United States port workers strike

Is there any particular reason the strike happened now?

Raising wages were offered to 50% rather than the 70% the union is asking for.  Thats pretty damn good raises.  If they are offering that then how much are they making in the ports?

I feel this is good to get money to the people rather than the mega corporations. Does anyone know if the ports are owned by the same companies?

An uptick in rail and trucking will happen if shipping shifts to the west coast.  That will of course raise costs to the consumers, us.

The stop or trying to stop the use of AI is not gonna happen... It is inevitable whether we like it or not.  I still haven't used CHATGPT so I am fighting the power, lol!

There might be a power struggle that the Unions don't want to lose on the docks.  They wield a lot of power there and if automation happens they will lose that.  You can't tell Robot 5150 to NOT load that ship because he hasn't paid the vig...

But honestly just fucking pay the dudes what they are asking on the condition that some level of automation will be brought in.

they have a great deal on the West coast. Profit sharing and automation. These guys just want a good deal too.
 

The Juggler said:

I've been curious about the timing of this strike...

No way Trump likes unions.  I don't care that they took a pic together.  It's like a pic of him and Diddy or the Queen of England.  You can draw a conclusion but it's most likely wrong.

Here in NY there are companies that would NEVER work for Trump because he was known for screwing them over, ours being one of them.

Trump would rather fire all of the Longshoremen than negotiate.

tempo_n_groove said:

The Juggler said:

I've been curious about the timing of this strike...

No way Trump likes unions.  I don't care that they took a pic together.  It's like a pic of him and Diddy or the Queen of England.  You can draw a conclusion but it's most likely wrong.

Here in NY there are companies that would NEVER work for Trump because he was known for screwing them over, ours being one of them.

Trump would rather fire all of the Longshoremen than negotiate.

There is no way Trump likes most of the people who vote for him....yet they adore him anyway. He was horrible towards unions when he was president, yet the teamsters won't endorse Kamala because a lot of their members like him. It does not make any sense. Never has. I think they buy into the fake tough guy charade. 

SPEEDY MCCREADY said:

cincybearcat said:

Get to work

From what I've read the last couple days.
Top wage is basically $39 an hour, and they want the new contract to add $5 an hour, each year, for 6 years. Bringing their wages to $69 an hour. 
I've read that as of now with their overtime, many of them are making $150k a year. 

jerparker20 said:

I’m a life long union guy, but the demands for 70% over six and no automation are absurd. 

Also the union president, Harold Daggett, his rhetoric of “… going to cripple the people of this country until everyone knows who the longshoremen are” can fuck right off.

The guy is one of those old, mafia stooges. Tried twice by DOJ under RICO. Walked in one of the case s cause the main witness didn’t testify since he was decomposing in the trunk of a car. A real piece of trash.

Definitely an outrageous ask. 
They supposedly turned down a nearly 50% wage increase. I'm generally on the side of labor in most of these situations, but this one needs a Ronnie Ray-gun to the air traffic controllers type response.

Poncier said:

Gern Blansten said:

cincybearcat said:

What do you all think about demands for no automation? 

one of those crazy demands like "remove the letter Q from the English language"

"And do it quite quickly"

Kwickly

tempo_n_groove said:

Poncier said:

SPEEDY MCCREADY said:

cincybearcat said:

Get to work

From what I've read the last couple days.
Top wage is basically $39 an hour, and they want the new contract to add $5 an hour, each year, for 6 years. Bringing their wages to $69 an hour. 
I've read that as of now with their overtime, many of them are making $150k a year. 

jerparker20 said:

I’m a life long union guy, but the demands for 70% over six and no automation are absurd. 

Also the union president, Harold Daggett, his rhetoric of “… going to cripple the people of this country until everyone knows who the longshoremen are” can fuck right off.

The guy is one of those old, mafia stooges. Tried twice by DOJ under RICO. Walked in one of the case s cause the main witness didn’t testify since he was decomposing in the trunk of a car. A real piece of trash.

Definitely an outrageous ask. 
They supposedly turned down a nearly 50% wage increase. I'm generally on the side of labor in most of these situations, but this one needs a Ronnie Ray-gun to the air traffic controllers type response.

I like to see the Unions ask for something.  It helps all the labor forces across the US. They offered 50% increase without a blink of an eye.  How much more could they afford to give up?

Ronny Raygun was within his right to fire the ATC.  It was risky though.  If planes started crashing because of his decision to use "almost" trained ATC's then there would have been no 2nd term and perhaps an impeachment.  Ballsy move that panned out and put a setback on Unions for the next decade or so and most likely why Walmart and Amazon were never unionized for years.  They wrote books on how to handle Unions.

So I am for what the Longshoremen are doing.  I will install a bidet so I don't have to worry about toilet paper for a while.

Toilet paper is mostly a NA business...you don't have to worry about toilet paper coming in from overseas really.

I am not pro very many unions or their decisions.  And this one lost me 100% when they demanded no automation... just a stupid, unrealistic demand that shows them to be unserious people.

cincybearcat said:

tempo_n_groove said:

Poncier said:

SPEEDY MCCREADY said:

cincybearcat said:

Get to work

From what I've read the last couple days.
Top wage is basically $39 an hour, and they want the new contract to add $5 an hour, each year, for 6 years. Bringing their wages to $69 an hour. 
I've read that as of now with their overtime, many of them are making $150k a year. 

jerparker20 said:

I’m a life long union guy, but the demands for 70% over six and no automation are absurd. 

Also the union president, Harold Daggett, his rhetoric of “… going to cripple the people of this country until everyone knows who the longshoremen are” can fuck right off.

The guy is one of those old, mafia stooges. Tried twice by DOJ under RICO. Walked in one of the case s cause the main witness didn’t testify since he was decomposing in the trunk of a car. A real piece of trash.

Definitely an outrageous ask. 
They supposedly turned down a nearly 50% wage increase. I'm generally on the side of labor in most of these situations, but this one needs a Ronnie Ray-gun to the air traffic controllers type response.

I like to see the Unions ask for something.  It helps all the labor forces across the US. They offered 50% increase without a blink of an eye.  How much more could they afford to give up?

Ronny Raygun was within his right to fire the ATC.  It was risky though.  If planes started crashing because of his decision to use "almost" trained ATC's then there would have been no 2nd term and perhaps an impeachment.  Ballsy move that panned out and put a setback on Unions for the next decade or so and most likely why Walmart and Amazon were never unionized for years.  They wrote books on how to handle Unions.

So I am for what the Longshoremen are doing.  I will install a bidet so I don't have to worry about toilet paper for a while.

Toilet paper is mostly a NA business...you don't have to worry about toilet paper coming in from overseas really.

I am not pro very many unions or their decisions.  And this one lost me 100% when they demanded no automation... just a stupid, unrealistic demand that shows them to be unserious people.

We import 3.1bil in TP so I'd check that but in the meantime I'll still get the Bidet...

I forgot to mention the AI thing.  That is absurd. Jerparker said what Andrew Yang has been saying about trucking, get training for a new job.
That is what they should be also looking for.

Something else I thought about in reading the against posts here, reminds me of the mining jobs in places like West Virginia or the Auto Worker jobs in Detroit.  These people lost their jobs and never recovered.  There was no contingency plan.

I'm for the Unions getting more but there needs to be a plan B and not go running off a cliff like a lemming.

Thanks you two for that insight.