Beware the Ides of January…
The second half of the longshoremen’s union strike is scheduled for January 15th. Because it is about automation, I suspect it will take longer to resolve than the wage issue in October. Will the Biden (who?) administration take any actions?
DB2
Let’s see what Trump(who?) administration can do. I hear he can negotiate. LOL
Well, that would mean a six-day strike while we waited. At that point the Taft-Hartley Act could be used…
DB2
Well that would cement him with the Unions wouldn’t it?
It might if the strike lasted long enough for serious economic impacts. Auto workers can’t assemble cars if the car parts aren’t available. Steel not coming in for construction workers. Et cetera.
DB2
It would be great if someone had the guts to pull a PATCO on those longshoremen. They’ve gotten away with being coddled and overpaid (relative to their skills and training) for way too long.
While I agree with the sentiment, I don’t think the PATCO solution would work as well. When Reagan did it there were a lot of military air traffic controllers who could step in and do the job with virtually no training.
While the Navy (and Coast Guard) certainly does some of that - ships in and out of ports, tying up, etc, - I don’t think they do a lot of container crane work or the kinds of container logistics dockside that commercial ports see. Not that it can’t be learned, maybe even quickly, but I’d expect some disruption before it got straightened out.
Oh no! Supply chain chaos. Again. Wonder how that would affect … (whispers) inflation?
Well, the second half of January might actually be a pretty good time of the year to suffer that kind of disruption. Could probably handle it through February, but not into March.
How do you feel about the CEO’s pay Mark?
How is that relevant? Are the CEOs going on strike because they want to extract something from us? Are they purposely trying to force lower overall efficiency? What exactly is the parallel you are trying to state here?
The CEO’s have control over how much money the Longshoreman make. When the CEO’s get raises are they the only ones who are expected to get raises or should it be spread across the companies. The ILWU negotiates with the PMA for wages and the only way to bring them to the table is through withholding their labor. The average wage of a dock worker is $26.34 per hour. That seems really cheap to me. The wage rate is $15.13 to $30.77. Does that seem outrageous to you?
https://www.ziprecruiter.com/Salaries/Ilwu-Salary#:~:text=As%20of%20Dec%201%2C%202024,percentile)%20across%20the%20United%20States.
Nope, not at all outrageous. If the union is willing to put into the contract that ALL longshoremen members will be paid within this wage rate range, and that they won’t oppose additional automation, then I would say they shouldn’t be PATCO-ed.
Well it looks like Bob was incorrect. They received a very nice wage increase.
Indeed they did, but I wasn’t incorrect. From my OP:
“Because it is about automation, I suspect it will take longer to resolve than the wage issue in October.”
The ports in New York, Baltimore, and Houston—three of the largest of the 36 ports that could have been shut down by the ILA strike—are ranked no higher than 300th place (out of 348 in total) in the World Bank’s most recent report on port efficiency.
DB2
Bob the contract has been signed. That will have to wait till the next contract. That is what negotiations is all about. The problem I have with the article you are citing is the author said they were very well compensated. I just showed that they weren’t. Could you imagine living in LA on $26.37? I think the author is bent, heavily bent to the right.
The news back in October was that the strike was “suspended”. The salary stuff was worked out then, but the automation issue was postponed until January. Do you have a link since then that indicates otherwise?
DB2
No I think you are correct on the automation issue but since the wage issue is worked out the union won’t go on strike. They can drag this out as long as they want to now. The only way this can change is if the USMX locks them out, which I doubt will happen. So we have a stale mate till the next contract. They have to operate under the old contract for the automation issue.
From your lips to god’s ear…
DB2