By Land and By Sea
By Land and By Sea
S4.E11 - ILA and USMX ink a deal!
Topic of the Week (1/10/25):
The continuing saga of the INTERNATIONAL LONGSHOREMENS ASSOCIATION and the UNITED STATES MARITIME ALLIANCE LIMITED has come to a conclusion - a new Master Contract has been agreed to!
⚓ The Maritime Professor® presents By Land and By Sea Podcast 🎙️ - an attorney breaking down the week in supply chain
with Lauren Beagen (Founder of The Maritime Professor® and Squall Strategies®)
Let's dive in...
1 - Federal Maritime Commission - Rulemaking/Petition Round-Up
2 - FMC can hear class action lawsuits
https://www.fmc.gov/articles/availability-of-class-action-complaints-at-the-fmc/
3 - FMC announces deadline for Documented Export Strategy (as required by the final rule on “Definition of Unreasonable Refusal to Deal or Negotiate with Respect to Vessel Space Accommodations Provided by an Ocean Common Carrier”
https://www.fmc.gov/articles/deadline-announced-for-required-filing-of-annual-export-strategies-at-fmc/
https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2024/07/23/2024-16148/definition-of-unreasonable-refusal-to-deal-or-negotiate-with-respect-to-vessel-space-accommodations
-------------------------------
🔹The Maritime Professor® is dedicated to increasing collective knowledge of global ocean shipping through webinars and e-learning producing educational/e-learning content for maritime and supply chain professionals and businesses. This includes trainings and webinars for companies and their employees.
🔹Book a time to learn more: https://calendar.app.google/KC72Lpdcs93ZywWL6
🔹Sign up for our email list at https://lnkd.in/eqfZJShQ
🔹Look for our podcast episodes - NOW AVAILABLE:
https://lnkd.in/g4YUbxjs
❗As always the guidance here is general and for educational purposes only, it should not be construed to be legal advice and there is no attorney-client privilege created by this video or podcast. If you need an attorney, contact an attorney.❗
#ByLandAndBySea
Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. Oh, I got soul coming through. Won't stop in the piece and on top of the world. Yeah, walk to the beat when you see me, come and make some room. Oh, everywhere I go, I'm in the spotlight. This is a good life. Oh, I'm living bold. This is what it looks like. I'm addicted to the world. The drama's over.
Speaker 1:The International Longshoremen's Association and the United States Maritime Alliance have come to an agreement, or have they? Well, yes, but it still needs to be voted on in their respective organizations. We're going to break it down. Stick around. Hi, welcome to, by Land and by Sea, an attorney breaking down the weekend supply chain presented by the Maritime Professor Me. I'm Lauren Began, founder of the Maritime Professor and Squall Strategies, and I'm your favorite maritime attorney. Join me every week as we walk through both ocean transport and surface transport topics and the wild world of supply chain. As always, the guidance here is general and for educational purposes only. It should not be construed to be legal advice and there's no attorney-client privilege created by this video or this podcast. If you need an attorney, contact an attorney. So before we get into the discussion of the day, let's go through my top three stories of the week. All right, story number one let's just kind of recap all things FMC, right.
Speaker 1:So things that we're watching, things that we talked about before the holiday break, we have no real new updates, luckily, on a lot of the rulemaking areas, right. So we were watching in 2024, we had the final rule on the detention of marriage billing practices and we had the final rule on unreasonable result to deal and negotiate with respect to vessel space accommodations. Both of those were finalized. Both of those have become lost regulatory law. They are out there, they're in the wild. The industry has picked them up and they're using law. They are out there, they're in the wild, the industry has picked them up and they're using them. They both have found themselves with a petition against them. So we've been watching that and there's no real new. I'm going to get into the petitions in a minute, but there's no real new updates on the petitions right now. There might be some movement in the month of January, so I'm going to be watching for that.
Speaker 1:But then also the other thing that we're watching there's an open position at the FMC for a commissioner. We haven't heard a name yet. There has not been a name put out there publicly. There's a few names kind of floating around, one that seems to be rising to the top, but I have not found anything publicly available confirming a name saying that this person is going into the open commissioner spot. So, as we know, commissioner Carl Bensel has left the FMC. He left during what was it? Mid-december to go over to National Waterfront, national Association of Waterfront Employers, and so we have an open commissioner spot that will be now going to a Republican because, as we've talked about many times, the FMC stays three of one party, two of the other, and so, with a Democrat leaving, that kind of rebalances it to a two and two right now of commissioners that are at the FMC. So in order to get that third majority side, we have the Republican coming in under that third Republican commissioner slot. I haven't heard anything conclusively there, but there is a name that's floating up there. I'm not quite comfortable yet to put it out on the podcast, but there is a name that seems to have been floating for the past few months and now seems to be floating kind of by by the man, by himself, at the top here. So, um, we'll see.
Speaker 1:I also haven't heard anything about the chairmanship. Uh, we have heard a lot of support for commissioner rebecca die. I think she would be a phenomenal, uh, chairman, and I say that because she's been there for so long and she just understands the, the regulatory purview of the fmc, the jurisdictional limitations, but also also jurisdictional kind of authorities that the FMC actually does have. She's been there since 2002. So she's been there for I mean now it's a flip of the calendar right 23 years. She knows and she's not just kind of like a lame duck 23 year. She has been active pretty much all of those years that she's been there in a way that has positioned her to be such a good facilitator, referee, kind of the top spot at the FMC. So I would love to see her there. We'll see, we'll see who ends up.
Speaker 1:Because the other thing that I've heard as a potential possibility is maybe this whole shake up of everything falls into the FMC as well, and we may. It wouldn't be the wildest thing to have somebody who is not already at the FMC come in under this new commissioner spot and then come in and be the chairman. I don't know if that's the right move, because the FMC really does have such nuanced, such specific jurisdictional authorities. It's such a unique agency as we know, right, it's an independent regulatory agency, similar to Federal Communications Commission. So, right, any of the kind of other commissions. There's just such a specific nuance that the FMC covers in its promotion of the US Well, not promotion, excuse me. It's the movement of protecting the US consumer, us importer, exporter and consumer for the freight and flow and fluidity.
Speaker 1:I'm jumping, I'm tumbling all over the mission statement that usually rolls off my tongue. So you've heard me say it before. I'm not going to keep mumbling through it. But what we have here is the FMC is such a specific, nuanced agency and my point being Chairman Dye.
Speaker 1:A Chairman Dye would be, I think, a good thing, even though she wouldn't be a newbie coming into the scene kind of part of this disruptor theme I think that she would be really helpful to have that institutional knowledge. I don't think that she has just sat there and enjoyed the longevity she's had there in kind of a passive way. She's always been active in the industry, pushing forward not from a government-led or government intervention way, but a government facilitator way, I think, but then also making sure that the competition is fair. This is turning into a potential chairman dive pitch. I think she'd be phenomenal. I hope to see her. If we don't, I'll keep following it and I'll let you know what I think about'd be phenomenal. I hope to see her. If we don't, I'll keep following it and I'll let you know what I think about whoever it might be If it's not her.
Speaker 1:Um, I didn't mention commissioner Lou Sola as a potential for the chairmanship only because we've talked about it on this podcast before he wrote a letter in full support of commissioner die becoming uh being appointed to that chairman position. So I think in that letter, twofold one. Obviously it promotes commissioner die. I think that he has a relationship probably a good relationship with uh, with president-elect trump, because they're both from florida, um, and, and I've kind of heard that. But then also I think that it also takes his name off the running right. If he's promoting somebody else, you're probably not going to give it to him. So I think it's either the to be named commissioner or potentially, hopefully, commissioner Dye, who will be going into that chairmanship position, but we haven't heard anything. So, yeah, we do anticipate a new rulemaking coming through in 2025.
Speaker 1:We talked about this a few times, but this is that charge complaint. We have a interim procedure that's been created from OSRA 22, the Ocean Superior Reform Act of 2022 that Congress created. They said that this needed to be a process that the FMC had available. So the FMC had to I mean upon signature right so June 16, 2022, the FMC had to quickly figure out how they're going to entertain these charge complaints. But what also needs to happen in this charge complaints process is there needs to be a full, formal rulemaking associated with it. What rulemakings really are is an opportunity for the public to engage in the process, right? This isn't just an agency doling out a rulemaking. This is an agency, depending on what stage they start with, but there's going to be a comment period, and so there will likely be a comment period that is asking for feedback on statute of limitations that have to do with charge complaints, potentially even what charges are part of charge complaints.
Speaker 1:Is it only detention to merge? It seems like we've seen mostly detention to merge. Can it be other charges? It has to be violations of the Shipping Act, but can it be other charges? Can it be assessorial charges or just kind of these work disruption charges that we saw come through? Is that something that could be entertained under the charge complaints process? I think that's going to be one of the questions that's going to come up in the rulemaking.
Speaker 1:We're going to see a few different areas. We'll probably see, I would expect. So there's kind of two different routes that they could take. They could go with the advanced notice of proposed rulemaking, the FMC, which is really where they ask questions of the industry, kind of we have some ideas, but what do you think, versus a notice of proposed rulemaking, which is where they kind of present some text. I can imagine we're probably going to be on the second side, that notice of proposed rulemaking, that NPRM, because they already have an interim process. They're just trying to refine it. So I think they'll probably come out with here's the text that we're proposing for this regulation. What do you think? Here's some areas that we want some specific input on. So I don't know, we'll probably see that. I mean, right, it's all going to be kind of pursuant to the chairman coming in, but no matter what, they have to do this. So I would guess, maybe April, may that we'll probably see something on this just to kind of keep things moving and keep this trucking along, because this hasn't been a surprise. This is something since June 16, 2022, when they created that interim process, that they've also been thinking about. Well, what does the rulemaking side of things look like? And this is something that the general counsel of the FMC brought up in one of those meetings, one of the commission meetings I think it was August or sometime around then end of summer, early fall. So I'll be on the lookout for that. I'll let you know when I see that hit any sort of once it hits the federal register.
Speaker 1:So no new updates, like I said on the petitions, but let's kind of go over where we are with the petitions. So we have the two final rules right. So we have the detention to merge billing practices. That's the first one that has a petition. That was started April 18th. That rule became final at the end of May, so that petition actually came before the finality of that rule. As we know, the court didn't stop that rule from going into effect. So the D&D rule, the D&D billing practices rule, is a real rule, but right now they're still kind of going through and we've been talking about this kind of standing issues and lacking authority. There's kind of some legal procedural things that are kind of baseline baseline, not non-subject matter. Um, if we do get to the subject matter in this petition, uh and and petitions take a while, right. So I think that we're going to be looking at direct contractual relationships and really that hinging on the motor carriers and their inability, um, the inability to directly bill motor carriers or or another way, really is taking motor carriers out of those who have to pay. They can pay, but the FMC really made a point of saying direct contractual relationship and motor carriers are not part of that direct contractual relationship as it relates to detention, demerge billing that's on petition, not necessarily yet, but the subject matter, I guess the argument is that there are some direct contractual relationships that may include motor carriers, and so that's, I think, what the World Shipping Council will eventually get to.
Speaker 1:The interesting development that happened, what was it? Early December, I think December 9th, we had a whole bunch of trucking associations joined with the AGTC Agriculture Transportation Coalition, basically filing an amicus curiae brief saying that they had some thoughts too. They said that they. What did they say? So they basically came out and said that they, if I remember correctly I don't have any notes on this, but it had to do with they. I think I didn't pull my notes over for this one, but, the point being, the truckers entered the chat.
Speaker 1:I think that this is something that you should go check out. If you're not aware, you can actually pull this case on Pacer. It's a publicly accessed site. You may have to pay like 10 cents to actually pull some of these documents, but you can access these dockets yourself. It's under the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit and you can find these dockets yourself. But look, because that case really kind of hinges on motor carriers and their inability or the direct contractual relationship and so, therefore, taking the motor carriers out of the direct contractual relationship, billing required parties, it makes sense that they'd want to weigh in. So take a look at that.
Speaker 1:The other petition that we're following the unreasonable refusal to negotiate with respect to vessels-based accommodations. No movement there either. Look, this is still kind of going back on standing, lack of standing. Can the council, the World Shipping Council bring the suit on behalf of its members, or should the carriers have brought the suit directly themselves? That's kind of where we last left it when we were watching. But I think we're going to see some filings of both this petition and the other petition during the month of January. There's some deadlines that are happening during this month, so I'll keep watching. I'll let you know when I see any movements there.
Speaker 1:Story number two that was a longer story number one than I was expecting it to be. But story number two FMC can hear class action lawsuits and I'm hesitant to say can now hear class action lawsuits, because, look, this was probably always available. It's a little bit of a gray area. I remember, actually, when I was working at the FMC, this was a question that kind of came up but we hadn't necessarily, I think, at the time been fully formally asked or hadn't been tried yet. But look, it looks like they're going through some policy review and some policy statements. Maybe somebody asked for this, but they basically came out.
Speaker 1:On January 2nd the FMC came out and released the following information. I'm just going to read right off of their announcement here and then I'll break off for commentary as needed. But it said. The FMC, the Federal Maritime Commission, issued a policy statement today making it clear it is an appropriate venue where private parties may bring class actions to resolve disputes covered by the statutes the agency administers to parties that might otherwise be hesitant to initiate legal actions at the FMC for fear of retaliation or because the amount of money in dispute may be less than the cost of litigation for an individual claimant. The availability of the class action mechanism will help create a more level playing field for private parties seeking protection from potentially unlawful conduct. So this is interesting because I think that it's kind of providing a way forward.
Speaker 1:So there were a lot of large I guess what I'm thinking is right there were a lot of large demurrage bills, that that was kind of the issue of 2021. I wonder, if this had been this starkly clear, if there may have been a class action tried during that time. I don't know. I don't know, but but interesting that the FMC has now come out and said look, even if you have like a small dollar amount, as we know right the the, there's a case that's on five hundred dollars. That went all the way through, and then now it's on appeal at the at the Court of Appeals and I mean that's only for 500 bucks guaranteed the litigation of. Probably the filing fees are probably more than the $500 at issue, and so this is kind of hinging or at least kind of has that in mind, right? It says like if you have a small amount, you may still be able to kind of pull together as right class actions go.
Speaker 1:I'm going to continue on with this announcement, though it says today's announcement is a continuation of efforts by the commission in recent years to reduce barriers for private parties private party litigants seeking redress of potential shipping act violations. The commission issued a policy statement in December 2021. They issue policy statements fairly regularly although that was four years ago, three and a half making clear that shippers, associations and trade associations can file complaints on behalf of others alleging violations of the law. Did you hear that Shippers, associations and trade associations can file complaints on behalf of others? That's interesting. That's something that came out December 2021. So not necessarily class action, but kind of that pooling idea. But that was the first thing that they mentioned in this. Here's the other things that we've done as part of this announcement. All right, continuing on with the announcement, the commission successfully implemented a process for charge complaints, as set out in the Ocean Ship Reform Week of 2022, which provide individuals with a simplified and expedited way to challenge some invoices. More than $3.5 million in fees have been voluntarily waived or refunded by common carriers through the Commission-administered charge complaints process since June 2022.
Speaker 1:Further, the Commission is ensuring the timely adjudication of the record number of pending proceedings that have been filed at the Commission in recent years by adding resources to the office of the administrative law judges. We've talked about that. I think they had two new ALJs administrative law judges. Were they on detail? I think that's what we said. I think that they have been detailed over. At least one was detailed, maybe they were, but either way, they brought in two more administrative law judges, which is great, because at one point in the recent history they only had one or two ALJs, and so now I think they might be up to five, four or five. That's great. That's great Because when cases come in especially when their formal cases come in that are not small claims cases but just regular filing the lawsuit at the FMC they go to the ALJs for first review.
Speaker 1:Right, the ALJ reviews it, goes through the whole process, all that back and forth and you know all the kind of legalese that happens, legal procedure, that happens happens with the ALJ's office and then the ALJ will determine an initial decision. And then that's when all the rest of the agency kind of looks at it the general counsel looks at it, the other commission offices look at it, and then if anybody thinks that there needs to be more of a review or some sort of maybe larger review, or just there's something that they don't want to turn into a final decision, they'll sua sponte, which means kind of like on their own efforts, on their own efforts, um, they'll pull it and they'll they'll do a Sue Esponte review, which means that now it's going to be all opened up, all of the FMC commissioners are going to be reviewing it, um, and then they're going to be likely taking a vote on it. So, um, alj creates that initial decision and the FMC can then do a Sue Esponte review, or they can just leave it and let that initial decision and the FMC can then do a sua sponte review, or they can just leave it and let that initial decision turn into a final decision. But all this to kind of emphasize like how important the administrative law judges are and how important it is that they have sufficient numbers of ALJs available, because they're the ones that are reviewing all these cases, and they went from I mean tens of cases to 20s and 30s of cases. I mean that's a double triple of what they were used to. So, as we know, the FMC has become a little bit more popular in the past four years. I'm going to be interested to see how the industry reacts, though, to this class action lawsuits idea, or I'm going to be interested to see the prevalence at which it's used right, we haven't seen a lot of trade associations using that policy statement information, but we'll see. It's nice to have things clarified. I think that ultimately, can still be clarified through case law. Just because these are policy statements doesn't mean that they can't be challenged through different ways, because ultimately, it's Congress and the Shipping Act and anything that Congress says is going to be kind of the law. But policy statements are important because it's at least something to hang your hat on and guide you as you approach the FMC. So interesting. I'll be interested to see how that one goes All right.
Speaker 1:Story number three Deadline announced for required filing of annual export strategies at the FMC. So on December 31st, which is a weird day to make an important announcement. Right on December 31st, the FMC announced their deadline for Ocean Common Carriers to file their documented export strategies. And you might be like, what is? What? Is this documented export strategies? It was a key piece at issue in the petition against the final rule. This is that unreasonable refusal to deal and negotiate rule one of the two final rules like we've been talking about that had the petition in front of it. There was a requirement of a, uh, documented export strategy, and so now the FMC has announced this deadline for this required filing of an annual export strategy. That was one of the pieces we haven't gotten into the subject matter in the petitions, but that was one of the things that was really kind of at issue with this petition. Was an export strategy, all right.
Speaker 1:So what does the announcement say? What does the FMC say on this announcement? Ocean common carriers must file documented export strategies with the FMC beginning March 1st 2025, and at least annually every following year. It continues to say filings must include information on services offered, markets served, pricing strategies and equipment provisioning. The submissions must be prospective in nature, providing clear information to the commission about how ocean carriers will serve the US export market and multiple filings in a year are permitted if circumstances warrant. So if you kind of change your export strategy.
Speaker 1:The final rule continues on definition of unreasonable fruits of steel and negotiate with respect to vessel-based accommodations provided by an ocean common carrier. That's the rule title published in July and finalized September 23rd. Establishes the requirement to file a documented export strategy. That rule was mandated by the Oceanship Reform Act of 2022. Continuing on, it says, while the final rule has been in effect for almost five months, approval for the commission to collect export strategy filings was required from the Office of Management and Budget. This was provided earlier this fall, clearing the way for establishing this reporting deadline. So it's kind of like why now they basically had to get OMB approval to require documentation filing? So this is like I said, this is kind of a funky one. Funky one. The question is are they overstepping? I think kind of the essence of the question for the petition is are they overstepping having to require documented export strategies?
Speaker 1:And this, remember, this kind of all goes back to when OSHA, superinforma Act of 2022, before it became that, it was over in the House side and it was very export heavy. It was very focused on exporters kind of getting totally, totally left behind, right. We were having these pop-up carriers coming into the market. They were just trying to get part of those $20,000 rates that go from Asia to the US West Coast during that kind of 2020, 2021 congestion years. And we were seeing, sometimes they were kind of turning and burning and leaving without actually filled exports. And so the export community was saying, look, you have to take my stuff. Like you are unreasonably refusing my stuff. Not only should this be a trade balance, it's kind of a national thing, but it kind of goes against the requirements of the Shipping Act. So unreasonably refusal to deal so that's what this one kind of hinges on. I think this is still kind of a nod back to export-focused.
Speaker 1:What we ultimately saw in the Ocean Shipping Reform Act was kind of a balance of. It didn't highlight export or import necessarily. It just kind of was a little bit more across the board. And that's why we saw a definition of unreasonable refusal to deal and negotiate with respect to bus space accommodations. That originally was for exporters. It got expanded to importers because unreasonable refusal to deal and negotiate is kind of always a bad thing, right, this is the definition of it. It's prohibited under the Shipping Act anyways. So that's what is kind of happening here.
Speaker 1:I'll keep watching this because this is one of the pieces of that unreasonable refusal to negotiate definition rule that has always sat a little off with me, at least. I would just want a little bit more justification on it, because we're going to be requiring companies to provide their documented export strategy. Be requiring companies to provide their documented export strategy, that's kind of like a business decision then likely to change. I'm just the level of detail that's required. I'm interested to see kind of how this turns into real life application. But we'll see. I'm interested to see how this goes.
Speaker 1:All right, those are the top three stories of the week. Let's get into the main pages of the day. So the International Longshoremen's Association and the US Maritime Alliance have come to an agreement, tentative agreement, and I only say that because the rank and file, as they say, still have to vote and approve it. But look, all indications that I see are that they will, and it seems like the ILA is actually doing a victory lap, certainly on their Facebook page and on their members tagging the ILA main page. So, as you recall, in December there was a shakeup of the negotiations right, we weren't sure which side President-elect Trump, now that he had been elected, was going to come out on. And he came out not only once, but twice in support of the ILA, once through his own post and then again by reposting one of the ILA posts. And it seems so funny to like talk about Facebook posting, but that's where the ILA has been doing most of their official announcements. So here we are. So I want to mention and I don't think that I said this before, but or I don't think that this was actually said before in general general. But in a recent statement of praise from the ILA on Facebook, of course to President Trump, they said that President Trump actually contacted the US Maritime Alliance officials on the phone during that meeting, when he was sitting there meeting with the ILA, with Harold Daggett and Dennis Daggett in Mar-a-Lago. Apparently he called them on the phone at that time. I don't think they had said that before. That's kind of wild too. So like, not only did he come out publicly, but they kind of had like a mini-negotiation at that moment, that's. I mean, perhaps that started the laying of the stage here. So look when that happened, when Trump came out and backed the ILA, many in the industry kind of automatically said like guaranteed strike. Look, here we go, we're going straight to a strike.
Speaker 1:If you listen to this podcast regularly, you know that I've often kind of hummed and hawed. I was cautiously farley on the other side. I actually mentioned that I thought that this could potentially turn out to be really great news. I didn't elaborate much on it and mostly I was kind of pointing to the advanced discussions taking place as one of those key reasons. Right, the fact that all those discussions were happening mid to early December was a great thing in my book, because we didn't hear much talk about any sort of administrative or kind of presidential level, high up executive level coming in and having these sit downs until like the 11th hour Right Before like the end of September. So I was so hopeful because this is happening one month in advance.
Speaker 1:One of the other reasons that I didn't really didn't really talk about because this is a little bit more like playing to personalities I was optimistic with was that with the incoming president aligning with Harold Daggett, with President-elect Trump aligning with Harold Daggett here in the ILA, he was giving Harold the opportunity to broadcast his support on Facebook and essentially kind of claiming, like that's my guy Right, like he had just won, and now Harold Daggett gets to kind of align with him. This alignment kind of probably also positioned Harold for this win-win scenario right Like no matter what the outcome, no matter where they came out on automation or technology advances or semi-automation, he could still frame it in his favor by kind of saying look, even the art of the deal guy believes that this is a good idea. That's kind of what I was thinking, right Like this association kind of gave Harold added credibility and allowed him to lean on the incoming president's reputation as a strategic negotiator. It signaled to his audience that the plan was not only viable but also had the endorsement of somebody perceived as this, like master of complex deals guy, I mean. To me that kind of all played into this bolstering of his own standing and influence and kind of made it a winning thing. And that's, I think, what we're seeing now, too, is we see Harold Daggett, president of the International Longshoremen's Association, publicly crediting president-elect Donald Trump for his support in these negotiations.
Speaker 1:Daggett said that Trump's backing was instrumental in helping the union secure a favorable tentative agreement preventing this potential port strike, and he also referred to Trump as and this is in his announcement on Facebook one of the greatest friends of organized labor and champion of the working men and women of this country, and he gave him full credit for the successful outcome. I mean, this is, this is a big deal, right? So that was something that I was kind of I said I said a few times, but I don't think I said it on the podcast. I saw all of that alignment as kind of a personality alignment thing and, and to me I felt pretty confident that we weren't going to be going to a strike. You never know. I still never knew there were a million different things that could happen and so I didn't want to come out with kind of these wild I feel good um assertions because you never know, you never know. Uh, but what? One of the things that was in this announcement of the ILA on their Facebook page talking about President Trump being helping to secure the greatest contract, they say. President Trump clearly demonstrated his unwavering support for our ILA union and longshore workers with a statement heard around the world which is one of Harold's kind of statements Right, backing our position to protect American longshore jobs against the ravages of automated terminals, said ILA President Daggett.
Speaker 1:President Trump's bold stance helped prevent a second coast-wide strike at ports from Maine to Texas. That would have occurred on January 15th. It would have occurred on January 16th. Right, because it would have expired January 15th if a tentative agreement was not reached. The specific terms of the agreement are still not known, so be careful, right? Be careful when people are starting to say what's in the deal. Right, because the announcement on the ILA's Facebook page, and certainly kind of the joint statement, was details of the new tentative agreement will not be released to allow ILA rank and file members and US Maritime Alliance members to review and approve the final document. However, what we do know is that, and I quote, this agreement protects current ILA jobs and establishes a framework for implementing technologies that will create more jobs while modernizing East and Gulf Coast ports, making them safer and more efficient and creating the capacity they need to keep our supply chain strong. So we also had a recent update yesterday from the ILA's Facebook page again saying that the deal resulted in a package that calls for a 62% wage increase. Now, remember it was 66% before they went into. That was the interim agreement. I remember it was a 66% wage increase. Now we're talking about a 62 percent wage increase, and then it continues on to say ironclad protections against automation and semi-automation at LA ports and a stronger health care and retirement package among many gains.
Speaker 1:So there was talk of a secret meeting. Look, I don't think that it was a secret meeting necessarily. I think that it was just a pre-deliberation. That happens with negotiations all the time, right, I think that they just probably had a smaller conversation about okay, let's hash out some of this language. What we heard about during that pre-deliberation secret meeting was that, look, there needed to be new jobs created for any new technology, new jobs created for any new technology. My guess is that's likely. What we're going to see in the final agreement and in this new master contract is that for all new tech developed, there's going to be new jobs created. That was kind of one of the tenants, I guess, of that secret meeting. So we'll see, we'll see.
Speaker 1:That's kind of all we know. We're getting trickled down, trickling of information here from these public postings, but really, what we know, right, it looks like 62% increase and they have agreed to some sort of technology slash automation, slash, semi-automation agreement but they're moving forward onwards to 2030. Like it's a six-year master contract. So 2030 is the next time we're going to be talking about this, unless we have any extensions. Sometimes that happens. That's kind of what happened leading up to this one. Uh, this was supposed to expire, what was it? 2019. They extended it three years. Then that put us to 20. Uh, 23, 22. Um, is that right? Am I doing my math wrong? Either way, if that was an extension, that happened, hopefully we don't have any extensions. Hopefully they start these conversations well in advance. But sometimes that happens.
Speaker 1:All right, as always, the guidance here is general, for educational purposes only. It should not be considered to be legal advice directly related to your matter. If you need an attorney, contact an attorney, but if you have specific legal questions, feel free to reach out to me at my legal company, Squall Strategies. We'll be back again next week. Otherwise, for the non-legal questions, the e-learning and general industry information and insights, come find me at the Maritime Professor. If you like these videos, let me know, comment, like and share. If you want to listen to these episodes on demand, or if you missed any previous episodes, check out the podcast by Landon B Sea. If you prefer to see these videos, they live on my YouTube page by Landon by Sea, presented by the Maritime Professor. While you're at it, check out the webpage themaritimeprofessorcom. I have plans for 2025 for the Maritime Professor, so get on that email chain. So until next week. This is Lauren Began, the Maritime Professor. We just got our trademark registration, by the way, and you've just listened to by Landon by Sea. See you next time.