XPost: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, alt.society.labor-unions, sac.politics   
   XPost: talk.politics.guns   
   From: overpaid@firethem.all   
      
   Nearly 50,000 dockworkers launched a strike this week at ports from Maine   
   to Texas — but, in a bizarre quirk that has resulted from massive   
   concessions to the union over the decades, the affected ports only employ   
   25,000.   
      
   There’s a massive gulf in the numbers between those who show up for work   
   and total membership in the powerful International Longshoremen’s   
   Association, which won a deal late Thursday for a 62% wage increase over   
   the next six years.   
      
   That’s because half of the dockworkers at the East and Gulf coast ports   
   are allowed to sit at home collecting “container royalties” negotiated   
   decades ago to protect against job losses that result from innovation,   
   according to The Wall Street Journal.   
      
   The impact of these no-show jobs at the ports — controlled by ILA’s   
   highly-paid and foul-mouthed president Harold Daggett — were part of an   
   explosive 2019-2020 Waterfront Commission report cited by The Journal’s   
   editorial board on Friday.   
      
   That report laid out how the ILA’s iron grip helps some workers at the   
   expense of countless other blue-collar applicants by refusing to hire   
   residents near the ports — and reignited concerns about the mob’s control   
   over US shipping made famous in the classic film “On the Waterfront.”   
      
   “The absolute control of the International Longshoremen’s Association,   
   AFL-CIO (ILA) over hiring in the Port for over 60 years has not only led   
   to a lack of diversity and inclusion in waterfront employment, but also to   
   the perpetuation of criminality and corruption,” the Waterfront Commission   
   report found.   
      
   It also alleged that nearly 600 union members received more than $147   
   million in outsized salaries not required by the industry’s collective   
   bargaining agreement — and for hours they don’t have to work at the ports.   
      
   “Those who are connected to union leadership or organized crime figures   
   are rewarded with high-paying, low-show or no-work special compensation   
   packages,” Walter Arsenault, then-executive director of the Waterfront   
   Commission, wrote in the harbor report.   
      
   The ILA did not immediately respond to requests for comment.   
      
   Daggett – who threatened to “cripple” adversaries during the strike – took   
   the helm as ILA president in 2011. He raked in $728,000 in compensation   
   last year from the union, and collected another $173,000 as president   
   emeritus of a local union branch, according to Labor Department filings.   
      
   He lives in a 7,316 square-foot house on a 10-acre lot in New Jersey with   
   a luxury Bentley parked in front, and he previously owned a 76-foot yacht   
   called the Obsession, according to Zillow and NJ Property Records.   
      
   His two sons are also union bigshots who reportedly make big bucks.   
      
   Dennis Daggett is the executive vice president of the ILA and earned   
   $250,156 in the fiscal year ended December 2022, according to ProPublica.   
      
   John Daggett, the general vice president of the Atlantic Coast District   
   ILA, earned $264,228 in the same period.   
      
   While white male employees and relatives earned big, the union continued   
   to employ discriminatory hiring practices, the Waterfront Commission   
   report said.   
      
   The commission said it faced “virulent opposition” in its efforts to   
   ensure the union required fair hiring practices.   
      
   “Six years and almost 1,300 additional workers later, very little progress   
   has been made in diversifying the registered deep-sea longshore workers in   
   the respective ILA locals,” Arsenault wrote.   
      
   When the union did hire employees from diverse backgrounds, it separated   
   them by locals.   
      
   The majority of incoming black longshoremen were placed in one   
   predominantly Black ILA local in Newark, NJ, while coveted positions in   
   ILA Local 1 were largely given to white males, the report said.   
      
   The demographics for registered union maintenance workers and mechanics   
   were even less diverse. Only one out of the 1,024 registered longshore   
   maintenance workers in the entire port was a woman, the 2019-2020 report   
   said.   
      
   The watchdog agency also accused the union of having ties to organized   
   crime figures.   
      
   The commission did not approve 18% of the ILA’s longshore worker referrals   
   because they were tied to organized crime, the report said.   
      
   Daggett has fought allegations of mob ties himself.   
      
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
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