On Friday, Hot Air posted an article about the Longshoreman’s strike that is currently on hold. The hold will end, and the strike may resume on January 15th. One of the reasons the strike has not been settled is the debate over the automation of American ports. Oddly enough, President Trump has come out against automation.

Hot Air reports:

…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 article notes:

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. 

The article points out that the jobs that would be automated would not help with the bottlenecks that occur at our ports.

The bottleneck is caused by the rail capacity going in and out of the ports.

The article concludes:

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?

Stay tuned.