Biden's amazing win settling the dock strike [View all]
https://prospect.org/blogs-and-newsletters/tap/2024-10-04-bidens-amazing-win-settling-dock-strike/
In September, as ocean shippers refused reasonable wage increases for East Coast dockworkers despite exorbitant profits and a strike became likely a month before the election, the White House went into high gearand settled the strike entirely on worker terms.
The strike lasted just three days. The shippers agreed to a 62 percent wage increase sought by the International Longshoremens Association (ILA), amending the current contract and extending it to January 15, allowing additional time for further bargaining over details such as automation.
Only an administration so strongly on the side of workers, willing to call out windfall industry gluttony, and competent at the details of governing, could have delivered this result. Just imagine how Donald Trump would have handled a similar challenge.
In mid-September, Jeff Zients, the White House chief of staff, assigned National Economic Council Director Lael Brainard to identify pressure points on the shippers. Acting Labor Secretary Julie Su was dispatched to work with the union. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg was tasked with monitoring supply chain effects of a strike and enlisting concerned companies as allies.