#international longshoremen's association

[iww-gnv]

Article date: September 30, 2024

NEW YORK -- The union representing U.S. dockworkers has signaled that 45,000 members will walk off the job at midnight, kicking off a massive strike likely to shut down ports across the East and Gulf coasts. The coming work stoppage threatens to significantly snarl the nation's supply chain, potentially leading to higher prices and delays for households and businesses if it drags on for weeks. That's because the strike by members of the International Longshoremen's Association could cause 36 ports — which handle roughly half of the goods shipped into and out of the U.S. — to shutter operations. ILA confirmed over the weekend that its members would hit the picket lines at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday. In a Monday update, the union continued to blame the United States Maritime Alliance, which represents the ports, for continuing to “to block the path” towards an agreement before the contract deadline. “The Ocean Carriers represented by USMX want to enjoy rich billion-dollar profits that they are making in 2024, while they offer ILA Longshore Workers an unacceptable wage package that we reject," ILA said in a prepared statement. “ILA longshore workers deserve to be compensated for the important work they do keeping American commerce moving and growing." ILA also accused shippers of “gouging their customers" with sizeable price increases for containers over recent weeks. The union said that this will result in increased costs for American consumers.

Read the rest here.

[averagejoey2000]

US East Coast ports are on strike. don't listen to what the conservatives say about this hurting the people, have solidarity with the laborers. any strike anywhere means that you might not get the shit you need or want, but that's why we need to put pressure on the company to sign the union's demands. hell, the port strike even affects me negatively as a Mariner because without longshoremen, my ship can't tie up and conduct cargo operations, but we've got to tough it out. Don't let the billionaires pass the cost along to you. Don't let the fearmongers say the port strike is to fuck up the people who need the medicine. Corporate decides when the strike ends.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Lori Ann Larocco at CNBC:

Billions in trade came to a screeching halt at U.S. East Coast and Gulf Coast ports after members of the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) began walking off the job after 12:01 a.m. ET on October 1. The ILA is North America’s largest longshoremen’s union, with roughly 50,000 of its 85,000 members making good on the threat to strike at 14 major ports subject to a just-expired master contract with the United States Maritime Alliance (USMX), and picketing workers beginning to appear at ports. The union and port ownership group failed to reach agreement by midnight on a new contract in a protracted battle over wage increases and use of automation. In a last-ditch effort on Monday to avert a strike that will cause significant harm to the U.S. economy if it is lengthy — at least hundreds of millions of dollars a day at the largest ports like New York/New Jersey — the USMX offered a nearly 50% wage hike over six years, but that was rejected by the ILA, according to a source close to the negotiations. The port ownership group said it hoped the offer would lead to a resumption of collective bargaining.

The 14 ports where preparations for a strike have been underway are Boston, New York/New Jersey, Philadelphia, Wilmington, North Carolina, Baltimore, Norfolk, Charleston, Savannah, Jacksonville, Tampa, Miami, New Orleans, Mobile, and Houston. New York Governor Kathy Hochul said in a statement issued shortly after midnight that “the first large-scale eastern dockworker strike in 47 years began at ports from Maine to Texas, including at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. In preparation for this moment, New York has been working around the clock to ensure that our grocery stores and medical facilities have the essential products they need.” Rhetoric from ILA leadership has been aggressive in the weeks leading up to the strike, with ILA president Harold Daggett, who was a union member the last time it went out on strike in 1977, telling rank-and-file members — who unanimously voted to authorize a strike — in a recent video message, “We’ll crush them.” 

[...] The most significant issues would be faced by food and automobile industries, Kamins said, as they rely especially heavily on the ports that will be shut down. While a surge in inflation is highly unlikely even with a longer strike, even a modest reacceleration could create uncertainty and force the Federal Reserve to be more cautious about lowering interest rates, which would weigh on the overall outlook for job growth and investment. A one-week strike could cost the U.S. economy $3.78 billion, according to an analysis by The Conference Board, and cause supply chain slowdowns through mid-November. In all, the ports threatened with strikes handle $3 trillion annually in U.S. annual international trade.

Many industries are preparing for major repercussions. Noushin Shamsili, CEO and president of Nuco Logistics, which specializes in pharmaceutical imports and exports, said the strike comes at a critical time for inventory replenishment for the pharma sector. “Almost all of this industry is just on time,” said Shamsili. “Raw materials are being brought in to complete drug manufacturing. Medical supplies for clinics and hospitals are on these vessels. For a while importers did not bring in a lot of cargo because they were overflowing with supplies post-Covid. Now they have started reordering medical devices, gloves, syringes, and tubing.” Shamsili also said the East Coast ports are a gateway for generic medicine made in India. Approximately 48% of the active pharmaceutical ingredients used in the U.S. are being imported from India. Without these APIs, medications cannot be produced. APIs are also manufactured in Europe, which also use the East Coast ports as U.S. points of entry.

[...] The Biden administration finds itself in a delicate political moment, with the presidential election one month away and President Biden vowing he will not use existing labor law to force union workers back on the job, which is within his powers under the Taft-Hartley Act. The Taft-Hartley Act, passed in 1947, was a revision of U.S. law governing labor relations and union activity that granted a U.S. president the power to suspend a strike for an 80-day “cooling off period” in cases where “national health or safety” are at risk. 

Today begins the strike along East Coast and Gulf Coast ports after International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) members walked off their jobs.

This strike, depending on how long it lasts, could have a major impact on the elections and the economy.

[plethoraworldatlas]

Dockworkers at ports from Maine to Texas began walking picket lines early Tuesday in a strike over wages and automation that could reignite inflation and cause shortages of goods if it goes on more than a few weeks.

The contract between the ports and about 45,000 members of the International Longshoremen’s Association expired at midnight, and even though progress was reported in talks on Monday, the workers went on strike. The strike affecting 36 ports is the first by the union since 1977

Workers began picketing at the Port of Philadelphia shortly after midnight, walking in a circle at a rail crossing outside the port and chanting “No work without a fair contract.”

The union had message boards on the side of a truck reading: “Automation Hurts Families: ILA Stands For Job Protection.”

[solarpunkani]

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Dockworkers at ports from Maine to Texas began walking picket lines early Tuesday in a strike over wages and automation that could reignite inflation and cause shortages of goods if it goes on more than a few weeks.

The contract between the ports and about 45,000 members of the International Longshoremen’s Association expired at midnight, and even though progress was reported in talks on Monday, the workers went on strike. The strike affecting 36 ports is the first by the union since 1977.

Workers began picketing at the Port of Philadelphia shortly after midnight, walking in a circle at a rail crossing outside the port and chanting “No work without a fair contract.”

The union had message boards on the side of a truck reading: “Automation Hurts Families: ILA Stands For Job Protection.”

Local ILA president Boise Butler said workers want a fair contract that doesn’t allow automation of their jobs.

Shipping companies made billions during the pandemic by charging high prices, he said. “Now we want them to pay back. They’re going to pay back,” Butler said.

He said the union will strike for as long as it needs to get a fair deal, and it has leverage over the companies.

“This is not something that you start and you stop,” he said. “We’re not weak,” he added, pointing to the union’s importance to the nation’s economy

At Port Houston, at least 50 workers started picketing around midnight local time carrying signs saying “No Work Without a Fair Contract.”

The U.S. Maritime Alliance, which represents the ports, said Monday evening that both sides had moved off of their previous wage offers. But no deal was reached.

The union’s opening offer in the talks was for a 77% pay raise over the six-year life of the contract, with President Harold Daggett saying it’s necessary to make up for inflation and years of small raises. ILA members make a base salary of about $81,000 per year, but some can pull in over $200,000 annually with large amounts of overtime.

But Monday evening, the alliance said it had increased its offer to 50% raises over six years, and it pledged to keep limits on automation in place from the old contract. The union wants a complete ban on automation. It wasn’t clear just how far apart both sides are.

“We are hopeful that this could allow us to fully resume collective bargaining around the other outstanding issues in an effort to reach an agreement,” the alliance statement said.

In a statement early Tuesday, the union said it rejected the alliance’s latest proposal because it “fell far short of what ILA rank-and-file members are demanding in wages and protections against automation.” The two sides had not held formal negotiations since June.

“We are prepared to fight as long as necessary, to stay out on strike for whatever period of time it takes, to get the wages and protections against automation our ILA members deserve,” Daggett said in the statement. “They must now meet our demands for this strike to end.”

The alliance said its offer tripled employer contributions to retirement plans and strengthened health care options.

Supply chain experts say consumers won’t see an immediate impact from the strike because most retailers stocked up on goods, moving ahead shipments of holiday gift items.

But if it goes more than a few weeks, a work stoppage would significantly snarl the nation’s supply chain, potentially leading to higher prices and delays in goods reaching households and businesses.

If drawn out, the strike will force businesses to pay shippers for delays and cause some goods to arrive late for peak holiday shopping season — potentially impacting delivery of anything from toys or artificial Christmas trees to cars, coffee and fruit.

The strike will likely have an almost immediate impact on supplies of perishable imports like bananas, for example. The ports affected by the strike handle 3.8 million metric tons of bananas each year, or 75% of the nation’s supply, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation.

It also could snarl exports from East Coast ports and create traffic jams at ports on the West Coast, where workers are represented by a different union. Railroads say they can ramp up to carry more freight from the West Coast, but analysts say they can’t move enough to make up for the closed Eastern ports.

“If the strikes go ahead, they will cause enormous delays across the supply chain, a ripple effect which will no doubt roll into 2025 and cause chaos across the industry,” noted Jay Dhokia, founder of supply chain management and logistics firm Pro3PL.

J.P. Morgan estimated that a strike that shuts down East and Gulf coast ports could cost the economy $3.8 billion to $4.5 billion per day, with some of that recovered over time after normal operations resume.

The strike comes just weeks before the presidential election and could become a factor if there are shortages. Retailers, auto parts suppliers and produce importers had hoped for a settlement or that President Joe Biden would intervene and end the strike using the Taft-Hartley Act, which allows him to seek an 80-day cooling off period.

But during an exchange with reporters on Sunday, Biden, who has worked to court union votes for Democrats, said “no” when asked if he planned to intervene in the potential work stoppage.

A White House official said Monday that at Biden’s direction, the administration has been in regular communication with the ILA and the alliance to keep the negotiations moving forward. The president directed Chief of Staff Jeff Zients and National Economic Council Director Lael Brainard to convene the alliance’s board members Monday afternoon and urge them to resolve the dispute fairly and quickly — in a way that accounts for the success of shipping companies in recent years and contributions of union workers.

[just2bruce]

SONAR data show shippers' East Coast strike worries

It’s interesting how when we measure something we soon are able to pick up signals that something different is happening. Freightwaves has been publishing SONAR data on different logistical measures for quite a while. This article shows several measurements which tell us that shippers are looking for alternatives in advance of any East Coast port strike in the US. Inbound bookings are up at Los…

[fuckyeahmarxismleninism]

By Lallan Schoenstein

At the beginning of August, leaders of North America’s largest dockworkers’ union, the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA), sent the employer association, USMX, a strike notice that federal law requires 60 days before a strike. 

When ILA delegates met on Sept. 4 and 5, they reported that union members voiced unanimous support for a strike. As delegates discussed the demands and a strike strategy, ILA  president Harold Daggett told the ILA members they must be prepared “to hit the streets at 12:01 on Tuesday, Oct. 1.”

Longshore workers on the West Coast are in the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU). They deal with the country’s biggest container volume. On the East Coast, the five busiest ports are covered by the ILA contract agreement with USMX: New York/New Jersey, Savannah, Houston, Virginia, and Charleston.

[tieflingkisser]

Dockworkers at ports from Maine to Texas go on strike, a standoff risking new shortages

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Dockworkers at ports from Maine to Texas began walking picket lines early Tuesday in a strike over wages and automation that could reignite inflation and cause shortages of goods if it goes on more than a few weeks. The contract between the ports and about 45,000 members of the International Longshoremen’s Association expired at midnight, and even though progress was reported in talks on Monday, the workers went on strike. The strike affecting 36 ports is the first by the union since 1977. Workers began picketing at the Port of Philadelphia shortly after midnight, walking in a circle at a rail crossing outside the port and chanting “No work without a fair contract.”

[...]

If drawn out, the strike will force businesses to pay shippers for delays and cause some goods to arrive late for peak holiday shopping season — potentially impacting delivery of anything from toys or artificial Christmas trees to cars, coffee and fruit. The strike will likely have an almost immediate impact on supplies of perishable imports like bananas, for example. The ports affected by the strike handle 3.8 million metric tons of bananas each year, or 75% of the nation’s supply, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation.

[...]

J.P. Morgan estimated that a strike that shuts down East and Gulf coast ports could cost the economy $3.8 billion to $4.5 billion per day, with some of that recovered over time after normal operations resume.

[darkmaga-retard]

By Michael Snyder

I have a feeling that October is going to be one of the most tumultuous months that we have seen in a really long time.  Ports all along the East Coast and all along the Gulf Coast are about to shut down, and that could throw U.S. supply chains into a state of chaos for an extended period of time.  Meanwhile, vast areas of the South are just starting to recover from a “once in a generation storm” that has done about 100 billion dollars in total damage.  Sadly, economic conditions in those states will not return to normal for the foreseeable future.  On top of everything else, we are less than 40 days away from a presidential election which threatens to absolutely rip this country apart.  If you can’t see the storm clouds that are rapidly approaching at this point, you must have your head in the sand.

Tonight, 45,000 dockworkers from a total of 36 different U.S. ports are scheduled to go on strike…

US ports from Maine to Texas could shut down Monday night if a union representing about 45,000 dockworkers carries through with a threatened strike. A lengthy shutdown of 36 ports – which handle half of America’s cargo from ships – could raise cause shortages and price increases at big and small retailers alike as the holiday shopping season approaches. Walmart, Home Depot, Ikea and Amazon – who import tens of thousands of containers a year through ports on the east coast – would be worst hit.

We haven’t seen a strike of this magnitude in nearly 50 years.

Of course 50 years ago we made a lot more of the things that we buy on a regular basis in our own country.

It is being reported that the dockworkers are demanding a pay increase of close to 80 percent…

The International Longshoremen’s Association is demanding a pay rise that works out at about 77 percent over six years. For union members on a typical rate, their wage would go from $81,120 to around $143,520. Retail expert Neil Saunders of Global Data told DailyMail.om that the strike will cause two main problems – shoppers will face higher prices and empty shelves.

Needless to say, they aren’t going to get that much of a pay hike.

Either they are going to have to lower their demands, or we are going to be facing an extended strike.

If this strike goes on for a month or more, it is going to have an enormous impact on our supply chains.

So if there is something that you really need, I would get it now while you still can.

Of course this is happening at a time when the South has just been hit by a “once in a generation” storm.

[plethoraworldatlas]

It seems fairly likely that the International Longshoremen's Association could very well go on strike by October 1st. With 25k-50k workers, this would shut down 10 of the busiest ports in North America

[beguines]

When the CIO was formed, Lewis and the mineworkers gave mixed support to more radical segments of the labor movement, but in the end often undermined them. Lewis was, of course, less narrow-​minded at times than his more ideologically conservative colleagues, and gave early support to the CP-​led United Cannery, Agricultural, Packing and Allied Workers of America (UCAPAWA) and the United Electrical Workers (UE). At other times, however, he helped destroy more radical forces. The woodworkers, under their early left-​wing leadership, wanted to organize Black and white southern woodworkers, which would have given a tremendous boost to labor/​civil rights activism in the South. As we shall see, this was eminently possible. Lewis, however, presided over the first anti-​communist purge in 1938–​39, sending in his operatives to support a right wing, which not only did not want to organize the South, but which even liberal/​right CIO leaders came to view as totally provincial and incompetent. The same scenario almost played out in meat slaughtering and packing. In steel, Lewis and Murray used the Communists, especially their Black organizers, to organize the industry, then eliminated all democracy, leaving the union under the firm control of the anti-​democratic, unimaginative, racially oppressive Philip Murray. There were other possibilities that a more radical mineworkers' union might have pursued. It could have sought broader alliances with the Trotskyist-​led insurgency in the teamsters and strengthened rather than tried to eclipse the power of the West Coast longshoremen. Had they had been willing to force a direct confrontation within the CIO, they could have pushed for a militant campaign among southern textile workers in 1937, when the possibilities for organizing the industry looked real, rather than letting the Hillman-​led Textile Workers Organizing Committee pursue its self-​defeating Gompers-​esque approach.

As the structural power of the union declined, especially in the 1950s, miners might have allied more closely with the radical wing of the labor movement. Interestingly, at times Lewis was not averse to this, as his support of UAW Local 600 suggests, as did his overtures to the United Electrical Workers (UE) and the Food, Tobacco, Agricultural, and Allied Workers (FTA) in 1947 to call a joint general strike against Taft-​Hartley. The UMWA's refusal to sign the Taft-​Hartley anti-​communist affidavits did in the beginning lead Lewis to explore alliances with the CP-​led UE and FTA. Lewis and the union might have taken a more aggressive stance on saving the jobs of Black miners, especially in West Virginia, as mechanization all but eliminated them from the industry. Although the ILWA on the West Coast largely capitulated to employers on the issue of jobs as the companies switched to containerization, the ILWA did not do so at the expense of Black and Latino workers. The example of the United Packinghouse Workers Union, which transformed itself both internally and externally into a militant civil rights organization, could have been followed. Lewis, a vocal advocate of civil rights, leading the union to be active in the CP-​influenced National Negro Congress during the late 1930s and early 1940s, might have joined with or even transformed the National Negro Labor Alliance of the 1950s in pursuing such aims. Broader associational power during the 1950s might well have aided the mineworkers in their own struggles.

Michael Goldfield, The Southern Key: Class, Race, and Radicalism in the 1930s and 1940s

[just2bruce]

Labor disruption coming for supply chains

Now is the time for labor unions to press ports and railways for new benefits for workers. There is a perfect storm of labor stoppages about to take place. Thursday (that’s two days from this writing) the Teamsters Canada union (TCRC) expects to strike the CPKC railroad, one of the two largest in Canada. CPKC is also a large US and Mexico railway, and we’ve yet to see if US unions will honor a…

[sataniccapitalist]

Ports Shut Down from Maine to Texas as 45,000 Dockworkers Launch Strike over Pay & Automation

Dockworkers from Maine to Texas have walked out on the job at all East Coast and Gulf Coast ports, launching the first strike of its kind in almost 50 years. The International Longshoremen's Association represents some 45,000 workers at 36 ports who are demanding higher wages and guarantees that jobs won't be automated. "This is a time of labor mobilization in this country," says Peter Goodman, New York Times global economics correspondent, who explains President Biden is caught between union pressure to back the strike and the threat of consumer prices rising while shipping is disrupted. "We're only weeks away from a presidential election that could very well hinge on economic sentiments and unhappiness over inflation."

[dertaglichedan]

A lengthy shutdown of 36 ports - which handle half of America's cargo from ships - could raise cause shortages and price increases at big and small retailers alike as the holiday shopping season approaches.

Walmart, Home Depot, Ikea and Amazon - who import tens of thousands of containers a year through ports on the east coast - would be worst hit. Empty shelves have not been seen in the US since the post-pandemic supply chain crush in 2021.

The International Longshoremen's Association is demanding a pay rise that works out at about 77 percent over six years. For union members on a typical rate, their wage would go from $81,120 to around $143,520.

Retail expert Neil Saunders of Global Data told DailyMail.om that the strike will cause two main problems - shoppers will face higher prices and empty shelves.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

This political cartoon by Louis Dalrymple appeared in Judge magazine in 1903. It depicts European immigrants as rats. Nativism and anti-immigration have a long and sordid history in the United States.

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

March 28, 2024

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

MAR 29, 2024

Yesterday the National Economic Council called a meeting of the Supply Chain Disruptions Task Force, which the Biden-Harris administration launched in 2021, to discuss the impact of the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge and the partial closure of the Port of Baltimore on regional and national supply chains. The task force draws members from the White House and the departments of Transportation, Commerce, Agriculture, Defense, Labor, Health and Human Services, Energy, and Homeland Security. It is focused on coordinating efforts to divert ships to other ports and to minimize impacts to employers and workers, making sure, for example, that dock workers stay on payrolls. 

Today, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg convened a meeting of port, labor, and industry partners—ocean carriers, truckers, local business owners, unions, railroads, and so on—to mitigate disruption from the bridge collapse. Representatives came from 40 organizations including American Roll-on Roll-off Carrier; the Georgia Ports Authority; the International Longshoremen’s Association, the International Organization of Masters, Mates and Pilots; John Deere; Maersk; Mercedes-Benz North America Operations; Seabulk Tankers; Under Armour; and the World Shipping Council.  

Today the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Highway Administration announced it would make $60 million available immediately to be used as a down payment toward initial costs. Already, though, some Republicans are balking at the idea of using new federal money to rebuild the bridge, saying that lawmakers should simply take the money that has been appropriated for things like electric vehicles, or wait until insurance money comes in from the shipping companies. 

In 2007, when a bridge across the Mississippi River in Minneapolis suddenly collapsed, Congress passed funding to rebuild it in days and then-president George W. Bush signed the measure into law within a week of the accident. 

In the past days, we have learned that the six maintenance workers killed when the bridge collapsed were all immigrants, natives of Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador. Around 39% of the workforce in the construction industry around Baltimore and Washington, D.C., about 130,000 people, are immigrants, Scott Dance and María Luisa Paúl reported in the Washington Post yesterday. 

Some of the men were undocumented, and all of them were family men who sent money back to their home countries, as well. From Honduras, the nephew of one of the men killed told the Associated Press, “The kind of work he did is what people born in the U.S. won’t do. People like him travel there with a dream. They don’t want to break anything or take anything.”  

In the Philadelphia Inquirer today, journalist Will Bunch castigated the right-wing lawmakers and pundits who have whipped up native-born Americans over immigration, calling immigrants sex traffickers and fentanyl dealers, and even “animals.” Bunch illustrated that the reality of what was happening on the Francis Scott Key Bridge when it collapsed creates an opportunity to reframe the immigration debate in the United States.

Last month, Catherine Rampell of the Washington Post noted that immigration is a key reason that the United States experienced greater economic growth than any other nation in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. The surge of immigration that began in 2022 brought to the U.S. working-age people who, Director Phill Swagel of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office wrote, are expected to make the U.S. gross domestic product about $7 trillion larger over the ten years from 2023 to 2034 than it would have been otherwise. Those workers will account for about $1 trillion dollars in revenues. 

Curiously, while Republican leaders today are working to outdo each other in their harsh opposition to immigration, it was actually the leaders of the original Republican Party who recognized the power of immigrants to build the country and articulated an economic justification for increased immigration during the nation’s first major anti-immigrant period. 

The United States had always been a nation of immigrants, but in the 1840s the failure of the potato crop in Ireland sent at least half a million Irish immigrants to the United States. As they moved into urban ports on the East Coast, especially in Massachusetts and New York, native-born Americans turned against them as competitors for jobs.

The 1850s saw a similar anti-immigrant fury in the new state of California. After the discovery of gold there in 1848, native-born Americans—the so-called Forty Niners—moved to the West Coast. They had no intention of sharing the riches they expected to find. The Indigenous people who lived there had no right to the land under which gold lay, native-born men thought; nor did the Mexicans whose government had sold the land to the U.S. in 1848; nor did the Chileans, who came with mining skills that made them powerful competitors. Above all, native-born Americans resented the Chinese miners who came to work in order to send money home to a land devastated by the first Opium War.

Democrats and the new anti-immigrant American Party (more popularly known as the “Know Nothings” because members claimed to know nothing about the party) turned against the new immigrants, seeing them as competition that would drive down wages. In the 1850s, Know Nothing officials in Massachusetts persecuted Catholics and deported Irish immigrants they believed were paupers. In California the state legislature placed a monthly tax on Mexican and Chinese miners, made unemployment a crime, took from Chinese men the right to testify in court, and finally tried to stop Chinese immigration altogether by taxing shipmasters $50 for each Chinese immigrant they brought.   

When the Republicans organized in the 1850s, they saw society differently than the Democrats and the Know Nothings. They argued that society was not made up of a struggle over a limited economic pie, but rather that hardworking individuals would create more than they could consume, thus producing capital that would make the economy grow. The more people a nation had, the stronger it would be.

In 1860 the new party took a stand against the new laws that discriminated against immigrants. Immigrants’ rights should not be “abridged or impaired,” the delegates to its convention declared, adding that they were “in favor of giving a full and efficient protection to the rights of all classes of citizens, whether native or naturalized, both at home and abroad.”

Republicans’ support for immigration only increased during the Civil War. In contrast to the southern enslavers, they wanted to fill the land with people who supported freedom. As one poorly educated man wrote to his senator, “Protect Emegration and that will protect the Territories to Freedom.”

Republicans also wanted to bring as many workers to the country as possible to increase economic development. The war created a huge demand for agricultural products to feed the troops. At the same time, a terrible drought in Europe meant there was money to be made exporting grain. But the war was draining men to the battlefields of Stones River and Gettysburg and to the growing U.S. Navy, leaving farmers with fewer and fewer hands to work the land. 

By 1864, Republicans were so strongly in favor of immigration that Congress passed “an Act to Encourage Immigration.” The law permitted immigrants to borrow against future homesteads to fund their voyage to the U.S., appropriated money to provide for impoverished immigrants upon their arrival, and, to undercut Democrats’ accusations that they were simply trying to find men to throw into the grinding war, guaranteed that no immigrant could be drafted until he announced his intention of becoming a citizen. 

Support for immigration has waxed and waned repeatedly since then, but as recently as 1989, Republican president Ronald Reagan said: “We lead the world because, unique among nations, we draw our people—our strength—from every country and every corner of the world. And by doing so we continuously renew and enrich our nation…. Thanks to each wave of new arrivals to this land of opportunity, we're a nation forever young, forever bursting with energy and new ideas, and always on the cutting edge, always leading the world to the next frontier. This quality is vital to our future as a nation. If we ever closed the door to new Americans, our leadership in the world would soon be lost.”

The workers who died in the bridge collapse on Tuesday “were not ‘poisoning the blood of our country,’” Will Bunch wrote, quoting Trump; “they were replenishing it…. They may have been born all over the continent, but when these men plunged into our waters on Tuesday, they died as Americans.”

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[asma-riaz]

Union boss on US ports strike: 'I'm not playing games'

EPA-EFE Major US ports will stay shut until pay demands are met, the union boss representing striking dockworkers has said. Harold Daggett, head of the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA), made the vow on a picket line in New Jersey on Tuesday, as tens of thousands of dockworkers on the east and gulf coasts walked out in a bid to win a better labour deal. “We’re going to fight for it…