LISBON, PORTUGAL (November 9, 2025) In the decade and a half as International President of the 85,000-member International Longshoremen’s Association, Harold J. Daggett has achieved remarkable success for both his rank-and-file ILA members working at ports on the Atlantic and Gulf Coast, the Great Lakes, Puerto Rico, Eastern Canada and the Bahamas; and for dockworkers around the world. As the architect and force behind this week’s successful Global Maritime Alliance that unites hundreds of thousands of dockworkers around the world to collectively fight off job killing automation, coupled with the three landmark ILA-USMX Master Contract Agreements he won in 2012, 2018 and 2024 as the union’s Chief Negotiator, Daggett clearly cements his legacy as the most effective and influential leader in the ILA’s 133 year history and the voice and the power of global dockworkers.
This Queens, New York native and a combat veteran of the Vietnam War, could hardly envision the life and career ahead of him when he joined the ILA and Local 1804-1 in 1967, following his return from active military duty. But in nearly six decades since, Harold Daggett has forged a path of success throughout his inspired career that culminated this past Thursday when global dockworker union leaders answered his call to form a Global Maritime Alliance and achieve the same success at halting erosion of longshore jobs because of automation for dockworkers around the world, that he won for his ILA members last year.
The ILA leader convinced his fellow global dockworker union leaders that a global response to the threat of automation, must be met with forceful job action, including striking shipping companies that refuse to yield to dockworker demands to stop destroying jobs, families and futures through unnecessary port automation.
“The ILA longshore workers continue to out-perform any and all automated equipment,” President Daggett has said multiple times, arguing the case that companies should be investing in their workforce rather than expensive and unreliable automated equipment.
At Wednesday’s opening session, the ILA President articulated how members of the Global Maritime Alliance will respond to automation.
“If sacrifices are required to block automation, we must be willing to make them. If enduring hardships are needed to achieve our goal of no automation on the waterfront, we must be willing to endure them, President Daggett said. “Remember, these will be selective job actions against the companies that defy us.”
He further spelled out the dockworker’s battle plan in his closing remarks on Thursday. “We must be strong, we must be united, and we must be committed to take on this challenge together and never surrender,” Daggett told the almost one thousand docker and maritime workers present at the “People Ove Profits: Anti-Automation Conference” just prior to the official ratification of the “Lisbon Summit Resolution” that codifies the creation of the Global Maritime Alliance.
The ILA and the International Dockworkers Council (IDC) organized the Lisbon Summit, and the two IDC echoed Harold Daggett’s forceful message.
“Throughout the summit, delegates examined evidence and real-world data proving what workers have known all along, human labor is more productive, more reliable, and far safer than any machine,” said Dennis A. Daggett, the IDC General Coordinator and ILA Executive Vice President. “Studies presented showed that so-called ‘fully automated’ terminals consistently fall short in performance and depend daily on manual intervention to function. The myth of automation as “innovation” was shattered.”
“Automation in our ports is not an abstract threat — it tears apart communities, destroys stable livelihoods, and replaces generations of skill, pride, and human judgment with machines that answer only to profit,” said Jordi Aragunde Miguens, the IDC Labor Coordinator. “It risks turning our docks into silent, empty corridors where once there was life, teamwork, and the heartbeat of working-class families. We refuse to let that be our future.’
The person that global dockworkers will be looking to lead them on this challenging mission will be Harold J. Daggett. His oldest son, Dennis, has perhaps the clearest and closest perspective of the elder Daggett’s strengths and ability.
Commenting after the historic Lisbon Summit, Dennis Daggett noted: “I first want to thank ILA President, Harold J. Daggett, for having the vision and foresight to bring this historic meeting to Lisbon, Portugal. Watching his continuous fight after close to sixty years on the waterfront is inspiring to many and it motivates all of us to do better.”