Harold Daggett, a passionate labor union boss, has long stood as a staunch defender of blue-collar workers, even though he owns a yacht and drives a Bentley, leading a lavish lifestyle. I've been fighting.
Daggett, 78, wearing a polo shirt with a thick gold medallion around his neck and leading the longshoremen's strike from Maine to Texas as president of the International Longshoremen's Association, said in a September interview: He said that he tended to be active in the theater. He readied himself to attack.
“They're going to be like this,” Daggett said, grabbing his neck in a strangling gesture. “I'll cripple you. I'll cripple you, but you don't know what that means. No one else does.”
Since last year, Mr. Daggett has threatened to close the union's 36 ports if: “Money-crazy” shipping company refused to issue wage increases or worker protections against industry automation;
“Who will support you? [workers’] family? machine? “Machines don't have families,” he said previously.
Meanwhile, Daggett, who worked for ILA for 57 years and became chairman in 2011, collected $728,000 in compensation from ILA last year.
He raised an additional $173,000 as honorary president of his local union chapter. According to a Labor Department filing.
He lives in a 7,136-square-foot home valued at $1.7 million on 10 acres in Sparta, New Jersey. According to Zillow and New Jersey Property Records.
By comparison, his fellow union leaders at the AFL-CIO, Teamsters and Auto Workers unions earn less than $300,000 a year.
According to the New York Times, Daggett previously owned a 76-foot yacht called Obsession, and his family has reportedly seen him flying around in the Bentley.
“The guy had more yachts than me!” billionaire Tesla founder Elon Musk wrote in a post about X on Tuesday.
In 2005, the Department of Justice accused Daggett of being an “associate” with the Genovese crime family, one of the “Five Families” of the U.S. Mafia.
Mr. Daggett took the witness stand that year after federal prosecutors indicted him on racketeering charges.
He described himself as a mob target – although members of the Turncoat Mafia testified that Daggett was under mob control. The New York Times reported.
During the trial, one of Daggett's co-defendants, Lawrence Rich, an alleged mob kingpin, disappeared. His body was found weeks later decomposing in the trunk of a car outside a New Jersey diner.
Rich's death remained unsolved, but there was speculation that he was murdered because he refused to admit guilt to avoid publicity in his trial.
Daggett was acquitted in both cases, even though the famous black-and-white mob film “On the Waterfront” was inspired by his longshoremen's union.
For years, Mr. Daggett has been badmouthing the Waterfront Commission, a regulatory agency inspired by the movie and created to prevent corruption at the ports of New York and New Jersey.
Daggett called the commission's accusations of mob ties “absolute bullshit” and “a dark and ugly attack on Italian-Americans.”
“It is an utter tragedy that the Waterfront Commission freely enjoys and targets Italian Americans as part of a historic anti-worker movement,” Daggett said in 2022. For decades, the Waterfront Commission has maintained that only people with so-called “mob ties” are given good jobs. ”
Mr Daggett's sons, Dennis and John, reportedly receive similarly high salaries for their roles in the union.
Dennis, ILA's executive vice president, earned $250,156 in the fiscal year ending December 2022. According to ProPublica. John, vice president of the Atlantic Coast Region ILA, is said to have earned $264,228 in the same period.
Now, he's using his trademark aggression to fight suppliers, government agencies and even President Biden with strikes, which JPMorgan says are causing supply chain congestion and hurting the economy every day. It could cause losses of billions of dollars.
Retailers, auto suppliers and agricultural importers want Biden to implement the federal Taft-Hartley Act, which allows the president to establish an 80-day cooling-off period to force employees to return to work during certain labor disputes. I was expecting.
But those hopes were dashed on Monday when Biden said: He “doesn't believe” in Taft Hartley.
Daggett scoffed at the idea in an interview in early September.
“Do you think those guys will go to work on that pier when I go back for 90 days?” Daggett said.
He painted a picture of the effects of the long strike and showed he was ready to brace himself for the long haul.
“Everything comes by boat in the United States,” Daggett said in a September interview.
He predicted there would be media coverage of the picket lines during the first week of the strike.
Daggett said car salespeople will have a hard time keeping their jobs in the second week as car shipments slow. Shopping malls will begin closing in the third week.
Second, jobs for construction workers would be at risk as shipments of steel and lumber would be delayed.
“Everyone hates longshoremen now, because they understand how important our work is,” the union leader warned.
