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It’s 2024 and our ports run much like they did 70 years ago because instead of bringing in basic automation, the dockworkers unions want things to run in that backward fashion. The backward state of our ports has been a contributor to the supply chain issues that have been causing problems for small businesses across the country.
With the election inbound, the union decided this would be a perfect time to cripple the economy.
Its words, not mine.
International Longshoremen’s Association boss Harold Daggett has long cast himself as a staunch advocate for blue-collar workers, even as he has lived in luxury, owning a yacht and driving a Bentley — and fought off alleged ties to the Mafia.
“They’re gonna be like this,” Daggett said, grabbing his neck in a choking gesture. “I’ll cripple you. I will cripple you and you have no idea what that means. Nobody does.”
Meanwhile, Daggett — has worked at the ILA for 57 years and took the helm as president in 2011 — raked in $728,000 in compensation last year from the ILA.
He collected another $173,000 as president emeritus of a local union branch, according to labor department filings.
He lives in a 7,136 square-foot house valued at $1.7 million on a 10-acre lot in Sparta, New Jersey, according to Zillow and NJ Property Records.
Daggett formerly owned the Obsession – a 76-foot yacht – and his family reportedly saw him zipping around in a Bentley, according to The New York Times.
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.
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.
When Daggett says, “I’ll cripple you”, he means it.
The strike is already turning violent with union thugs assaulting truck drivers.
Biden could stop this if he wanted to, but he’s choosing to stand with the thugs crippling America.
Thousands of unionized dockworkers on the East and Gulf coasts are preparing to walk off the job Tuesday, stranding cargo containers, choking off supply chains for consumer goods, and costing the economy an estimated $5 billion a day.
President Joe Biden has one card left to play — a nearly 80-year-old law that would force union members back to work while negotiations continue.
On Sunday, Biden said he would not get involved.
“It’s collective bargaining,” he said. “I don’t believe in Taft-Hartley.”
On Monday, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre backed that sentiment up.
“I know there’s a question about the Taft-Hartley. We have never invoked the Taft-Hartley to break a strike and are not considering to do so now,” she said at the press briefing, referring to Biden as a “pro-union president.”
Putting leftists first and America last.
The Mafia and Unions seem to be part of the Democrat Oligarchy. Similar to Ancient Rome.
“On the Waterfront,” LOL. Some things never seem to change.
Elia Kazan and his writers (assuming the ones credited really wrote it) the movie tried to surreptitiously promote communism but it did the opposite. Johnny Friendly and the Syndicate seemed like the Politburo to me. The “Dockworkers of the world unite” crap never came through. Unions seem commie to me.
Thanks Jeff !!! That was one of the things I looked for watching DVDs and such, was if and how they were surreptitiously promoting communism,
Union thugs and bums who want others to pay for their artificially high wages and unnecessary jobs. If it were up to these thugs and bums would still be riding the horse and buggy instead of cars.
“The artificially high wages forced on the economy by compulsory unionism imposed economic hardships on other groups—particularly on non-union workers and on unskilled labor, which was being squeezed gradually out of the market. Today’s widespread unemployment is the result of organized labor’s privileges and of allied measures, such as minimum wage laws. For years, the unions supported these measures and sundry welfare legislation, apparently in the belief that the costs would be paid by taxes imposed on the rich. The growth of inflation has shown that the major victim of government spending and of taxation is the middle class. Organized labor is part of the middle class—and the actual value of labor’s forced “social gains” is now being wiped out.” – Ayn Rand
Dockworkers are extremely necessary. Somebody has to unload the goods America depends on and load the ones our economy depends on. The goods they unload are the most important because besides being necessary for a good economy we NEED those everyday goods. The days when America was self sufficient are long gone, at least since the beginning of the 70s.
That said, as with the UAW, the longshoremen have been fighting automation tooth and nail. That’s why new American auto plants are in Central and South America, and new auto plants in the USA are mostly(possibly all) non-union foreign companies in the right to work South.. Ports ain’t auto plants, but the Longshoremen will eventually negotiate most of themselves out of a job, like the UAW has. What they’re demanding is ridiculous.
Yes, they already have lucrative careers even though they’re blue collar. They’re greedy assholes if you ask me, especially their pampered leadership.
I know Toyota has auto plants here that employ Americans and keep out unions while they make quality cars that are affordable. They save on shipping costs and hassle and Americans go to work. Not everybody is greedy, some of us are satisfied with enough to get by comfortably and save as much money as we can, yes? Unions remind me of the federal and most state governments and the parasites they’re infested with.
By “they” I mean the longshoreman and particularly their union leaders. I should’ve made that clear. My mistake.
Just what I need to hear. Mid 20th C. Quotations and Sayings from our little Marxist wannabe Ayn Randy.
It’s simple as this: “Workers of the world, unite!” – Karl Marx
And “eat the rich” and take control of something they can’t manage. Mob rule.
jo jo xhiden is angry at his cackler. If it was his election you might see a whole different strategy applied, but not Taft Hartley. Political suicide with the union vote, likely throw some money around.
True but a lot of union workers will vote for Trump because they remember what America was like when he was President and they have to live with the sabotage Beijing Bidumb’s handlers have wrought.
Yes, Daniel. But. Unions have given us so much …
I remember when I was a kid … working as a student engineer in a unionized chemical plant.
They keyed my car. Flattened my tires. Threatened me. Insulted me.
… And finally one of them tried to kill me.
Fortunately a member of the union for his own personal protection took steps to prevent the sabotage from blowing me to pieces.
What do I think of Unions? That’s easy. Ask yourself …
What do you think of Nasties?
I worked for a janitorial company for a while in HS. The 5th and 6th floors of the new building I was cleaning were still being finished by union Aholes. Since our janitorial company was non-union, the union workers would make sure the bathrooms were extra special nasty for me. It took longer to do the bathrooms on those two floors than the offices and bathrooms of the four other floors.
I worked on the docks for the teamsters (That you don’t work for the company, you work for the union, says a lot) for about a month. The pay was great, but the drive to work a long one, and the day dragged working half-speed, which was enforced. Dad was a supervisor on the line at an auto plant, so I already knew what a goatf___ working for the union would be. That major freight company is no longer in business, btw.. Nor do I have any goodwill towards unions. They were needed at one time, but those days are long past.
Your anecdotes are a perfect example of why unions are parasitical, unnecessary and have plenty of scumbags working for them along with normal people just trying to earn a living. And those unions sure do protect their scumbags, don’t they.
As an employee of a contracting company, I once had to supervise union workers at an auto parts plant. Some were great guys, two in particular, who invited me to their Church and stuff like that but some were lazy scumbags like the mad crappers on the top two floors of that building you worked in as a kid. One skank was the worst. She’d try not to work and use the excuse that some of the office workers were still there. She would claim union protection or some such. A cool member of the union taught me to tell her “file a grievance.” I added “now get to work.” She went on vacation until I left because she knew I was only there temporarily. I take satisfaction that her next boss would be union and he’s make her work but at half speed I suppose. Half is better than none, though.
The union housekeepers I supervised at a school for five and six year olds in Inxster, a suburb of wonderful Detroit, were the worst I ever encountered and thought being union members exempted them from work. Too many stories about shirking and leaving the job to list.
Me, I hate working slowly. I just want to get the job done and if I go slowly my imagination takes over because the job is so easy.
Damn, Dan. It sounds like you got the extra special union benefits that people don’t talk about. I’m glad you didn’t get blown up but I wonder how the union goon plotted to do it? The guy who prevented it did it for himself but alive is better than dead no matter what his motivation was.
The US is in Freefall beause of the policies of the Democrats….they love chaos and unrest, and dividing people…they are destroying the system that worked.
More reasons we should never ever ever elect a Liberal Democrat who serves the Crooked Labor Unions the Teamsters AFL?CIO and the rest with Mafia Connections
Yes and even worse are people in high office who serve China, like Beijing Biden and Timbecile Great Walz obviously do. Although in Biden’s case, he sold us out to any country willing to pay; China, Russia, Ukraine and who knows what other enemy.
Americans might ask themselves if globalism–which is the go-to economic philosophy of our “citizen of the world” elitists, and heavily relies on massive levels of imported goods that we should be producing here–is a good idea, when it’s apparent that a single union can hold the entire nation hostage to its demands.
That longshoreman union leader needs the Jimmy Hoffa treatment.
What no one is addressing is the fact the the ports in question are owned by foreign countries like Qatar. Why is this allowed? I would rather have a union thug working in an American owned port, than a fully automated port owned by Qatar.
China owned ports on the West coast but were forced to sell them. I think it was Trump who did that.
The Democrats need the union votes and they will blame the resulting damage to the economy IF elected., on Trump…if not…they just made things worse for Trump. It’s a 3 way justification to their selfish stance on the strike. They win any way they go. Just watch.