This week, nearly 50,000 dockworkers from ports across the U.S., from Maine to Texas, went on strike. However, due to significant concessions made to unions over several decades, only about 25,000 workers are actually employed at the affected ports.
The powerful International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) recently reached an agreement for a 62% wage increase over six years, which has resulted in a huge gap between the number of workers and total union membership. According to The Wall Street Journal, this is because half of the dockworkers at East Coast and Gulf Coast ports are allowed to stay home while collecting “container premiums” negotiated decades ago to protect against job losses due to technological innovations.
For years, the unions behind this historic three-day port strike have been accused of corruption, mob ties, and discrimination. The impact of these vacant positions—controlled by the well-paid and outspoken union president Harold Daggett—is part of the 2019-2020 Waterfront Commission report cited in an editorial by The Wall Street Journal.
The report details how the ILA squeezes other blue-collar workers by refusing to hire residents near the ports, reigniting concerns about mob control over U.S. shipping as depicted in the classic film “On the Waterfront.”
“The International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) AFL-CIO has had absolute control over port employment for more than 60 years, not only leading to a lack of diversity and inclusivity on the waterfront but also fostering crime and corruption,” noted the Waterfront Commission in its report.
The report also claims that nearly 600 union members received excess pay totaling $147 million, which was outside the scope of industry-wide collective bargaining agreements and earned without working at the ports.
“Those connected to union leadership or organized crime figures receive special compensation packages with high salaries, light workloads, or no work at all,” wrote Walter Arsenault, then-executive director of the Waterfront Commission, in the port report.
The International Longshoremen’s Association did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
During the strike, Daggett threatened to “paralyze” his opponents. He became president of the ILA in 2011 and received a $728,000 compensation package from the union last year, while also earning $173,000 as an honorary chairman of a local union branch.
He lives in a 7,316-square-foot mansion on a 10-acre property in New Jersey with a luxury Bentley parked outside and previously owned a 76-foot yacht named Obsession.
His two sons are also key figures within the union and reportedly earn substantial incomes.
Dennis Daggett is the Executive Vice President of the ILA, earning $250,000 for the fiscal year ending December 2022 according to ProPublica data.
John Daggett serves as the General Vice President of the Atlantic Coast Region of the ILA and earned $264,000 in the same period.
While white male employees and their relatives earn high incomes, the union continues discriminatory hiring practices, the Waterfront Commission report claims.
The commission said it faced “fierce opposition” in its efforts to ensure fair employment practices by the union.
“In six years, with nearly 1,300 additional workers added, diversity among registered deep-sea dockworkers has improved little at their respective local ILA chapters,” wrote Arsenault. When the union does hire from diverse backgrounds, it segregates them by region.
Most newly hired Black dockworkers were assigned to a majorly Black workforce unit of the ILA in Newark, New Jersey, while preferred positions in the ILA Local 1, mainly allocated to white males, report said.
Diversity among registered waterfront maintenance workers and mechanics is even less. The 2019-2020 report noted that only one out of the 1,024 registered longshore maintenance workers across all ports was a woman.
Supervisory bodies also accused the union of having ties to organized crime figures.
The commission did not approve 18% of longshoremen referrals by the ILA due to their connections with organized crime, according to the report.
Daggett himself has faced allegations of mob ties.
In 2005, the Department of Justice charged Daggett as a “member” of the Genovese family, one of the five major Mafia families in America.
He testified that year against federal prosecutors who accused him of extortion. He claimed to be a target of the mob—though a turncoat from the mob had testified that Daggett was under its control.
During his trial, Daggett’s co-defendant and alleged main mob figure Lawrence Ricci went missing. His body was found weeks later in the trunk of a car outside a restaurant in New Jersey.
While speculation suggested Ricci was killed after refusing to plead guilty to avoid news exposure during his trial, his death remains unresolved.
Daggett was acquitted in both cases.
Over the years, Daggett has criticized the commission, calling its allegations of mob ties “complete nonsense” and an “ugly attack on Italian-Americans.”
“The Waterfront Commission enjoys liberalism and uses anti-worker rhetoric as a pretext to target Italian-Americans. It’s a damned tragedy,” Daggett said in 2022. “Let’s be realistic. For decades, the Waterfront Commission has claimed that only those with so-called ‘mob ties’ could get good jobs.”
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Source: New York Post
