Ellen White had nothing good to say about labor unions:
“Those who claim to be the children of God are in no case to bind up with the labor unions that are formed or that shall be formed. This the Lord forbids. . . . The trades unions and confederacies of the world are a snare. Keep out of them and away from them, brethren. Have nothing to do with them. Because of these unions and confederacies, it will soon be very difficult for our institutions to carry on their work in the cities. . . . The wicked are being bound up in bundles, bound up in trusts, in unions, in confederacies. Let us have nothing to do with these organizations. God is our Ruler, our Governor, and He calls us to come out from the world and be separate. “Come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing.”
And the trades unions will be one of the agencies that will bring upon this earth a time of trouble such as has not been since the world began.—E. G. White Letter 200, 1903. Selected Messages 2:142.
“Last night I slept only three hours, from eight to eleven. O how my soul longs to see the people of God zealous in repentance. I entreat them to prepare to meet their God. Can they not see in the rapid growth of trades unions, the fulfilling of the signs of the time? Those forming the labor unions are determined to have their own way. Violence and death mean nothing to them if their unions are opposed.”
The International Longshoreman’s Association, which represents some 50,000 American dockworkers on the U.S. Atlantic coast and Gulf of Mexico, is trying to prove Ellen White’s point. As of the first of October, they are on strike.
The base wage is currently $39.00/hour. The employers’ consortium, the United States Maritime Alliance (USMX), has offered a 50% raise over the next six years, which would put them at close to $58.50 per hour which, annualized with no overtime is about $117,000 per year.
But a 50% raise is not good enough for the ILA, which is demanding a 77% base pay increase over the six year period; that would put them at $69.00 per hour, which annualizes to $138,000 per year, with no overtime. The union is also demanding a total ban on any automation that would eliminate jobs.
Harold Daggett, president of the ILA reportedly earns $728,000 as ILA president, plus another $129,000 as president emeritus of a local branch, for a total of over $900,000 per year. He drives a Bentley, and owns a home in New Jersey valued at $2.36 million, and another in Florida valued at $1.38 million. He recently sold his 76-foot yacht, Obsession, but Elon Musk recently tweeted that Daggett “has more yachts than I do.”
You can take one quick look at this guy and see that he is mobbed up:
Harold Daggett, head of the International Longshoremen's Association, has vowed to bring America to its knees, unless his union members get paid $140,000 per year.
Daggett has faced multiple accusations of connections to organized crime:
1. The U.S. Justice Department has accused Daggett of being an associate of the Genovese crime family, one of the infamous Five Families of the American Mafia.
2. Federal prosecutors in 2004 alleged a mob conspiracy to elect Daggett as head of the union.
3. In 2005, Daggett was charged with racketeering. During the trial, he portrayed himself as a mob target, despite evidence from a turncoat Mafia enforcer claiming he was under the mob's control. During Harold Daggett's racketeering trial, a key piece of evidence was to be testimony from a Genovese family Mafia don to the effect that Daggett was under mob control. But that co-defendant and would-be witness, Lawrence Ricci, was found shot to death in the trunk of a car outside a New Jersey diner, after the diner owner told police of a foul smell coming from a car that had been parked outside for weeks. Hmmm.
Apparently the longshoremen have no rule against nepotism, because Daggett has both his sons on the payroll. Dennis Daggett, the executive vice president of the ILA, earned $250,156 in the fiscal year ended December 2022, according to ProPublica. John Daggett, the general vice president of the Atlantic Coast District ILA, reportedly earned $264,228 in the same period.
In addition to their high salaries, Dennis and John Daggett got to go on an ILA boondoggle to Rome to meet the pope!
Daggett has promised to “cripple” the U.S.
These people today don’t know what a strike is. When my men hit the streets, every single port from Maine to Texas is locked down. You know what’s gonna happen, I’ll tell you.
First week: it’ll be all over the news every night.
Second week: The guys who sell cars can’t sell cars because the cars ain’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 they 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 jobs.
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 that I have to go back to work for 90 days, as 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? Its going to cost the companies money to pay their salaries while [their productivity] goes from 30 moves per hour to maybe 8.
They’re going to be like this [choking himself]. Whose gonna 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. Because in today’s world, I’ll cripple ya. I will cripple you. And you have no idea what that means. Nobody does.
It is likely to be even worse than he describes. First, President Biden has already indicated that he will not impose Taft-Hartley, because he doesn’t believe in it. Second, stuff doesn’t just come in through ports, it goes out. Although we import far more than we export, millions of Americans work making products that are exported to other countries. And if the ports stay shut down, eventually those people will lose their jobs, too.
Obviously, this mobbed up thug is more than willing to cripple the United States. People who think that what Ellen White said about labor unions is out of date or no longer applicable are sadly mistaken. We’re all about to learn how mistaken they are.
Drone's eye view of Daggett's New Jersey estate
UPDATE: 10/3/24
According to reports late on Thursday, the two sides have reached an agreement to end the strike. The USMX consortium and the ILA have agreed that the longshoremen will have a 62% raise over the next six years, essentially splitting the difference between the USMX position of 50% and the labor union’s position of 77%. Apparently all parties, including Daggett, have taken Daggett’s advice to “sit down, and let’s get a contract, and let’s move on with this world.”