The International Longshoremen’s Association voted to ratify a six-year contract agreement with the United States Maritime Alliance on Tuesday, according to a Facebook post shared by the union on Wednesday.
The union, which represents roughly 85,000 longshore workers at 100 seaports across the East and Gulf Coasts, said its members voted nearly 99% in favor to approve the tentative contract agreement that was reached in January.
The ILA said in a statement the contract became retroactively effective on Oct. 1, 2024 and will expire on Sept. 30, 2030. The contract will be formally signed by both the ILA and USMX on March 11, 2025.
ILA President Harold Daggett said the union and its members now aim to work in partnership with USMX to help union-represented ports grow and flourish, according to the post.
Approval of the contract comes after several months of negotiations and a three-day strike that took place in early October. Automation and its impact on labor continued to be a major concern for the union through the timeline of the contract talks, which halted bargaining a few times.
Language in the new contract indicates inroads were made on that issue, according to a Feb. 7 statement from the union.
According to ILA EVP Dennis Daggett, the new contract has agreements that the USMX engage with the ILA much earlier before purchasing any software, hardware or equipment. It also has an agreement that there will be no fully automated — defined as devoid of human interaction — terminals and no fully automated equipment during the term of the agreement.
Even with the contract's ratification, strife around technology, automation and artificial intelligence are not going away, Melissa Atkins, a labor and employment lawyer at Obermayer, told Supply Chain Dive in an email.
“This will remain a point of contention moving forward with all negotiations. Unions will continue to fight for job security, while management will continue to advance its technology to stay competitive. This will cause continued tension in future negotiations,” Atkins said.
