LISBON, PORTUGAL – (November 5, 2025) The leader of the 85,000-member International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) opened the historic “People Over Profits: Anti-Automation Conference” in Lisbon, Portugal today and told hundreds of global dockworker and maritime union members that the threat of automation is “a full-blown attack on our very existence.” He called for all Dockers and Maritime Unions to join a Global Maritime Alliance that would target and strike companies that introduced or expanded automation at waterfront facilities in any port around the world.
Harold J. Daggett, President of the ILA, in the keynote address at the start of the two-day summit held at at the Pavilhão Carolos Lopes Convention Center in Lisbon, Portugal, delivered a powerful, yet ominous message to the large gathering about the intent of their employers and the threat to workers everywhere.
‘Let me be perfectly clear, this is about getting rid of us for good,” Daggett said. “It’s about destroying the jobs that built this industry. And it’s about making sure future generations of dockworkers never even get the chance to stand on the waterfront and proclaim: ‘I am a union dockworker’.”
This global threat must be met with an equally powerful job action response by maritime workers, the ILA leader suggested.
“If any company decides to introduce any forms of job-killing automation at any port whose dockers and maritime workers are part of this newly formed maritime alliance, we will target that company with a global three-to-four-week strike,” said ILA President Daggett
“People Over Profit: Anti-Automation Conference” is taking place today and tomorrow where hundreds of union maritime officials and workers are gathered in solidarity to confront the challenge of automation on their lives and livelihoods.
Since the ILA’s Quadrennial Convention more than two years ago, ILA President Daggett called for all maritime unions to join in solidarity to address the threat of automation and put the brakes on Ocean Carriers from further destroying dockworker and maritime jobs worldwide.
The ILA leader hopes this Lisbon Summit ignites the spark for dockworker and maritime unions mirroring the success his own ILA achieved last year when he successfully negotiated a landmark six-year Master Contract with United States Maritime Alliance that included iron-clad language to keep automation off the docks on Atlantic and Gulf Coasts.
ILA President Daggett spelled out the formula to achieve this success at all ports and waterfront facilities world-wide. The ILA leader said the establishment of a Global Alliance among dockworker and maritime unions will collectively and forcefully challenge any further erosion of waterfront jobs through automation.
“That’s why I called for the formation of a global Maritime Workers Alliance at our ILA Convention two years ago,” Daggett told the gathering at the Lisbon Summit. “We need to unify, dockworkers, seafarers, marine engineers, pilots, and mates. Every maritime worker around this world. Every union. Every port worker.”
ILA President Daggett said success would come with “solidarity in action” and not just in words and resolutions.”
“If we join together with a real joint declaration and an alliance, and back up those words with job actions when a company threatens us with automation, we can protect every global port that joins with us,” said the ILA President.
Delegates to the “People of Profits: Anti-Automation Conference” were introduced to the “Objectives of the Conference” by Dennis A. Daggett, General Coordinator of the International Dockworkers’ Council (IDC) and International Executive Vice President, ILA. Jorid Arragunde, IDC International Labor Coordinator discussed the “Roadmap for Global Dockers Alliance.”
Delegates then heard from a panel discussion, moderated by Sergo Sousa from the Portuguese Dockers Union, SEAL and including leaders from dockworkers and other maritime unions.
The two-day Lisbon Summit is expected to conclude with the signing of the “Lisbon Summit Document” which will encompass the goals articulated by ILA President Harold Daggett and leaders from the IDC.