FOX Business’ Lydia Hu reports from the picket line in Elizabeth, New Jersey, and speaks with port workers about why they’re demanding higher wages.
EXCLUSIVE: Former President Donald Trump told Fox News Digital that the strike involving tens of thousands of port workers from Maine to Texas on Tuesday is a result of “the massive inflation that was created by the Harris-Biden regime.”
Trump spoke exclusively with Fox News Digital on Tuesday morning, after the International Longshoreman’s Association (ILA) began its first strike since 1977 after its six-year contract with the U.S. Maritime Alliance (USMX), which represents port employers, expired Monday night.
DOCKWORKERS GO ON STRIKE AT EAST AND GULF COAST PORTS
“The strike was caused by the massive inflation that was created by the Harris-Biden regime,” Trump told Fox News Digital. “Everybody understands the dockworkers because they were decimated by this inflation, just like everybody else in our country and beyond.”
Negotiations between the ILA and USMX have been deadlocked thus far over the union’s demands related to wage hikes and compensation, as well as protection from automation at ports.
Former President Donald Trump acknowledges the crowd during a campaign rally in Uniondale, New York, on Sept. 18, 2024. (DAVID DEE DELGADO/AFP via Getty Images / Getty Images)
USMX reportedly made a new offer to the ILA on Monday afternoon that would have raised wages by nearly 50% over the new contract as well as tripling employer contributions to retirement plans, better health care and kept language about automation in the deal. Sources told FOX Business that the ILA rejected the offer and did not counter.
ILA President Harold Daggett claimed the initial negotiation offers “didn’t work out,” but the group is “always willing to sit down when the right number is hit.”
“Right now, everything is off the table,” Daggett told FOX Business. “Nobody’s talking right now. We got Congress trying to bring them to the table. And that’s where we are right now.”
Though the union’s president declined to disclose what that exact wage number is, President Biden, whose administration has tried to facilitate talks between the two sides, has said that he will not use a federal labor law known as the Taft-Hartley Act to intervene in the strike.
Under that law, Biden could take action that results in an 80-day “cooling off” period for negotiations to resume while workers are back at work.
FOX Business correspondent Lydia Hu reports the latest on the dockworkers’ strike after speaking to International Longshoremen’s Association International President Harold J. Daggett.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the largest trade group representing American businesses, urged Biden in a letter to invoke Taft-Hartley to “protect our economy” by avoiding a work stoppage.
However, the president has maintained that he will not intervene.
Dockworkers are also striking over fears that automation could be taking their jobs away. They are demanding a total ban on automated cranes, gates and container-moving trucks used for freight.
The ports shutting down are responsible for about half of all U.S. imports and billions of dollars in trade per month. They are also critical hubs for exports from American businesses.
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Imports of cars and auto parts, agricultural products like bananas, machinery, fabricated steel, furniture, apparel and more will be affected. East and Gulf Coast ports also handle significant percentages of exported cars and auto parts, pharmaceutical products, beef, pork, poultry, eggs, wood, plastics and other products or commodities.
An analysis by JPMorgan estimated the daily cost of a port strike by East and Gulf Coast dockworkers would cost the U.S. economy between $3.8 billion and $4.5 billion per day as operations slow.
FOX Business’ Kristin Altus and Eric Revell contributed to this report.