Unions that threaten to hold Christmas hostage are just like my grandpa: wrong | Opinion
Back in the day, being a longshoreman was backbreaking work, hoisting pallets of goods off a ship, carrying crates in your arms and sacks on your back. My grandfather was shaped by it. It wasn’t just a job. It was obvious in how he walked and sat and stood, bent after decades, maybe a little broken. He talked and thought like a longshoreman, too.
He couldn’t imagine that thousands of days of the same crushing workload would come to an end — and was willing to hold his city hostage to make sure they didn’t.
Today, the job is much different. For the most part, you operate machinery built around standardized cargo containers, getting them from ship to shore and port to truck or rail. You don’t walk like a longshoreman anymore, but you still fear change — and now you are willing to hold a whole nation hostage, as the longshoremen who have gone on strike this week at East and Gulf Coast ports had planned, before a last-minute agreement gave negotiators til Jan. 15 to hammer out a final deal.
But change is a funny thing. The old ways that today’s longshoremen defend aren’t that old. And change, well, it is coming sooner or later no matter what they do.
When I was a baby, my grandfather went on strike. He and his fellow union members brought commerce in New York City to a standstill. They didn’t care how many store clerks, carpenters and truck drivers they put out of work or for how long. They were going to get big raises and stop change, just as the unions of today planned after spurning a 49.5% raise as too paltry to consider.
Don’t get me wrong: I loved the man whose terrifyingly strong hands I remember gripping mine as a toddler. He was good to me. But he and his colleagues didn’t care who they hurt to protect their seaside turf. International Longshoreman’s Association leader Harold Daggett told CNN if his demands weren’t met “This world will collapse.” The guy thinks and acts like a bully.
And what exactly was the change that Grandpa went on strike against? In large part, it was the standardized shipping container and the mechanization that came with it.
People today take those hulking steel eyesores piled all over the country for granted. Invented in 1956 and coming into wide use over the next 20 years, the lockable, stackable, identical boxes were the keystone technology that allowed open trade to sweep the globe and drag a billion people out of grinding poverty, building the wealth and investment capital that today bring more change in today’s automation and artificial intelligence revolutions.
My grandpa won his strike, sorta. He got a big raise and he kept his job for as long as he wanted, but he and his fellow longshoremen killed the Brooklyn docks. Change came, but it came elsewhere.
When I knew him as a little boy, I wondered why Dad went to work all day, but Grandpa clocked in and came home within an hour, bearing a pint of fresh half and half, some bagels and a copy of The New York Post. He was paid for more than a decade to clock in and do nothing.
Today’s longshoremen are fighting to protect a way of life for 50,000 workers that my grandfather tried to kill at its birth. Now they’re fighting to stop the automation that is the next step in making ports more efficient and their role as engines of economic growth more robust.
Kamala Harris and Donald Trump have both cozied up to unions in the hopes of getting endorsements, campaign cash and the votes that come with. The question is whether either is willing to weigh in on the side of evolution and building prosperity for tomorrow.
Change is tough for those who have to live through it, but change brings a better world with it — one worth fighting for. My grandpa’s longshoremen were wrong to try stopping it in the 1970s and the longshoremen of today are wrong, too.
The future is coming. Get out of the way.
David Mastio, a former editor and columnist for USA Today, is a regional editor for The Center Square and a regular Star Opinion correspondent. Follow him on X: @DavidMastio or email him at dmastio1@yahoo.com
This story was originally published October 4, 2024 at 9:55 AM with the headline "Unions that threaten to hold Christmas hostage are just like my grandpa: wrong | Opinion."