Dockworkers’ union leader threatened to cripple ports as strike starts
Tom KirkmanIndependent Project Manager
“I Will Cripple You” – the earlier open threat by Harold Daggett, leader of the International Longshoremen’s Association union.
Please note that the strike started today:
nytimes.com ↗
Note: here is my transcript of the video below:
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“Let me explain something to you.
These people today don’t know what a strike is.
When my men hit the streets, from Maine to Texas, every single port, a lockdown.
You know what’s going to happen?
I’ll tell you.
First week, be all over the news every night, boom boom.
Second week, guys who sell cars, can’t sell cars because the cars aren’t coming in off the ships.
They get laid off.
Third week, malls start closing down.
They can’t get the goods from China.
They can’t sell clothes, they can’t do this.
Everything in the United States comes on a ship.
They go out of business.
Construction workers get laid off because the materials aren’t coming in.
The steel’s not coming in.
The lumber’s not coming in.
They lose their job.
Everybody’s hating the longshoremen now.
Because now they realize how important our jobs are.
Now I have the President screaming at me.
‘I’m putting a Taft-Hartley on you!’
Go ahead.
Taft-Hartley means I have to go back to work for 90 days; it’s a cooling off period.
Do you think when I go back for 90 days those men are going to go to work on that pier?
It’s going to cost them money, companies money, to pay their salaries, while they’re going from 30 moves an hour maybe to 8.
They’re going to be like this [hands choke neck].
Who’s going to win here in the long run?
You’re better off sitting down, and let’s get a contract, and let’s move on with this world.
And in today’s world, I’ll cripple you.
I will *cripple* you.
And you have no idea what that means.
Nobody does.”