Fighting for a Fair and Just Contract for ILA Members, ILA President and Chief Negotiator Harold J. Daggett Subjected to Death Threats and Harassment, Including New York Post Newspaper Publishing His Home Address, Putting His Personal Safety at Risk; Other ILA Leaders Also Threatened
NORTH BERGEN, NJ. (October 2, 2024) International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) President Harold J. Daggett understands how tough it is to negotiate a Master Contract for his ILA rank-and-file members working at ports from Maine to Texas. He already negotiated two landmark six-year Master Contracts with United States Maritime Alliance (USMX) in 2012 and 2018. As a nearly 60-year veteran longshoreman of the waterfront, he understands better than most the struggles of working on the waterfront: long hours away from family, working in brutal weather conditions, and the real dangers of getting injured or killed in this dangerous occupation. As a decorated Navy war veteran who saw combat duty in Vietnam before he joined the ILA in 1967, Harold Daggett understands real threats and the courage it takes to accomplish a hazardous mission.
But the ILA leader could not imagine the hate and threats of violence against him and other top ILA leaders as attempts to end the current two-day strike helping his ILA membership navigate the first coastwide work stoppage in almost half a century.
He is sickened by these attempts to his attack his professional accomplishments as a union leader, and destroy the life he has built for him and his family in over many decades of toil and hard work.
The New York Post newspaper this week published aerial photographs of his New Jersey home, including posting his address in an article. They printed other details of his personal life, full of false accusations against him, with the sole intent on destroying his character and disparaging his 68-year ILA career, with the intention of weakening his ability to negotiate a new Master Contract for ILA members.
“The publication of pictures of Mr. Daggett’s home is reckless and places Mr. Daggett and his family at great risk of personal harm,” his attorney, Michael Critchley wrote to Genie Gavenchak, the Senior Vice President and Deputy General Counsel for the New York Post. “Mr. Daggett has already received several threats to his life. The N.Y. Post must immediately remove these pictures from all versions of the article and refrain from any further publications of pictures of Mr. Daggett’s home.
In telephone calls made to the staff of the International Longshoremen’s Association, and to countless ILA Locals up and down the coast, President Daggett and other ILA top officers have received vicious death threats and other forms of intimidation.
The ILA leader promised that, as serious as these personal threats and ugly smear campaign are to him, his family, and ILA officers, he will not let them discourage him or weaken the ILA’s goal of negotiating the best Master Contract for his ILA rank-and-file members.
