By Alexis Taylor
AFRO Managing Editor
Last year, on Sept. 30, shortly before the stroke of midnight, I found myself unable to sleep. As I prepared for bed, members of the International Longshoreman’s Association were preparing to go on strike.
Putting my head to the pillow, I got that feeling. The feeling all journalists get when there’s a story brewing within 100 miles. As Baltimore is the largest port for automobile shipments, according to the Department of Transportation’s Port Administration, I knew a strike at ports along the East and Gulf Coasts would certainly include the men and women of Baltimore City.
And with that thought, I jumped up.
The movement kicked off at 12 a.m. on Oct. 1, when the contract between the ILA and the U.S. Maritime Alliance ended with no new agreement.
By 12:30 a.m., with my partner in tow, I was speeding towards the port. What would we see when we got there? Would the protests be peaceful? Well organized? How would this impact recovery efforts as local, state and federal leaders tried to restore order in the wake of the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse roughly six months prior?
As we neared the Dundalk Marine Terminal, things were eerily quiet and dark. And then we saw them: a small contingent of seven men with signs expressing their demands.
“We’re surprised to see you here,” said one.
“It’s the AFRO– we had to be here,” I replied.
Though they were barred from giving their names, due to rules laid out by their union, the men spoke to their demands.
Holding signs that read “No work without a fair contract” and “Machines don’t feed families: Support ILA workers,” the longshoremen were taking a stance.
At the heart of their mission was a need for job security in a world dominated by artificial intelligence (AI) more and more each day. The longshoreman also called for a significant wage increase.
After a brief conversation, the men pointed us to another location, further down the road, where a traditional picket line was in full swing.
Though I had covered protests and seen unions flex their power before, what I witnessed on this night was something I’ll never forget.
Pulling up to the second location, one thing was clear: there is strength in numbers.
Black and White longshoremen were marching together in a large circle, demanding a 77 percent wage increase and regulations on the use of AI. They were vowing to bring the country to a screeching halt if their demands were not met.
But could a breakdown in labor at 36 American ports really do that much damage? To put it simply- yes.
Though the average American may not think about where their car, groceries or common household goods come from, the truth is, the dockworkers along the country’s East and Gulf Coast play a significant part in daily life.
According to the Congressional Research Service (CRS), “Containers carry a wide assortment of goods.”
This includes imports of “apparel, beverages, household items such as furniture and appliances, and manufactured parts such as electric machinery parts and iron and steel products. On the export side, wood pulp and articles of wood account for a large number of loads, as well as aluminum and articles thereof, and oil seeds and grains.”
A total of 15 of the top ports in the country are along the East and Gulf Coast. While the contributions of ILA’s members could be ignored in the good times, the impact of a strike when contract negotiations soured could not be underestimated.
On day one of the strike, the ILA proved their point: the country could be crippled if the longshoremen, standing together, did not get what they wanted.
Not only would consumers be impacted by empty shelves, major companies would miss the shipment of materials needed to create their products– or transport them via water.
“For example, 45 percent of the containers exported from Houston are loaded with resins or plastics. Raw cotton and poultry exporters are reliant on the Port of Savannah, which is the nation’s largest poultry exporting port,” reports the CRS. “Philadelphia and Wilmington (Delaware) are rivals as the leading ports handling imports of fresh fruit in refrigerated containers.”
The strike highlighted how heavily dependent Americans are on the waterways and workers used to deliver their necessities. It also proved another major point: while a single person might tire and become apathetic to a substandard condition, lulled into submission by the monumental size of the challenge, together, any Goliath could be slayed.
On Oct. 1 I watched in amazement as a full-sized semi-truck, packed with shiny, brand new automobiles pulled up to a gate at the Dundalk Marine Terminal. Where one worker surely could have been convinced to step aside, dozens of them came together to block the truck from entering.
Before the strike began, the nation’s top economists estimated that the ILA strike could cost the country about three to four billion dollars a day. I was witnessing in real time how union members could impact the economy of a nation. Multiple shipments were blocked that night, and after we left, there were reports that a garbage truck driver was physically attacked as he tried to break the picket line.
The longshoremen meant business. And in the end, after standing together, they were successful. After three days, the strike was called off. A tentative agreement was put in place to ensure a 62 percent pay increase for workers over the next six years, while the automation protections were worked out.
In January 2025, the ILA and the U.S. Maritime Alliance announced that a “framework for implementing technologies that will create more jobs while modernizing East and Gulf coast ports” had been established.
The ILA strike proved that even in current times, the tactics used by Black labor giants such as A. Philip Randolph and Hattie Canty, are still tried and true to this day.
The post United we stand: Lessons from the 2024 ILA strike appeared first on AFRO American Newspapers.
