations.

NBC News has reached out to the Trump and Harris campaigns for comment.

ILA President Harold Daggett indicated in an interview with Fox News on Tuesday that the potential commercial and political impact of the strike was his main leverage.

It’s “time for Washington to put as much pressure on them to take care of us because we took care of them,” Daggett said. “People didn’t give a damn about us until they finally realized that the chain was now broken.” . Cars can’t get in, food can’t get in, clothes can’t get in.

Biden has so far rejected calls from business groups and some Republicans in Congress to invoke the Taft-Hartley Act to bring workers back to work during ongoing negotiations.

“I don’t believe in Taft-Hartley,” Biden said Sunday. He followed up Tuesday with a statement calling on USMX to “make a fair offer” to the longshoremen.

“It is time for USMX to negotiate a fair contract with longshoremen that reflects the significant contributions they have made to our economic comeback,” Biden said, appearing to shift responsibility to USMX rather than the union.

And echoing Daggett’s assertion that longshoremen should be compensated for “taking care” of shippers and port operators, Biden pointed to workers’ actions to support trade during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic.

“Maritime transportation companies have achieved record profits since the pandemic and in some cases profits increased by over 800 percent compared to their pre-pandemic profits,” he said. “It’s only fair that the workers who put themselves at risk to keep ports open during the pandemic also see a significant increase in their wages.”

The political risk for Harris is obvious enough that Democrats on the social media platform X accused Trump of plotting the strike for his own gain.

However, a Democratic strategist who works with labor unions dismissed these Trump-centric theories about the strike.

“They have been talking publicly about this strike for almost a year because their contract is expiring,” the strategist said.

The longshoremen’s strike began at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday as their contract with USMX expired.

Politically, Daggett has shown some significant changes. In 2020, the group endorsed Biden, calling him a longtime defender of unions.

“Joe Biden’s friendship and support of the ILA goes back decades, since he was a U.S. senator from Delaware,” Daggett said in a statement at the time.

At the time, Daggett strongly condemned Trump for appointing “anti-union and right-wing conservative judges who aim to further weaken labor laws that protect workers” and warned that Trump was advocating anti-union policies.

Then there was a visit to Mar-a-Lago.

In November 2023, Daggett met with Trump at the former president’s resort in Palm Beach, Florida, to discuss work interests.

“We had a wonderful, productive 90-minute meeting in which I expressed to President Trump the threat posed by automation to American workers,” Daggett said in a statement he released in July after the first assassination attempt on Trump. Daggett noted at the time that he and Trump were both from Queens and of the same generation.

At that point, Harris had not yet entered the race and the Democratic Party imploded after a disastrous debate for Biden in late June.

“President Trump has pledged to support the ILA in its opposition to automated terminals in the United States,” Daggett said in the statement. “Mr. Trump also listened to my concerns about federal ‘right to work’ laws that undermine unions and their ability to represent and fight for their members.”

In comments to Fox News on Tuesday, Trump blamed the government for the strike but did not support it.

“The strike was caused by the massive inflation caused by the Harris-Biden regime,” Trump said. “Everyone understands the longshoremen because they have been decimated by this inflation, just like everyone else in our country and beyond.”

The longshoremen’s union did not endorse itself in the presidential campaign, but it supported Biden in 2020, and its political action committee gave far more to Democrats than to Republicans in congressional elections. In 2022, the ILA donated the maximum amount of $10,000 to Democrat Tim Ryan, who lost to Vance in the Senate.

While Daggett says he has a decades-long relationship with Trump — when both men lived in New York — he does not have a similarly long relationship with Harris.

A former senior official at another major union acknowledged the danger to Democrats but said Daggett’s goal was to secure a better deal for workers, not to swing the presidential election in Trump’s direction.

“His timing is terrible but the contract was expiring. “He didn’t set the date,” said the former official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid angering friends in the labor movement. “He wouldn’t go on strike just for political reasons.” There is no option. He would just do it for his membership.”