CRITICAL INSIGHTS ON THE PORT OPERATOR AND DOCK WORKER STRIKE
Dr. Horace Columbus Neal II
Educational Programming, Marketing, & Organizational Leadership Consultant | HERU BAR-CHANAN, Author
"NEW YORK/WASHINGTON/LOS ANGELES — A union representing U.S. dock workers and port operators have reached a tentative deal on wages that will end a three-day strike that has shut down shipping on the U.S. East Coast and Gulf Coast. the International [Sic] Longshoremen's Association union and the United States Maritime Alliance said on Thursday [October 3, 2024]...The Biden administration sided with the union, putting pressure on the port employers to raise their offer to secure a deal and citing the shipping industry's bumper profits since the COVID-19 pandemic."
Excerpt from an article in USA Today by Doyinsola Oladipo & David Shepardson Reuters | October 4, 2024
A FEW THOUGHTS ON THE PORT LABOR DISPUTE
President Biden
Although President Biden publicly sided with the striking port operators and dock workers for political expediency, he would have been required to change his position, despite his ideological pronouncements in favor of the strikers, if the labor disputants had not reached an agreement when they did and the strike was extended due to a protracted labor dispute. President Biden's taking sides in this labor dispute was unethical and unwise.
The Realpolitik of the Situation
A protracted port operators' and dock workers' strike would have caused a coast-to-coast breakdown in a supply chain that is still recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic, and it would have triggered a rapidly spreading nationwide contagion of survival panic in the populous on the eve of the holiday shopping season, with the U.S. presidential election, and all that hangs in the balance with it, just one month away. The realpolitik of the situation would have compelled President Biden to withdraw his support of the strikers and strategically and ethically apply the powers vested in him as the President of the United States to get the port operators and dock workers back to work. The precedent of a POTUS ordering strikers back to work was set by President Ronald Reagan in 1981 when, for the sake of the National Interest, he ordered back to work the air traffic controllers who walked off the job on August 3, 1981. President Reagan fired all 11,359 air traffic controllers on August 5, 1981, and replaced them when they refused to comply. That short work stoppage by the air traffic controllers caused over 7,000 flights to be canceled. A protracted labor strike would have compromised the country's domestic and national security, economic stability, and civil order. President Reagan had the direct authority to take this action because the air traffic controllers were under contract with the federal government.
Although dock workers and port operators, like air traffic controllers, are too essential to the economic stability, domestic security, and civil order of the United States for the country to endure a protracted work stoppage, President Biden has no direct authority to force compliance by the port employers or the port operators and dock workers because they are not under government contract. Yet, President Biden's siding with the workers in this labor dispute and intervening on their behalf by specifically pressing the port employers to raise their wage offer to the union was not only unethical, but it was also strategically short-sighted. This action established the unfortunate precedent of a POTUS using a labor dispute in a critical industry to gain political capital by choosing sides. We are defining a?Critical Industry?is an industry in which a sudden or protracted work stoppage could cripple the country by disrupting the supply chain, compromising domestic and national security, inciting panic and civil unrest, destabilizing the economy, or creating a public safety and/or health crisis.
The Union's Strategic Failure
The seaports are the lifeline of the U.S. economy. The port operators and dock workers had a legitimate grievance about being excluded from the huge windfall of profits accrued by the port employers due to the dramatic increase in online shopping during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. Although the union strategically leveraged the November 5th presidential election and the approaching holiday shopping season, it overestimated its negotiating power and squandered its strategic advantage.
Union representatives boldly rejected an offer from the port employers for a 50% wage increase, demanding 77%, then tentatively agreeing to 62% over a six-year period. This offer is on the table for 90 days to allow them time to negotiate another contract. Unfortunately, in 90 days, the negotiating leverage provided by the approaching holiday season and the Presidential election will have dissipated. Hubris may have gotten the best of the union representatives because they also bombastically and unrealistically demanded zero automation of the ports and docks, which was unfortunate because numerous eastern seaboard and gulf ports and docks are already automated to some extent. Further, the failure of the union representatives to use their formidable negotiating leverage to demand profit-sharing (adjusted for inflation) and worker representation in the port employers' decision-making processes concerning port operators and dock workers was a short-sighted strategic error that may someday come back to haunt them.
FOUR CRITICAL TAKEAWAYS FROM PRESIDENT BIDEN'S RESPONSE
Takeaway #1
The President of the United States must not choose sides in a labor dispute. It is unethical for the President of the United States to use the office of the Presidency as a bully pulpit to promote the cause of one side or the other involved in a labor dispute. If one President assumes the prerogative of championing the cause of workers in a labor dispute as a matter of political expediency or patronage, then another President can do the same in favor of corporate employers. The lack of Presidential neutrality in labor disputes is unsustainable and will eventually yield unfortunate results for the United States.
Takeaway #2
Because it is ethical and essential for the President of the United States to remain either passively neutral or actively impartial in labor conflicts, it behooves the United States to abolish from this country's electoral politics the option of candidates for public office receiving campaign donations and endorsements from labor unions. Collective bargaining is obviously strategic for workers, but the collective endorsement of candidates is an abrogation of the private, one-citizen-one-vote principle that is the bedrock of our democracy. It is inappropriate for political candidates to enable this subversion of the Democratic process by courting the votes of unions, and it may, upon close legal examination, be Constitutionally prohibited.
Takeaway #3
The President's main responsibility, as the Head of the Executive Branch of Government, is to ensure the domestic and national security of the United States.
Takeaway #4
The President's principal concern with a labor dispute must be its past, present, and potential impact on the country's domestic and national security and whether the agreement reached by the parties involved is in the National Interest. If presidential intervention in a labor dispute within a Critical Industry is necessary, then the POTUS must be impartial in resolving the dispute. This means that all parties involved in a labor dispute must prioritize the National Interest in their negotiations.
PRECONDITIONS FOR ETHICAL PRESIDENTIAL INTERVENTION:
The only circumstances in which it is ethical for the President of the United States to move from passive neutrality to active impartiality in a labor dispute are if:
(1) the labor conditions disputed demonstrably involve the employer's violation of the workers' Civil Rights and/or Human Rights;
(2) the labor conditions disputed cause a safety and/or health threat to the workers, and the employer is recalcitrant to reasonable demands by labor union representatives;
(3) the labor conditions disputed pose a threat to the public's safety or health;
领英推荐
(4) the failure of the disputants to reach an agreement will result in a protracted work stoppage that threatens domestic security and civil order. Bear in mind that the domestic security and national security of the United States are interdependent.
(5) both parties jointly request Presidential intervention.
CONCLUSION
Alpha
It is beneath the dignity of the Office for the Head of State to engage in political patronage and political theater by publically taking sides in a labor dispute. President Biden's response to the port labor dispute smacked of political expediency. The dignity of the Presidential Office requires either passive neutrality or active impartiality in all labor disputes.
Although this labor dispute met precondition #4 by posing a threat to the country's domestic security, economic stability, and civil order, President Biden's siding with the port operators and dock workers was unethical because he used the Presidency as a bully pulpit to champion the cause of one side in a labor dispute as political patronage and for political theater. President Biden unwisely lobbied for the port operators and dock workers by pressing the port employers to agree with the union's specific wage increase demands, citing the port employers bumper profits gained since the COVID-19 pandemic. He then commented on the labor negotiations in the media with Vice-President Harris, disclosing their partiality, apparently to gain Presidential approval points and Presidential Candidate approval points.
Beta
The President should have already had a permanent task force to monitor the state of labor relations in all Critical Industries, collect data, and prepare the Executive Branch to respond to any labor dispute that could result in a work stoppage that could cripple the country. Although the legal path to this action may be complex and nuanced, President Biden quite possibly could have impartially and ethically intervened in this labor dispute by invoking Domestic and National Security and issuing an Executive Order subjecting the labor disputants to the oversight of a team of impartial Presidentially appointed ombudsmen comprised of representatives from the offices of the President's Cabinet, according to their relevance to the outcome of the labor dispute.
Gamma
Instead of using this labor dispute and potential national crisis for short-sighted political theater, President Biden could have used this labor dispute as an opportunity to establish a permanent Critical Industry Labor Dispute Task Force that would exercise jurisdiction on behalf of the Executive Branch over all Critical Industry labor disputes. The Critical Industry Labor Dispute Task Force would operate under the oversight of the Attorney General, who would be vested with the authority to assign special Labor Dispute Resolution (LDR) teams comprised of impartial, data-supported representatives from the offices within the President's Cabinet, according to their relevance to the dispute. The main purpose of an LDR team would be to bring the labor disputants to a reasonable agreement that is in the best interest of the United States: the government and the people.
Delta
Theoretically, if a Labor Dispute Resolution (LDR) team was assigned to the recent port labor dispute, the LDR team would have comprised representation from each of the following offices in President Biden's Cabinet:
After considering each other's arguments and the LDR team's data-supported discussion of the implications of each side's position for the National Interest, the labor disputants would have either reached an agreement on their own accord or the Labor Dispute Resolution team would have settled the dispute by internal vote and imposed binding arbitration on the labor disputants. Under no circumstance should labor disputants in any industry be able to cripple the United States because of their failure to reach an agreement. All parties involved in any Critical Industry labor dispute must prioritize the National Interest.
Epsilon
Finally, my Dad, the late USAF MSGT (Retired) Horace Columbus Neal (1931-2009), who was a Cold Warrior and Veteran of the Korean and Vietnam Wars, told me,
"The less government, the better."
Although the idea of small government has been co-opted by shamelessly mean-spirited ideologues with oppressive political agendas and hateful social intentions, limited government is actually a valid and noble concept of the State when applied in the spirit of Truth, Justice, Righteousness, Reciprocity, Freedom, Knowledge, and Love, which are the substance of Peace and Prosperity in the Body Politic, especially when the State encourages and supports the self-governance of the people. If the United States of America is to have a "small government" or a streamlined Federal Government, the State Apparatus must be robust enough and administratively agile enough for the United States Government to respond effectively whenever the economic stability, domestic security, civil order, national security, or public safety and health are at risk and require decisive government intervention. That being said, we do not live in Eastern Europe or Western Europe, where disgruntled workers in a Critical Industry can shut down the country with no regard for domestic or national security. We live in the United States of America, the Global Superpower that carries the weight of the World on its shoulders. Subjecting this country's domestic security, economic stability, and civil order to the mercy of myopic, hubris-and-greed-driven labor disputants is unsustainable and unreasonable and contributes considerably to making big government in the United States of America unnecessarily necessary.
DR. HORACE COLUMBUS NEAL II, Ed.D., MBA-MKTG, M.A., B.A., NJS1
True to the Promise
********************
PLEASE SHARE >>>