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    • Photo of ILA’s Harold Daggett with Trump circulates as the strike begins
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    Photo of ILA’s Harold Daggett with Trump circulates as the strike begins

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    Images of the International Longshoremen’s Association president’s meeting with former President Donald Trump were circulating on social media as the union went on strike Tuesday.

    The images come from a July post on the union’s website, where union president Harold Daggett asked members to “pray” for the former president in the wake of the Pennsylvania assassination attempt.

    In the post, Daggett recalled a meeting with Trump in 2023 where the former president appeared to express his support for the Longshoremen.

    “We had a wonderful, productive 90-minute meeting in which I expressed to President Trump the threat of automation to American workers,” Daggett said. “President Trump pledged to support the ILA in its opposition to automated terminals in the U.S. Mr. Trump also listened to my concerns about federal Right To Work laws that undermine unions and their ability to represent and fight for the membership .”

    The walkout begins on the same day as the vice presidential debate and days after Trump, appearing at a rally in Erie, Pennsylvania, admitted he wanted to avoid overtime.

    ‘I know a lot about overtime’ the Republican candidate said on Sunday. “I hated giving overtime. I hated it. I would get other people, I shouldn’t say this, but I would get other people in. I wouldn’t pay.

    The Trump administration fought unions during their time in office

    Progress on many workers’ rights issues stalled heading into 2016, and Trump took advantage of that frustration, Celine McNicholas, policy director at the nonpartisan research organization Economic Policy Institute Action, previously told USA TODAY.

    “He may have been the first Republican in a long time to actually give voice to that outrage,” she said. “But I think it ends there.”

    She said he had proposed cuts to worker protections, and the Economic Policy Institute called moves under his administration to roll back worker protections “unprecedented.”

    “With the incredible wave of activity that… came out of the Trump administration, the chaos, I think, has actually resulted in their actual progress on some of these anti-labor and anti-fair economy policies that they have actually achieved is obscured. consistently pushed forward,” said McNicholas.

    Despite the administration’s anti-union reputation, the national Teamsters union withheld its endorsement of Trump or Vice President Kamala Harris, even though a slew of swing state residents independently supported the Democratic candidate.

    The ILA has not announced an endorsement for the 2024 presidential race, but threw its support behind then-candidate Joe Biden in 2020.

    What does the ILA want?

    According to CNBC, the ILA is aiming for a 61.5% wage increase over six years.

    It’s also concerned about automation. In June it halted talks with port authority USMX due to an automation dispute. In a press release at the time, the ILA said: “ILA President (Harold) Daggett has made it clear that the union will take a strong stand against any technology that threatens ILA jobs.”

    On Monday, USMX said in a statement that it had offered to increase wages by nearly 50%, triple employer contributions to employee retirement plans, improve health care options and maintain its current language around automation and semi-automation.

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