The president-elect said the amount of money saved by using automation is not worth the ‘distress, hurt, and harm’ it causes American workers.
President-elect Donald Trump offered support on Dec. 12 for members of the dockworkers union who are negotiating contracts at Eastern and Gulf Coast ports, saying further automation would harm workers.
Trump said in a post on Truth Social that he met with Harold Daggett, the president of the International Longshoreman’s Association (ILA), and Dennis Daggett, the union’s executive vice president, earlier in the day.
The ILA has until Jan. 15—just five days before Trump’s inauguration—to negotiate a new contract with the United States Maritime Alliance (USMX), which represents 45,000 dockworkers across ports and shipping companies.
The union is seeking to ban automation from being used across ports for gates, cranes, and container-moving trucks.
The incoming president said there has been “a lot of discussion” regarding automation—using technology to complete tasks while reducing human involvement—at docks throughout the United States.
“I’ve studied automation, and know just about everything there is to know about it,” Trump wrote. “The amount of money saved is nowhere near the distress, hurt, and harm it causes for American Workers, in this case, our Longshoremen.”
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