NORTH BERGEN, NJ (November 2, 2023) – The International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) issued a statement today slamming the Governors of South Carolina and Georgia for a brief they filed with the Supreme Court, filled with rampant mischaracterizations against the longshore union. The ILA, which represents 85,000 waterfront workers on the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts, Great Lakes ports, Puerto Rico, Canada, and the Bahamas, said the two Governors were mischaracterizing the dispute at the Leatherman Terminal in the Port of Charleston, South Carolina.
The ILA Statement is as follows:
On Monday of this week, the Governors of South Carolina and Georgia filed a brief with the Supreme Court filled with rampant mischaracterizations of International Longshoremen’s Association (“ILA”).
The reality is that the ILA’s dispute is solely with its employers, which is to say, the international corporations that operate container ships that call at ports on the East and Gulf Coasts. The ILA is simply seeking to enforce a contractual promise that the employers voluntarily agreed to, and which has contained the same language for over sixty years, and which has been enforced by courts many times before.
The Governors’ accusation that the ILA is “boycotting” a terminal in Charleston is simply untrue. Hardworking ILA members in Charleston have never refused to load or unload cargo at any terminal in Charleston during the ongoing dispute that they have with their employers. Nor have they engaged in any sort of picketing or slowdowns.
Moreover, despite the Governors’ claims to the contrary, the lawsuit does not seek to take away any jobs from any state employees in either South Carolina or Georgis. On the contrary, the Governors are demanding the Supreme Court to allow Georgia and South Carolina to force private corporations to use government-run terminals at the expense of other terminals operated by the private sector elsewhere on the East and Gulf Coasts.
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