Posts tagged Harold Daggett
The Port Strike Is a Reminder That Unions Have Too Much Power
October 18, 2024 // Union bosses can only behave this way because they have monopoly power over labor supply in certain industries. A 62% wage increase would cripple any normal business. Big Labor’s monopoly power, buttressed by an executive branch that greases the skids for union interests at every turn, allows union bosses to extract exorbitant benefits from port employers. This arrangement has benefited Daggett handsomely, given that his more than $1 million annual salary has afforded him a yacht, luxury cars, and multiple mansions.
Opinion: Why union workers are abandoning the Democratic Party
October 15, 2024 // Scott Sauritch, the president of United Steelworkers Local 2227, drew significant public attention recently when he told a writer for the New Yorkerthat despite being a longtime Democrat, he would be voting for Donald Trump in November. He also said that most of the current rank-and-file members of the union planned on doing the same. “I don’t care what you see on TV,” Sauritch said. “The grunts in the lunchroom love Trump.”
Opinion: What Buc-ee’s Can Teach Us About the Port Strike
October 12, 2024 // They care most about sheer numbers, from which both union dues and political power—and thus the leaders’ incredibly high salaries—are derived. So, they’ll fight like hell to keep the people they have, even as doing so contradicts not only the economics—and real-world lessons like Buc-ee’s—but also our current labor market reality, in which workers, not jobs, are increasingly scarce. In that world, it makes oodles of sense to embrace automation and other productivity enhancements, whether at the ports or anywhere else, and any other benefits are just the barbecue sauce on top. In the union’s world, however, the system’s working perfectly, and the government-protected sauce already flows.
Kamala-Backed Dockworkers Union Once Walked Off Job To Protest Diversity Hiring
October 11, 2024 // “The absolute control of the International Longshoremen’s Association, AFL-CIO (ILA) over hiring in the Port for over 60 years has not only led to a lack of diversity and inclusion in waterfront employment, but also to the perpetuation of criminality and corruption,” the Commission said in 2020. “For far too long, well-deserving residents of the Port’s surrounding communities were systematically denied the opportunity to work on the waterfront. Meanwhile, those who are connected to union leadership or organized crime figures are rewarded with high paying, low-show or no-work special compensation packages.”
Port Strike Halts: Now What? Commentary
October 9, 2024 // Even a new contract agreement, if it does not fundamentally address American port uncompetitiveness, would prove to be only a six-year punt. Legislation has been introduced to move port workers from the main National Labor Relations Act governance structure that applies to most private-sector workers to the Railway Labor Act, which governs the railroad and airline industries. This change would give Congress and the administration more power to impose a negotiated settlement and prevent strikes, but the idea has been batted around for nearly a decade.
Port strike longshoremen union boss linked to murdered mobster in ‘farce’ racketeering case he beat at trial
October 8, 2024 // George Daggett, the attorney, said the case began after his cousin asked a Catholic priest for financial advice and had $18 million in union funds placed under the supervision of the same money manager who worked with Our Lady of the Lake Church in Sparta, New Jersey. "So at the trial, every time a mobster’s name was mentioned, the government had a big board, and they made a circle, [and] every time a mobster was mentioned, they put his picture up on this big board," he said. "The government’s case ended, and I took Father Cassidy’s picture and I put it in the middle of all those mobsters. So that's the kind of trial it was."
How did 50K dockworkers strike at US ports with only 25K jobs?
October 7, 2024 // There’s a massive gulf in the numbers between those who show up for work and total membership in the powerful International Longshoremen’s Association, which won a deal late Thursday for a 62% wage increase over the next six years. That’s because half of the dockworkers at the East and Gulf coast ports are allowed to sit at home collecting “container royalties” negotiated decades ago to protect against job losses that result from innovation, according to The Wall Street Journal.
When the Unions Tried to Bully
October 4, 2024 // Standing up to union bullies such as Harold Daggett of the International Longshoremen’s Association is a long-standing part of National Review‘s mission. The statement explaining NR’s purpose from the first issue of the magazine said NR “will explore and oppose the inroads upon the market economy caused by monopolies in general, and politically oriented unionism in particular.”
Harold Daggett: How union leader who fought mob tie allegations is holding the US economy to ransom
October 2, 2024 // Despite his eminent blue collar credentials, the union baron earned $728,000 last year from the ILA, plus another $173,000 as president emeritus of a local union branch, Politico reported. He previously owned a 76-foot yacht, the Obsession, and has been spotted by his members riding in a Bentley, according to The New York Times. The Justice Department, which has reportedly lost two cases against Mr Daggett, has accused him of being an “associate” of the Genovese crime family — one of the infamous “Five Families” of the US Mafia.
Largest port on U.S. East Coast, New York/New Jersey, begins prepping for what could be first union strike since 1977
September 20, 2024 // The ILA represents over 85,000 port workers, and a strike would shut down five of the 10 busiest ports in North America, and a total of 36 ports along the East and Gulf Coasts. Close to half (43%-49%) of all monthly U.S. imports would be impacted, representing billions of dollars in trade, and logistics firms are preparing contingency plans last used during Covid and 2018 tariffs. Currently, there is an estimated $34 billion in freight in route to these ports on 147 ocean vessels.