The International Longshoremen’s Association’s 2024 port strike placed a proposed ban on automated systems beside wage talks, essayist Noah Smith wrote in an Oct. 2, 2024, post on Noahpinion, warning of wider economic consequences.
The ILA had begun a work stoppage at ports on the U.S. East and Gulf coasts, putting a substantial share of imports at risk. Smith said the union’s pay demands were close to winning acceptance, while its call for a complete automation ban remained unresolved.
Smith said the ILA’s contract and Department of Transportation (DOT) rules both discouraged port automation. He wrote that DOT rules barred automated systems from reducing the number or quality of jobs. The union sought a broader restriction: no automated systems at the ports it represented.
Smith focused on how a shutdown could reach beyond roughly 50,000 dockworkers. In an interview cited in the essay, ILA President Harold J. Daggett warned that a prolonged stoppage could keep cars from dealerships, leave retailers short of goods and delay building supplies. He said shortages of steel and lumber could also disrupt construction.
Smith warned that a prolonged interruption to imports might bring back inflation and cost Americans jobs. He questioned whether millions of livelihoods should depend on a dispute involving about 50,000 dockworkers. Those were Smith’s projected risks; the essay did not give an estimate of the strike’s economic impact.
Smith also argued that workers should be prepared to use new technology rather than have it barred from ports. He criticized President Joe Biden for declining to use Taft-Hartley Act powers to end the strike on national emergency grounds. Smith quoted Biden as saying, “I don’t believe in Taft-Hartley.”
Smith said the strike came five weeks before the U.S. presidential election, a timing he viewed as harmful to Kamala Harris’ campaign. He also warned that economic damage from the stoppage could weaken public support for organized labor and alienate Democrats and progressives.
An update to Smith’s post said the strike appeared suspended until early 2025.
