News / US jobs versus foreign robots – west coast port negotiating lines are set

Pier-300-channel-aerial Port of Los Angeles.

With negotiations at the US west coast ports to begin this week, 10 May, the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA) is positioning itself as ’modernists held back by luddites’, while the union has appealed to Americans to back US dockers against ’foreign plunderers’.

In an open letter, International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) president Willie Adams praised his 22,000 members as frontline workers that kept US commerce working throughout the pandemic.

Mr Adams said that union members had experienced the same fears and ...