The appearance of a union victory was misleading. A separate statement by the mediators could be read in no other way than as a warning to the ILA: “We wish … to emphasize our strong belief that the capacity of this industry to support wages and benefits to which the employees are entitled cannot continue without serious impairment in the absence of marked improvement in manpower utilization.” The implication was that if the union remained unwilling to make a deal on containers, the government stood ready to impose one.
