News/Commentary

Biden won’t use his authority to halt union dock worker strike; union boss who threatened to cripple America has one helluva shady past

October 2, 2024 | | Print Article

President Joe Biden is refusing to use his executive powers to halt the ongoing longshoremen strike that threatens to upend the economy.

The president could simply use the federal labor law known as the Taft-Hartley Act to force the ports to resume operating while negotiations continue, but he’s made it clear he won’t go that route.

“We have not used Taft-Hartley, and we’re not planning to,” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told Fox News on Tuesday.

The reason why, critics suspect, is because Biden and in fact the entire Democrat Party are beholden to the corrupt unions, including the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA).

The union’s boss is Harold Daggett, a wealthy man who owns a yacht and a Bentley, who earned over $900,000 last year, and who was once acquitted of RICO charges after the witness against him was found dead.

“In 2005, the Justice Department accused Daggett of being an ‘associate’ of the Genovese crime family – one of the ‘Five Families’ of the US Mafia,” according to the New York Post. “Daggett took the witness stand that year after federal prosecutors charged him with racketeering.”

“He described himself as a target of the mob – though a turncoat Mafia member had testified Daggett was under the mob’s thumb. … During the course of the trial, one of Daggett’s co-defendants – Lawrence Ricci, an alleged major mob figure – disappeared. His body was found weeks later decomposing in the trunk of a car outside a New Jersey diner,” the Post notes.

So what is it that Daggett and the ILA want? A 77 percent pay raise (no joke) over the course of six years and a ban on automation.

Their employer, the U.S. Maritime Alliance (USMX), has for its part offered them a 50 percent pay raise and a continuation of its current policies on automation.

“Our current offer of a nearly 50 percent wage increase exceeds every other recent union settlement while addressing inflation, and recognizing the ILA’s hard work to keep the global economy running,”  USMX said in a statement.

“We look forward to hearing from the Union about how we can return to the table and actually bargain, which is the only way to reach a resolution,” they added.

But this isn’t good enough for Daggett and crew, and Biden for his part evidently supports the union’s ridiculous 77 percent raise demand:

If the strike continues for weeks on end, it could stir up massive problems for the U.S. economy, as even Daggett has admitted.

“When my men hit the streets from Maine to Texas, every single port a lockdown,” he said this week. “You know what’s going to happen? First week, it’ll be all over the news. Second week, guys who sell cars can’t sell cars because the cars ain’t coming in off the ships. They get laid off. Third week, malls start closing down.”

“They can’t get the goods from China. They can’t sell clothes. They can’t do this. Everything in the United States comes on a ship. They go out of business. Construction workers get laid off because the materials aren’t coming in. The steel’s not coming in. The lumber’s not coming in. They lose their job. Everybody’s hating the longshoremen now because now they realize how important our jobs are,” he added.

Listen, and take note of his gold chain:

He was wrong though about people hating the longshoremen. What people actually hate is the union itself, in addition to its leadership.

Look:

Vivek Saxena
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