Union Wins Big: Supreme Court Declines Charleston Port Labor Dispute Case

Glenn Taylor
·4 min read
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The U.S. Supreme Court denied a petition by the South Carolina Ports Authority to hear a long-running labor dispute case over who gets to operate cranes at the Port of Charleston’s Hugh K. Leatherman Terminal, giving the port’s union dockworkers a major victory during their on-and-off contract negotiations with their maritime employers on the East Coast.

With the court making its decision Tuesday, dockworkers with the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) will continue to operate Leatherman cranes.

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“The Supreme Court’s decision not to hear the Leatherman case secures a victory for the ILA, affirming our master contract,” said ILA president Harold Daggett in a post on Facebook. “Now, any new terminal falls under ILA’s jurisdiction, and if not then the U.S. Maritime Alliance (USMX) ocean carriers can’t call that terminal.”

The dispute dates back to 2020, when the S.C. ports revealed plans to operate the then-newly constructed $1 billion terminal in the Port of Charleston, using non-union state workers as crane lift operators, while ILA members performed other duties.

A year later, in response to the hybrid employment model established at Leatherman, the union filed a lawsuit against the USMX and container shipping lines Hapag-Lloyd and OOCL. At the time, the ILA alleged that the USMX violated the terms of their master contract by allowing non-union members to perform unloading tasks at a newly built terminal.

Both ocean carriers were wrapped into the suit as well for not employing ILA members for all master contract work at the terminal. The suit sought $300 million from the carriers, effectively spooking other shipping lines into avoiding the terminal even as vessels saw increasing congestion at other U.S. ports.

The South Carolina ports subsequently filed an unfair labor practice complaint with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), alleging that the ILA’s action was an attempt to prevent one company from doing business with another in order to acquire additional employment, which violated the National Labor Relations Act.

But last July, the NLRB dismissed the complaint, ruling that the union workers could fill all the jobs at Leatherman. That decision was later upheld by a three-judge panel from the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, affirming the NLRB’s conclusion that “work” for the union employees involved “the loading and unloading generally at East and Gulf Coast ports.”

“We are disappointed that the U.S. Supreme Court did not decide to take up the issue regarding S.C. Ports’ jobs at Leatherman Terminal,” said Barbara Melvin, president and CEO of the South Carolina Ports Authority, in a statement. “We will work together with the ILA to bring forward a solution that unlocks much-needed terminal capacity and prioritizes caring for our workforces and providing excellent service for our customers.”

The petition denial could impact potential new terminals at ports in both South Carolina and Georgia, both of which are right-to-work states that are typically not friendly to unions. As a result, ports like Charleston and Savannah have to run the hybrid models that employ both non-union state and union employees alike.

With the high court denial, ILA workers will exclusively operate the cranes at Leatherman. The two other terminals at the Port of Charleston—Wando Welch and North Charleston—were not affected by the court’s decision, and will continue the hybrid model since neither is newly built.

The South Carolina Ports Authority is in favor of the hybrid model, having long argued that a solely unionized workforce would burden the terminal by increasing operational costs. ILA wages are governed by their master contract with the USMX, unlike those set for state employees, and tend to be higher.

South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster, who voted to fight pro-union policies “to the gates of hell” in his State of the State address in January, is another party that isn’t too keen on the Supreme Court’s decision.

“We wish that they had agreed to take it and decided our way, but they didn’t take the case,” McMaster said during a Tuesday briefing. “We’re going to fight on this, of course. This is big enough to have an impact on our port…the fact that the Supreme Court did not take the case means that they’ll have an opportunity to take a case later, perhaps when the issues are more thoroughly developed.”

Justice Brett Kavanaugh was the only justice who said he would have approved a formal request for the court to consider the case. To move forward, at least four justices must agree to hear the case.