Vice President Harris on Wednesday expressed support for the longshoremen's strike, while criticizing her rival, former President Trump, as tens of thousands of longshoremen walked off the job at ports along the East Coast and Gulf of Mexico. denounced.
“This strike is about fairness. Foreign shipping companies have made record profits and increased executive compensation. They deserve a fair share of the record profits of the United States,” Harris said in a statement.
She quickly turned to President Trump, saying he is “trying to take us back to a time when workers didn't have the freedom to organize” and that Trump has made “empty promises” to workers. However, he claimed that he had “never implemented it.”
The United States Maritime Union (USMX) and the International Longshoremen's Association (ILA) were unable to agree on a new collective bargaining agreement by Tuesday's deadline, leading to the longshoremen's first strike in nearly 50 years.
The union is demanding higher wages and a complete ban on automation of cranes, gates and container-moving trucks. USMXsaid on Monday eveningIt had “traded wage-related counteroffers” with the ILA.
In her statement, Harris repeated a line from her rally that Trump cares more about the owners of skyscrapers than the workers who built them. And she touted the PRO Act, the pro-worker bill that President Biden also wants Congress to pass.
“He thinks our economy should only work for the owners of the skyscrapers, not the people who actually build them,” Harris said of President Trump. “As president, I will win the support of workers and finally pass the PRO Act. And I will fight for an opportunity economy where everyone has a chance to not just get by, but get ahead. I will fight.”
Biden on Tuesday called for higher wages for striking workers and urged USMX to come to the table with a proposal that would guarantee fair wages for workers.
The attack poses a political hurdle for Biden and Harris and has real implications for the U.S. and international economy, costing up to $5 billion a day and impacting both imports and exports.
