NORTH BERGEN, NJ (February 20, 2025) International Longshoremen’s Association Rank-and-File Members at Atlantic and Gulf Coast ports have been meeting at their locals for the past two weeks, reviewing details of the Master Contract and their respective local agreements in preparation for the full ratification vote scheduled for Tuesday, February 25, 2025. In a February 14th letter to all ILA members in Ports from Maine to Texas covered by Master Contract, ILA President Harold J. Daggett informed members that the ILA Wage Scale Committee overwhelmingly approved an extension to the Master Contract that will be effective October 1, 2024, through September 30, 2030; and that the International “now seeks your ratification of this agreement.”
“The ILA has negotiated an extension that not only protects the benefits you already have, but also enhances these benefits to ensure that you are compensated appropriately for all of your hard work,” President Daggett wrote.
All ILA members covered by this Master Contract are reviewing the “Memorandum of Agreement” between the ILA and United States Maritime Alliance that spelled out the outstanding gains the ILA made in negotiations. They are also reviewing their respective local agreements. The top ILA leaders, President Daggett and Executive Vice President Dennis Daggett also provided a video to ILA members detailing the entire tentative agreement.
In that video, ILA President Daggett urged ratification of the tentative agreement, saying “This contract, when ratified, will become the gold standard among dockworker unions globally. I will urge all our ILA members to support and ratify this agreement.
President Daggett highlighted the outstanding gains the ILA made in this new agreement:
- Record-setting wage increase
- Full protection against automation
- Accelerated wage raises for new ILA workers
- Full container royalty funds returned to the ILA
- Raises in contributions to money purchase plans,
- And a strengthening of our MILA health care plan
- We were able to resolve the Vacation and Holiday dilemma
“Sisters and Brothers, this is an incredible contract package, and its estimated cost is 35 billion dollars – and that’s a conservative estimate,” ILA President Harold Daggett said in the video.
The ILA Leader addressed members of his own local, ILA Local 1804-1, at their membership meeting held on Wednesday, February 19, 2025. ILA Local 1804-1 members reviewed details of the tentative Master Contract Agreement, as well as the local agreement with Shipping Association of New York and New Jersey and the agreement with Metropolitan Marine Maintenance Contractors’ Association.
Similar meetings up and down the Atlantic and Gulf Coast have been ongoing for the past two weeks with Locals reviewing both the Master Contract terms and their local port area contracts with their employer associations, all leading up to next Tuesday’s ratification vote.
“Our collective strength helped produce the richest contact in our history,” President Daggett told his members of ILA Local 1804-1 at Wednesday’s meeting.
Dennis A. Daggett, the International’s Executive Vice President and President of ILA Local 1804-1 led the meeting on Wednesday evening, addressing hundreds of members.
He continued to praise “the unwavering strength, determination and grit of our rank-and-file members.
“These negotiations were the most contentious since 1977,” said Dennis Daggett, “and there is no doubt that we could not have achieved this historic victory without the full support of our membership. The men and women of the ILA stood strong, and because of that, we won.”
All that is left for ILA members covered by this agreement is to make their voices heard by casting their ballots in Tuesday’s ratification vote. Locals have been instructed to provide a location for ILA members to vote on the ratification of the Maser and local Contracts between the hours of 7 am and 7 pm.
“Even though I am extremely pleased with the proposed extension that the ILA has negotiated, there is still one final obstacle that must be overcome before the ILA can say that its members will be protected for the next six years, the ratification vote,” ILA International President Harold Daggett wrote to his membership. “I hope to have the ratification vote among ILA members in good standing in all ILA ports covered by the Master Contract on Tuesday, February 25, 2025. The ILA Wage Scale Committee endorses the proposed extension to the Master Contract, and, on its behalf, I ask that each of you also approve the agreement by voting yest to its ratification.”
