Education

ILA Education/History

12 hours ago

ILA PRESIDENT HAROLD J. DAGGETT TO CELEBRATE 80TH BIRTHDAY AT HYATT REGENCY HOTEL IN JERSEY CITY, NJ

Please join us in wishing ILA International President Harold J. Daggett all the health and happiness in the world as he celebrates his 80th birthday on May 12, 2026.
St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital will be honoring President Daggett at a special event at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Jersey City, NJ.

LABOR LEADER
LABOR CHAMPION
LABOR LEGEND

Daggett began working on the docks as a member of ILA Local 1804-1 in 1967 and became our International President in 2011.
Throughout his long, storied career, there have been many achievements and accolades. Perhaps his greatest achievement may have taken place on March 11, 2025 as he served as the chief negotiator for the ILA membership and signed the single greatest contract in the history of organized labor.
Let us take a moment to look at President Daggett’s illustrious career and accomplishments:

-Born in 1946 in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village

-Spent his childhood in Woodside, Queens, New York

-Attended Cardinal Farley Military Academy in upstate NY.

-Served in the US Navy and Vietnam in the mid 1960’s

-Began his ILA career as a mechanic with 1804-1 in 1967

-Became foreman with Sea-Land Services

-Appointed Secretary Treasurer and Business Agent of 1804-1 in 1980

-Became President of 1804-1 in 1998

-Secretary Treasurer of the Atlantic Coast District

-Executive Vice President and Assistant General Organizer of our International

-Elected ILA International President in 2011

-Won 10 year arbitration for The Port of Discovery

-Successfully negotiated three master contracts during his time as President, which includes an agreement with USMX that there will be no fully automated terminals

-affiliated the ILA with the IDC in 2011

-Received the 2019 Man of the Year Award at the New York-New Jersey Foreign Freight Forwarders Dinner

-Inducted into the International Maritime Hall of Fame in May 2019

-Recipient of the prestigious Admiral of the Sea Award in 2022, the highest honor in the maritime industry

-led ILA to eliminate the Waterfront Commission in the state of New Jersey in 2023

-led ILA in a Supreme Court victory that the Leatherman Terminal at the Port of Charleston, SC would be the jurisdiction of the ILA in 2023

-on October 1, 2024, led the ILA members to their first strike since 1977

-negotiated greatest contract in the history of organized labor in 2025

-resides in Sparta, NJ and is the proud father of three children, Dennis, John and Lisa

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ILA INTERNATIONAL PRESIDENT HAROLD J. DAGGETT

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ILA Education/History

18 hours ago

Port of NY/NJ

ILA warehouse from back in the 1970’s in Jersey City, NJ

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ILA Education/History

1 day ago

ILA INTERNATIONAL PRESIDENT HAROLD J. DAGGETT

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ILA Education/History

2 days ago

Happy Mother’s Day to all of the amazing WOMEN in our ILA family!!

Your courage and determination working on the waterfront and then going home and taking care of your families should serve as an inspiration to all of us in the ILA workforce as well as women all around the world!!

HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY!!
GOD BLESS YOU ALL!!

@ilaunion @ilasagcd

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ILA Education/History

3 days ago

Port of Charleston, SC
Circa 1950’s

During the first half of the twentieth century Longshore workers at the Port of Charleston handled mostly bulk cargo such as fertilizer, lumber, coal and petroleum products.
By the 1950’s, the port began to move break-bulk cargo, including plywood, cases of fruit, cotton bales, cars, machinery and farm equipment. Handling break-bulk required skill and the International Longshoremen’s Association were right there to meet that challenge. The ILA was one of the few organized labor groups in the state that were well paid and had positions of respect in their community.

The International Longshoremen’s Association Local 1422 was granted their charter at the Port of Charleston in 1936.

(In photograph:
Longshoremen putting a days work in at the Port of Charleston)

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ILA Education/History

4 days ago

THE JOURNAL OF COMMERCE
AUGUST 8, 2011

CHANGE AT THE ILA

HAROLD J. DAGGETT BECOMES THE NINTH ILA INTERNATIONAL PRESIDENT IN THE UNIONS LONG, STORIED HISTORY THAT DATES BACK TO 1892

In July of 2011, Harold J. Daggett was unanimously elected the ninth International President of the International Longshoremen’s Association at the Diplomat Hotel in Hollywood, FL.

A month later, in August of 2011, The Journal of Commerce featured the ILA on their front cover and did a six page story on President Daggett.

Interestingly enough, the page in the magazine reads:
“Harold Daggett pledges to fight automation, take a tough line in bargaining at the International Longshoremen’s Association.”
And that’s exactly what he has done during his time as our International President.

In photograph, at right, Harold J. Daggett accepts the ILA convention gavel from his predecessor, the eight ILA International President, Richard Hughes.

—————————————————————

The following is an excerpt of that story written by Joseph Bonney:

As Harold Daggett basked in the applause of union delegates after his election as International Longshoremen’s Association president, loudspeakers came alive with the Sam Cooke classic “A Change Is Gonna Come.”

Shippers and carriers using Atlantic and Gulf Coast ports may see more change than they’d like with Daggett’s election. The new ILA president took office July 28 vowing an aggressive approach to day-to-day labor relations and the union’s next contract negotiations.

In a pugnacious 47-minute acceptance speech, he pledged to fight automated terminals, enforce container weight limits, put chassis pool operators on a short leash, organize workers at Caribbean transshipment ports, tighten safety standards, unify the ILA’s diverse factions and work more closely with the West Coast dockworkers’ union.

“We are against automation in the United States on the East Coast and West Coast,” Daggett told dockworkers. Automation “takes away jobs and takes away money from your family. I’m not going to let that happen. I’m going to fight it.”

How closely the ILA’s bite matches Daggett’s bark will become clearer when the union opens negotiations, likely this fall, with United States Maritime Alliance on a coastwide master contract to replace the agreement that expires Sept. 30, 2012.

The ILA hasn’t had a coastwide strike since 1977. During the last 25 years, the union has cultivated a cooperative approach to match the low-key styles of Daggett’s predecessor, Richard Hughes, and John Bowers, who headed the union from 1987 to 2007. That’s been in stark contrast to labor relations on the West Coast, where a series of confrontations between management and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union led to a 10-day lockout in 2002 that still echoes across through the shipping world.

This year, however, the ILWU is talking about cooperation, competition and productivity while the ILA is taking an assertive stance.

Daggett insists that doesn’t mean confrontation. “The ILA has a long tradition of working with management to allow continued growth for both labor and management — let me repeat, labor and management, not just management,” he said. “We will continue that relationship in the upcoming negotiations.”

But Daggett’s positions on automation, chassis and other issues clash with management’s insistence that East and Gulf Coast terminals need freedom to adopt labor-saving technology. The current ILA-USMX contract allows unrestricted use of technology on six months’ notice but allows the union to negotiate the impact on jobs.

USMX Chairman James Capo wouldn’t comment on Daggett’s speech but earlier told ILA delegates the union and management must work together to improve productivity to win and retain cargo and attract infrastructure investment.

Capo said ILA pay, including bonuses from carriers’ container royalties, averaged $71,500 last year while benefits averaged $46,500, for a total of $118,000. ILA benefits include one of the most generous medical plans of any industry.

Daggett said the benefits package “is important, and management tries to have us focus solely on it, but it’s our jurisdiction that affects not only our jobs but our future.”

He said automation affects longshore jobs the same way E-ZPass affects highway toll collectors. He said employers promise, “Oh, you’re going to have plenty of jobs, we’re going to create jobs. Bull----!”

Daggett goes beyond generalities: He said Hampton Roads, Va., dockworkers would reject their existing automated terminal if it were put to a vote today.

Daggett came up through the ILA’s New York-New Jersey maintenance and repair local and takes a close interest in chassis. He rattled the industry last fall by declaring “war” on any container lines seeking to circumvent ILA jurisdiction by transferring equipment to third-party chassis pools.

Hostilities over chassis were averted when pool operators Flexi-Van and Trac Intermodal pledged to continue to hire ILA labor for M&R work now done by union labor, even though they’re not bound by the coastwide master contract signed by carriers and terminal operators.

Daggett said he wants to tie chassis pools more securely to the ILA by bringing pool operators under the ILA-USMX contract. “They’ve got no responsibility to us,” he said. “If they ever want to pick up and leave, we’re out of work.”

He linked the chassis issue to underreporting of weights on imported containers, a practice he said shortchanges the ILA on tonnage-based container royalties. He said export boxes are weighed before loading but import manifests often are inaccurate.

Daggett said this raises safety issues and that he would insist all containers be weighed before leaving terminals and require overweight containers to be stripped and reloaded by ILA labor. “If they want to play games, we’ll play games,” he said.

“I’m going to make sure that those chassis come back to the pier where they belong and that’s the way I’m going to do it legally — and I’m going to put containers back on the pier,” he said. Terminals pleading lack of space for on-pier stripping and stuffing had “better make room, or … tell these chassis pools they’d better sign a master contract with the ILA.”

He said added royalties from enforcement of container weights could support a strike fund ILA convention delegates authorized but did not earmark money for.

ILA finances have been sagging under high overhead, declines in membership and wage-based dues, reduced investment income and, until recently, the costs of defending the union against a civil racketeering lawsuit filed by the Justice Department. The lawsuit seeks to oust Daggett and other top officials and place the ILA under a federal monitor. Refiled in 2007 after being dismissed, it has been dormant in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn for more than two years.

Despite additional revenue from the end of caps on container royalty payments by carriers, the international union’s assets declined to $12.8 million this year from $15.5 million in 2010 and $51.1 million as recently as 2005.

Daggett told local and regional officials he wants to settle more grievances without bringing in lawyers. “When the attorneys get it, cha-ching, cha-ching, cha-ching, they’re on the clock, the money starts,” he said.

Although Daggett is supported by members of the Longshore Workers Coalition, a faction that has criticized previous union administrations, he said a top priority will be to “get our house of ILA labor back together so we speak with one voice. We cannot have a union within a union.”

He said he would prohibit local officials from agreeing to concessions without approval from headquarters and seek to include Puerto Rico in the ILA’s Atlantic and Gulf master contract talks to prevent companies from playing the island’s ILA locals against each other.

Daggett said the ILA would seek to organize port workers at Freeport, Bahamas, and other non-U.S. transshipment hubs where shipping activity is expected to increase with the opening of wider locks at the Panama Canal.

He said the union would work with the ILWU and International Transport Workers Federation to organize workers “up and down the logistics chain” and prevent encroachment on ILA jurisdiction by unions such as the Teamsters, seafarers and operating engineers.

The ILA will match management research on economic conditions before opening contract negotiations, Daggett promised. “We’re not going in there empty-handed,” he said. “We’re going to know how much money each line has made the last three years … For every slide they make on economic points, we’ll have two, three, four slides.”

Daggett said he would pursue closer ties with the ILWU. “It is my intention to bring the ILA closer to the ILWU, as we have many matters of mutual interest in dealing with management in protecting our jurisdictions and memberships,” he said.

He said he would ask ILWU President Bob McEllrath to observe the next round of ILA negotiations. Listening to Daggett’s convention speech from the audience, McEllrath shouted, “I’ll be there, because we are one.”

That story can be seen here if you type in the following link:
www.joc.com/article/change-at-the-ila-5636387

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ILA Education/History

6 days ago

Port of Chicago

THE INTERNATIONAL LONGSHOREMEN’S ASSOCIATION IS PROUD TO ANNOUNCE ILA LOCAL 2070, LONGSHORE DIVISION, HAS RATIFIED THEIR FIRST COLLECTIVE BARGAINING AGREEMENT WITH QSL AMERICA AT THE PORT OF CHICAGO

CONGRATULATIONS!!

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ILA Education/History

7 days ago

Port Miami

ILA LOCAL 1922 EXECUTIVE OFFICERS SWORN IN AT PORT MIAMI

Please join us in congratulating the newly elected officers of ILA Local 1922 out of Port Miami as they were recently sworn in during a ceremony in South Florida.

In photograph, left to right is the ILA Local 1922 Executive Board:

Obel Cruz
President

Jorge Diaz
Business Agent

James Younker
Vice President

Anthony Bretana
Secretary Treasurer/Recording Secretary

Jose Herrera
Business Agent

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