Leaders of the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA), who recently spent big money on upscale restaurants and swanky beach resorts, threatened to “cripple” the American economy over allegedly unsatisfactory wages.
Members of the longshoreman’s unions set up picket lines on docks across the East Coast on Tuesday, decrying corporate greed and carrying signs that read “profit over people is unacceptable” while demanding a 77% raise over the next five years; the union has since reached a tentative agreement to extend their old contract and suspend their strike until Jan. 15, with bargaining for a new contract continuing afterward. Despite the union’s strong rhetoric decrying excessive wealth, its leaders have spent millions to hold conferences at luxurious beach-front resorts and racked up tens of thousands of dollars worth of bills at gourmet restaurants on the union’s tab, labor disclosures show.
Longshoremen are already better compensated than virtually all other blue-collar workers. Thanks to generous overtime rules, the typical longshoreman makes around $100,000 per year hauling cargo off boats, with many pulling in over $200,000, according to CBS News. (RELATED: Gretchen Whitmer Poised To Sign Bill Taking Money Away From Family Caretakers To Pay Off Union Bosses)
“The longshoremen are a sort of labor aristocracy,” Capital Research Center research director Michael Watson, an expert on organized labor, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “Part of how you see that is the relatively high, as far as labor unions go, pay for the leadership of the union and through the ability of the union to throw money around for its own purposes whether it be for member events or officer events, for things like their convention.”
In a display of the union’s deep pockets, it spent over $4 million on a convention at the Diplomat Beach Resort in Hollywood, Florida, in 2023, disclosure forms show. The convention, which lasted four days, was held to elect ILA leadership and union delegates were allowed to bring up to four of their family members with them.
The union held social events for its delegates at the beach-front resort, according to a description of the convention on the ILA’s website.
Diplomat Beach Resort features a 1,000-foot-long semi-private beach, an award-winning steakhouse on-site that serves prime dry-aged beef as well as seafood, pool-side bottle service, complimentary watersports rentals and ample views of the ocean. ILA leadership, as well as over 1,000 delegates and their guests, enjoyed the resort between July 24 and July 27, 2023.
Dockworkers gather at the Bayport Container Terminal in Seabrook, Texas. (Photo by MARK FELIX/AFP via Getty Images)
In addition to spending union dues on luxury getaways in Florida, ILA’s leadership makes sure to compensate itself well.
The ILA paid President Harold Daggett $855,261 in 2023. Daggett owns a 7,136-square-foot Tudor-style mansion on ten acres in New Jersey, drives a Bentley convertible and recently sold a 76-foot yacht. Daggett’s son, Dennis, also rakes in a generous salary funded by union dues, bringing in $467,664 in 2023, according to disclosures.
The ILA has more than two dozen other officers with salaries ranging from $193,000 per year to nearly $700,000 annually, disclosure forms show.
Disclosures also indicate that ILA’s leadership are big-time golfers.
The union, for instance, spent $6,640 at The Lodge at Sea Island Golf Club, a five-star golf resort on St. Simons Island in Georgia in 2020, according to disclosures. Guests at The Lodge are provided with a complimentary BMW to get them around the island during their stay, can use five miles of private beach, butler service, have access to three private golf courses and are invited to several luxury activities, like coastal wildlife bike tours, sea fishing trips and horseback rides on the beach.
In addition to The Lodge, the ILA spent roughly $55,000 on golf-related expenses between 2020 and 2023, disclosures show.
The ILA is no stranger to controversy. In 2005, federal authorities accused Daggett of steering union contracts to firms that then paid kickbacks to organized crime, The Wall Street Journal reported. One mafia member testified that Daggett was part of the Genovese crime family, according to The New York Times.
One of Daggett’s co-defendants, alleged Genovese associate Lawrence Ricci, disappeared during the trial and his dead body was later found in the trunk of a car outside a New Jersey diner, WSJ reported. Daggett was ultimately acquitted.
When members of the ILA aren’t staying at luxury hotels or fighting off organized crime allegations, they like to eat.
The ILA in 2023, for instance, spent $51,695 at Il Villaggio, an Italian restaurant right outside New York City, disclosures show. The spending was split about evenly between “meetings” for members and “non-itemized transactions.” The upscale restaurant serves a selection of steak, seafood and pasta.
ILA members racked up another $5,394 in “non-itemized transactions” at Halls Chophouse in Charleston, South Carolina, during 2021, according to disclosures. The restaurant boasts a number of pricey options, including a $165 Australian New York Strip steak, Japanese Wagyu beef priced at $34 per ounce, $70 bison steaks as well as an assortment of aged meats and premium seafood.
Excluding the ILA’s 2023 conference expenditures, the union spent at least $742,000 at a variety of luxury resorts between 2020 and 2023. The union, for instance, paid out $14,798 for “meetings” and “non-itemized transactions” at The Ritz Carlton Kapalua, a five-star resort on the Hawaiian island of Maui, during 2021.
Watson, the labor expert, argued that the ILA’s push for greater compensation is partially so that the union itself can take in more revenue from dues, revenue that can then be spent on stays at luxury resorts and meals at fine dining establishments.
The ILA did not respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.
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