Trump Take Longshoremen Jobs
By 
Donald Trump remains fantastic for the working class!
On many mornings, Sarah Esch’s job as a dispatcher for dockworkers at the Port of Seattle boils down to a question of simple, frustrating math.
“No ships came in last night, so we have maybe 70 jobs today for 600 workers,” Ms. Esch said before dawn on a recent Monday, eyeing the whiteboard used to track available shifts. “Those numbers aren’t great.”
Dock workers in Seattle, like those in other ports up and down the West Coast, do the hard work of bringing Asian imports like electronics and auto parts off boats to make their way to consumers across the West and Midwest. They also load grain, seafood and other American exports onto ships for the return trip overseas.
They are used to uncertainty and shifting economic tides, but nothing since the Great Recession of 2008 compares to what these workers with the International Longshore and Warehouse Union have experienced in the past year.
President Trump frames tariffs as an all-purpose tool and long-term strategy: a way to force other nations to rethink their own trade policies and prod U.S. manufacturers to bring blue-collar jobs back from foreign markets. Any short term pain, the president has argued, is a small price to pay for long-term global economic realignment.
But at this port, and others, the broad tariffs have meant economic uncertainty for veteran workers and put what was once a stable blue-collar career increasingly out of reach for many younger longshoremen.
“People just can’t afford this,” Ms. Esch said.
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Through November, the total number of shipping containers that passed through the ports in Seattle and Tacoma was down almost 4 percent from 2024. That figure may not seem so bad, but it is skewed by an unusual spike in imports during the first quarter of 2025, as shipping companies rushed goods into the United States ahead of potential tariffs. Since August, the monthly drop in traffic has been in the double digits compared to 2024. There was no pre-Christmas rush.
“When China is sending fewer goods into the United States, that hurts. And when other countries aren’t buying soybeans from farmers in the Midwest, we feel that too,” said Sam Cho, a Port of Seattle commissioner. “We’re feeling it all right now.”
This winter, most days bring barely enough jobs for A-level longshoremen. Despite their guaranteed wages, many are losing chances at overtime or higher pay for specialized work, like crane operation.
“Oh, it all sucks,” said Antonio Cappiello, 37, a longshoreman who is an A-level worker. “You just can’t predict from week to week or month to month what your take-home will be.”
We are run by the smartest people…..
Also….since we have this comment group that we have, this is the ILWU here, which is the lefty longshoremen union, so “union members get what they asked for” is not really relevant here; even as some union members have become Trumpers, unions are the only demographic in the country to vote for Harris in 24 at rates higher than Biden in 20.