Nearly 50,000 dockworkers began a strike this week at ports from Maine to Texas — but, in a strange oddity that has resulted from decades of heavy concessions to the union, the affected ports employ only 25,000.
There is a huge gap in numbers between those showing up for work and total membership at the powerful International Longshoremen’s Association, which won a deal late Thursday for a 62% pay increase over the next six years.
That’s because half the dockworkers at East and Gulf Coast ports are allowed to sit at home and collect “container royalties,” negotiated decades ago to protect against job losses as a result of innovation. According to the Wall Street Journal,
The impact of these no-show jobs at the ports – controlled by the ILA’s highly paid and foul-mouthed president Harold Daggett – was part of an explosive 2019-2020 Waterfront Commission Report Cited by The Journal’s editorial board on Friday.
That report details how the ILA’s iron grip on hiring residents near ports helps a few workers at the expense of countless other blue-collar applicants — and made famous in the classic film “On the Rekindled concerns about mob control of American shipping. coast.”
“The complete control of the International Longshoremen’s Association, AFL-CIO (ILA), over port hiring for more than 60 years has not only led to a lack of diversity and inclusion in shoreside employment, but has also led to criminality and corruption.” , The Waterfront Commission report found,
It also alleges that nearly 600 union members received more than $147 million in wages that were not required by the industry’s collective bargaining agreement – and hours they were not required to work at the ports.
Walter Arsenault, then-executive director of the Waterfront Commission, wrote in the Harbor Report, “Those associated with union leadership or organized crime figures are rewarded with special compensation packages for high-paying, low-performing or no work at all.”
The ILA did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Daggett – Who threatened to “cripple” opponents During the strike – Took over as ILA President in 2011. He collected $728,000 in compensation from the union last year, and another $173,000 as honorary president of a local union branch. According to Labor Department filings,
he lives in a 7,316 square foot house on 10 acres of land in New Jersey According to Zillow and NJ property records, there was a luxury Bentley parked out front, and he previously owned a 76-foot yacht named Obsession.
His two sons are also big leaders of the Sangh who reportedly earn huge sums.
Dennis Daggett is the executive vice president of the ILA and earned $250,156 in the fiscal year ending December 2022. According to ProPublica,
John Daggett, general vice president of the Atlantic Coast District ILA, earned $264,228 in the same period.
The Waterfront Commission report stated that while white male employees and relatives earned larger wages, the union continued discriminatory hiring practices.
The commission said it faced “enormous opposition” in its efforts to ensure the union required fair hiring practices.
“Six years and approximately 1,300 additional workers later, little progress has been made in diversifying the number of long-term deep sea workers registered in relevant ILA locals,” Arsenault wrote.
When the union hired employees from diverse backgrounds, it separated them from the locals.
The report noted that most of the incoming black longshoremen were hired at the predominantly black ILA local in Newark, NJ, while prestigious positions in ILA Local 1 were largely given to white men.
The demographics of registered union maintenance workers and mechanics were even less diverse. The 2019-2020 report said that out of 1,024 registered longshore maintenance workers in the entire port, only one was a woman.
The watchdog agency also accused the association of having links to organized crime figures.
The report said the Commission did not approve 18% of the ILA’s longshore worker referrals because they were linked to organized crime.
Daggett himself has fought allegations of mob ties.
In 2005, the Justice Department accused Daggett of being an “associate” of the Genovese crime family – one of the “Five Families” of the American Mafia.
Daggett took the witness stand that year when federal prosecutors charged him with fraud.
He described himself as a target of the mob – although a defected Mafia member testified that Daggett was subordinate to the mob, New York Times reported,
During the trial, one of Daggett’s co-defendants – Lawrence Ricci, an alleged major mob figure – disappeared. A few weeks later his body was found decomposing in the trunk of a car outside a New Jersey restaurant.
Ricci’s death remained unsolved, although there was speculation that he was murdered after refusing to plead guilty to avoid news reports of the trial.
Daggett was acquitted on two counts.
Over the years, Daggett has vilified the commission and called its allegations of mob ties “complete nonsense” and a “deep, ugly attack on Italian Americans.”
Daggett said in 2022, “For the Waterfront Commission to independently single out and target Italian Americans as part of its historic anti-labor campaign is an enormous tragedy.” The Waterfront Commission has claimed for decades that good jobs only go to people with so-called ‘mob ties.'”
