If you'll remember, there was a bit of a scare back in the fall, right before the election, as the International Longshoreman's Association (ILA), the union for the longshoremen on most East and Gulf Coast ports and the consortium that manages those ports, the United State Maritime Alliance (USMX) were at loggerheads over a new contract and the issue of automation.

There was a lot of pre-walkout necessary and expensive reshuffling of Christmas orders and commerce in an attempt to beat the deadline and panic at the thought of the devastating effects of what an extended walkout would do to a tottery US economy. POTATUS and Co. were frozen in 'Y'all be careful out there" mode, adding to a general sense of doom.

At the last minute, a pause in hostilities was hammered out and only a pause.

...The Biden administration was completely hands-off until the union physically shut the ports down. Even then, their participation only went as far as the Secretary of Labor finally flying in to meet with both parties to "urge" them to work through their differences and for the USMX to give a little to the union. That's classic Scranton Joe for you there.

Public pressure and outrage, election upheaval, not to mention a looming economic disaster all probably served to cool some heated jets enough for a bit of progress to be made in a short period of time. The USMX agreed to something on the order of a 62% wage hike over 6 years. Then everybody agreed to get the docks reopened under the terms of the old contract while they hammered out other, thornier issues, but only until 15 January 2025.

The two parties had been in talks until last month when the ILA once again broke off negotiations over USMX's insistence on installing 'automation' at the ports.

...The ILA broke off contract talks last month as employers sought to include semiautomated container cranes in a new pact, saying the USMX was trying to eliminate union jobs. Employers countered that automation technology is needed to make box handling at ILA ports more globally competitive, which would in turn create jobs.

Pointing out that this is Joe Biden's mess is technically correct, but in practicality, it is a waste of time and energy.

Hey @JoeBiden you still sitting president and you have an upcoming 🚢 port strike that nobody is addressing. What are you doing to prevent this? Supply Chains are going to get impacted, ultimately budget pressured consumers. Or you’re just too busy pardoning criminals? https://t.co/VG7lc0wYsh

— jthovaz (@jthovaz) December 13, 2024

In a surprise move today, President-elect Donald Trump sailed into the labor dispute and firmly planted his flag...on the longshoremen's quarterdeck.

Trump comes out strongly against port automation. pic.twitter.com/6ccLlBl4wy

— Ryan Petersen (@typesfast) December 12, 2024

Knock you over with a feather, huh?

Many, many people are losing their cookies over this seemingly nonsensical stance by President Trump - how can he be against 'efficiency'? You know I'm far from a union fan and will admit to being thrown for a momentary loop myself. Especially since I think Daggett's a...well, jackass.

On the other hand, the steamship companies (represented on the USMX board) are rapacious predators in their own right and don't give a rip about their customers or their employees. It's nice to be a virtual monopoly on a vital transportation mode. They know you gotta have them.

Bingley works with these companies and ports every day. He and I had kind of a chat about the situation, and we're thinking Trump might just be crazy like a fox.

Bear with me here, because there are a couple of moving parts that have to be put together.

This contract agreement is set to end five days before the inauguration - the 15th. Trump owes much of his support for winning to disaffected union workers who bucked their bosses and union tradition to vote for him. Trump IS the 'workers' president,' and he knows it. Don't forget, he even had a good meeting with curmudgeonly ILA head Harold Daggett before the election. He knows what their issues are, and he's also an international businessman. Trump's dealt with shipping companies, etc.

Trump also knows all about these guys - this is the foreign face of the USMX, the "alliance" that controls the ports. 

AMERICAN ports.

The majority of the board directors are foreign.

And Trump is what kind of president? America first.

So here's kind of our first chip on the table.

Now, as to the automation aspect, who could be against that, right? Makes things faster, work smoother, better, saves money through efficiency, but it does cost jobs.

Obviously, the union is being unreasonable, not allowing it, or, let's say, objecting to it.

Here's another angle, though - what exactly does the USMX want 'automated' and why? 

What I understand is the USMX is primarily concerned with replacing the crane operators and truck drivers, which also happen to be the two highest-paid jobs on the docks. It takes a long time to get to be a crane operator working your way up through a union food chain. For good reason, too.

In any event - no one wants to lose their schweet gig high atop the gantry, but if it improves 'efficiency' as USMX insists, well...don't they need to modernize?

Here's another chip.

Divesting themselves of human crane operators may not improve efficiency at those ports in any real measure because of something called a 'bottleneck' and bottlenecks are not under discussion for upgrading. 

Port bottlenecks are caused by limited access to get cargo in and out - the size of the road, the available space to store containers until they can leave, customs jacking up unloading schedules when they take a random five containers off a boat to rustle through for contraband.

As this tweet explains, in some ports, even rebuilding the roadways that connect to the ports would be required. When Bingley describes the Port of Bayonne, he says there is no more room to expand to improve port efficiency.

So it makes you wonder if the foreign operators of these ports are simply looking to dump the dozen or so biggest salaries under the guise of efficiency when, in reality, nothing is going out of the gate any faster than it already is. It physically can't.

One more angle Bingley thought of, and I thought it was brilliant.

The optics of a strike or a lockout.

These longshoremen want to work. Ostensibly, they are fighting not to be out of work.

If the ports shut down and Trump invokes Taft-Hartley, as Bingley said to me, 1) sending the National Guard in to force people to work (an ILA strike) versus 2) sending them in to unlock the gates to ALLOW people to work (a USMX lockout)?

The first is greedy union and zero sympathy.

In the second scenario, Trump becomes the America First president, acting on his promise of protecting American workers against powerful foreign interests. The same ones who, for too long, have taken advantage of liberal business policies and conditions here, destroying American jobs.

It's BOX OFFICE GOLD.

So that's our wild-eyed take on it. We could be way wrong, but then again...

I mean, crazier things have happened. 

Like...Trump's gonna be president again, isn't he?