East and Gulf Coast ports strike | Hacker News Reader

East and Gulf Coast ports strike

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In america it feels like anytime there is a big strike like this everyone is immediately mad at the strikers (not the executives, shareholders, etc.). In countries like France that have more of a culture of strikes and protests is there more solidarity? Does the french middle class whine and cry every time a union strikes like they do in the US?

> In america it feels like anytime there is a big strike like this everyone is immediately mad at the strikers

That's just mainstream media making you feel that way. If your neighbor with kids was a union worker, you'd want them to have a better life and not end up struggling.

It's always complicated, there is always nuance.

>Workers began walking picket lines early Tuesday in a strike over wages and the ports’ use of automation, though some progress was reported in negotiations over a new contract.

Any strike on wages/profit sharing is generally fairly straightforward. The union leaders typically want to make the lives of their members better, and that's good and reasonable. This is simply increasing cogs and decreasing net profit. You'll find me in support of these strikes in the vast majority of cases.

A strike on the use of automation is a direct form of ludditism. It strives to subvert technological advancement simply to preserve archaic jobs. It often leads to total collapses of industries as when the technology overwhelms the leverage labor has (such as the mule-drawn barges being completely destroyed by the railroads), which can cause significant frictional harm that could be avoided if the industry deflates instead of collapses.

The problem here is that strikes over technological advancement have real consequences and costs that are often born by consumers. The example of pre-fab homes being effectively banned in CA because of labor is a wealth transfer, not from businesses, but from home purchasers. Sometimes it's just better for everyone in the long run to abandon inefficient forms of production.

Pretending that organized labor always acts virtuously is naive. Pretending that organized labor always act nefariously is also naive. Anyone who makes support for workers as part of their identity chooses an instinctive ingroup loyalty position in a world full of nuance.

https://apnews.com/article/dockworkers-strike-ports-ila-long...

If you want to not have this, have a system where people who depend on archaic work don’t have to.

If all I know how to do is mine coal and there is no realistic way to move to something else and maintain my standard of living, I’m going to support coal, no matter what.

Right, yes, education and retraining should be free and subsidized.

If someone wants to keep their standard of living, via coercion, by striking to keep archaic jobs, I'm going to have mixed feelings, at best, in supporting them.

When solidarity becomes about maintaining a economic status quo more than about what's best for everyone, it's not solidarity, it's system of seniority, which is inherently unjust.

Media can't afford to publicly whine in France, but I can tell you from the ground the more arrogant and aggressive the strikes are (and they tend to go over board very quickly taking significant part of whole nation hostage few times a year, sometimes for months), the less support they actually get. Sometimes their requirements are beyond ridiculous and pure greed, sometimes more sane, it depends.

People follow same pattern - they complain among themselves, but not publicly.

France's strikes are things pushed to the extreme. Result is pretty logical - economy lagging behind, wages stagnant since you can't just keep milking everybody and everything forever, reality eventually strikes back. Overpaid unfireable corrupt bureaucrats and so on. People are used to having 10 weeks of paid vacation and will burn half the place down rather than lose any of it. Compare it to neighboring Switzerland where people themselves voted against increasing minimal mandatory paid yearly holidays from 4 to 6 weeks few years back, citing negative consequences for companies and economy. Switzerland looks as it looks exactly due to such values, and so does France accordingly.

The France doesn't have that bright economic future, I am not happy stating it but its inevitable truth of where they are and where they are heading economically. It shouldn't be an example to follow, especially not in US, unless you care only about milking the current situation to the max and long term prosperity is problem for others.

We're going to need some sources about all those claims about french strikers being unresonnable because most reports I see from french strikes never mention anything near a 50% rise and often are barely asking for wage to catch up to inflation... Also most big strikes (not just in one company) are about political reforms that are attacking indirect wage such as socialized healthcare, unemployment benefits or socialized retirement pension. Whether it is warranted or not we can debate about but your comment seems needlessly inflammatory. Also I am not sure the propension to striking,which is indeed cultural, equates to higher/more radical demands.

The United States is a known oligarchy, well documented as such, and as a result is entirely focused around capital ownership being the predominant and pervasive philosophy

As a result, there is no functional labor party or other power apparatus that promotes or otherwise values in a conceptual or real way, the value of labor

Said another way the United States is what right wing “anarcho capitalists“created it to be - a territory ruled by private corporations for the benefit of shareholders that fully captured the government.

This is why the “worst” thing you could call somebody is a communist. It calls into question the legitimacy of the government and business owner collusion.

Literacy around forms of government and power is so poor, that the only thing people can visualize as an alternative to private-state capitalism is Leninist-Bolshevism as promulgated through the USSR into the PRC under the name “Communism” which, as we have seen, is simply another form of capitalism where the state controls central production instead of central rates and laws which are created by corporations (US model of central planning).

I think the most interesting thing is that promoting ussr as communism helped America as much as it did Russia because Russia was never foundationally Marxist after the 1919 revolution into 1924 moved all of the land into the states, hands and centralized production.

So any notion of realistic labor power distribution went out the window more or less immediately after the bolshevok realized they could not control the population.

They couldn’t have helped capitalist propagandists more of they had tried

This US is not an oligarchy. That's a polemic. With no hard reasoning to support it other than, "Of course it is, and if you can't see that you must be brainwashed, because the oligarchy."

Its system is better described as an unhealthy democracy, suffering from a peculiar hybrid of diabetes and mild but persistent dementia. In any case it has multiple centers of corruption and undue influence, including populist movements (such as MAGA and the religious right), special interest groups (the gun lobby, AIPAC) which are quite powerful and not simply appendages of any particular oligarch.

As well as corrective influences (such as its judiciary branches and a reasonably free and diligent press) that keep the system from tipping over. It is also significant that its electoral process, being distributed across 50+ states and territories, actually requires significant effort to corrupt (one can't just grab the steering wheel and overturn results in multiple states at once).

It also has a deep state. It is quite significant that its functionaries get to keep their generally secure and reasonably well-paid jobs, no matter who sits in the Whitehouse, and regardless of which party runs Congress, or which countries the US is at war with pretends to be this year or the next. The key thing about these people is they don't really want control, and they don't have much of an ideology. They just want stability.

And then there are oligarchs, greasing palms and buying up news and social media outlets and so forth. But a straight-up oligarchy it is not.

It is a scale indeed, but do not underestimate the situation. The self-image of the US is blinding populace and lawmakers alike. One thing that doesn't help is that the media has been run by oligarchs.

Technically the US has been 'downrated' from democracy to anocracy. For a little more depth see [0]. You wouldn't find much about it in US media, which is not unsurprising. (Just as meaningful debate about policy is absent.)

EDIT:

> a reasonably free and diligent press

Corporate ownership has an intense effect on press. The NYT Pitchbot illustrates how this has led NYT into hilarious self-incrimination, with an endless parade of Botshidisms and False Balances, just to brush up a coup leader as a presidents candidate: https://xcancel.com/DougJBalloon

___

0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_backsliding_in_the_...

Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens

“Abstract

Each of four theoretical traditions in the study of American politics—which can be characterized as theories of Majoritarian Electoral Democracy, Economic-Elite Domination, and two types of interest-group pluralism, Majoritarian Pluralism and Biased Pluralism—offers different predictions about which sets of actors have how much influence over public policy: average citizens; economic elites; and organized interest groups, mass-based or business-oriented.

A great deal of empirical research speaks to the policy influence of one or another set of actors, but until recently it has not been possible to test these contrasting theoretical predictions against each other within a single statistical model. We report on an effort to do so, using a unique data set that includes measures of the key variables for 1,779 policy issues.

Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence. The results provide substantial support for theories of Economic-Elite Domination and for theories of Biased Pluralism, but not for theories of Majoritarian Electoral Democracy or Majoritarian Pluralism.”

Please provide me with your sources on the “Deep State”

(0) https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-poli...

Yes, there are studies and I think they're great and largely valid, but there are also rebuttals (easily findable).

At the end of the day, I don't think these assessments can be proven or disproven by theoretical models and numerical analysis. It's not like trying to establish the effect of a certain kind of monetary policy. It's more a matter of understanding the basic ideology on which the country runs (even as many aspects of American society do change over time, for example in regard to racial/social tolerance, appetite for foreign intervention, etc).

On top of broad-scale character observation, in terms of what seems to make people really tick (and to make so many of them get so caught up in things like their guns, their pet conspiracy theories, or in their idea of some lost "greatness" that America supposedly once had, in ways that do end up moving the needle on the larger political stage, but which aren't simply the outcome of a coin-op lobbying system, gerrymandering or a muzzled press, i.e. the levers of influence that oligarchs typically work through, though of course they do get to lean on these levers and they do have disproportionate influence).

As to "deep state" -- sorry, no sources and it's an entirely unscientific assessment as well. Plenty of people have written about it though, and their stuff is easy to find also.

This is a meandering rant that doesn’t support even its own positions or claims with sources. You even go so far as to dismiss the entire source which perfectly debunks your position, with no actual rebuttal, but a hand waving, and then questioning the methodology with no epistemological reference frame.

I’m sorry. You know what, disregard all that. I keep thinking that reasoning with sources and deep epistemological foundations works - I just need to try hard enough to explain it all! Right!?

lolzzz Then I remember that you can’t reason out of a position you didn’t reason into

Have a great day

You don't have to like my argument. But you didn't even attempt to articulate one yourself. As in, using your own thoughts and words. You just posted a quote from somebody else, and threw down a "source needed" gauntlet in regard to something that's basically pretty obvious.

Not that the above commenter is reading anymore, but I just noticed something:

I'm guessing they were spooked by the "deep state" reference, and all the alt-right/conspiratorial baggage it seems to imply. Actually, I tend to ignore that community entirely, so I wasn't thinking in terms of their paranoid drivel at all. But rather the far more mundane sense of a "national security establishment" as it used to be called, or "institutional government" in the sense of authors like David Rohde.

Which is why I meant it's something whose existence is perfectly obvious (and hence not needing any kind of source to substantiate) -- every working state has one to some degree. And in the US, that sector is of course very significant. And another indication of the basic (and basically obvious) point I was making that power and corruption in the US are decentralized, and not strongly tilted to any one group or flavor.

Especially not its oligarchs. The US is certainly corrupt and dysfunctional, but it's not banana republic.

So if they thought I was going to indulge them with some kind of predictable alt-right take on the subject, it's only natural for them to be disappointed.

It’s a crackpot theory that doesn’t rate discussion - I was a federal employee for 17 years. You have no clue what you’re talking about and aren’t worth the effort.

A professional bureaucracy is a hallmark of centrally planned economies - which ALL economies that see property as real eventually turn into

This is invariant of what a system decides to call itself

The US government looks exactly like the CCP and USSR in practice

The irony here is that Gilens and Page specifically do not make the claim that "the US is an oligarchy". The claim they do make is that it exhibits a certain aspect of oligarchy, and even in this, their specific subclaims are quite reserved. But at no point do they flat-out say "the US is an oligarchy", as a label. Likely for the most obvious reason, which is that no one has a precise definition of what that means. From its very nature, it's an untestable assertion.

But news outlets like the BBC did pick up that label, and happily churned out articles with headlines saying "The US is an oligarchy, not a democracy". To make it, you know, easy and intuitive for the regular person to understand.

Which apparently lots of people caught glimpse of, and thought to themselves: "Yup, that's what I've always thought. And now it's proven by science."

From a national security and economic perspective we need to automate the ports.

How does this affect national security? Seems the union already made exceptions for Military cargo and other related transit.

> “We continue our pledge to never let our brave American troops down for their valour and service and we will proudly continue to work all military shipments beyond October 1st, even if we are engaged in a strike.”

https://ilaunion.org/ila-will-maintain-pledge-to-handle-mili...

Economically, there is a easy and suitable way of reducing all strikes across the country, rather than just focusing on the ports. Pay people a wage they can live on, provide with, and people won't have to strike.

>Economically, there is a easy and suitable way of reducing all strikes across the country, rather than just focusing on the ports. Pay people a wage they can live on, provide with, and people won't have to strike.

Except the union isn't only asking for a 77% pay raise over 6 years, they're also want a "complete ban on automation"[1]

[1] https://apnews.com/article/port-strike-ila-dockworkers-begin...

That article is kind of weird, first it says:

> Local ILA president Boise Butler said workers want a fair contract that doesn’t allow automation of their jobs.

But then there is no actual quote from Boise Butler about "doesn't allow automation".

Then later, the article states:

> “We are prepared to fight as long as necessary, to stay out on strike for whatever period of time it takes, to get the wages and protections against automation our ILA members deserve,”

Which is more in line with the existing (well, since yesterday not anymore) agreement that automation should be discussed with the union beforehand, not completely banned.

The existing agreement was a complete ban.

The 2018-2024 contract already said no fully automated terminals or equipment at all, and the 2024-2030 negotiations stopped in June because ILA considered a gate at one port (the actual gate that trucks pass through) to be in violation of the previous contract.

In the context of container terminals a gate refers to the process of registering and routing containers, not just a physical gate but also a process. Not knowing any details, probably this process was automated, which the union objected to?

It's a process, sure, but it feels distinct from the gantries or carriers that actually move containers.

This video published by the same terminal operator is the closest thing I can find to illustrate the process, and it's hard to imagine why in 2024 you would do it any other way: https://youtu.be/bd-RDpMBBHg

It's difficult to know what ILA objected to, as the system had apparently been in place at the port of Mobile for over a decade. It may just be the principle of the thing more than a specific objection, and that's their right. But the point is they definitely have a hard line stance on automation if something like OCRing container numbers is going to far.

Well that make sense since a pay raise is useless if your job is taken away by automation.

Well, they'll need that pay raise to pay for their hand sewn clothes and stables for their horses

I assume they'll eschew all automation in solidarity with all the other workers whose job has been made redundant.

> they're also want a "complete ban on automation"

"Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind"

You need to take the long view. The United States is the only global superpower because of our economic might. If other countries catch up to us, they will start to test the waters on whether going to war is advantageous for them.

The ports play a crucial role in wealth generation for the USA. If other countries are able to ship goods cheaper and faster than us, more industry will be transferred overseas. This creates a vicious cycle where industries that exist due to agglomeration slowly decay. Being able to move a container 1000ft is the limiting reagent for entire economies. Buy the unions off and automate it. Everyone only cares about a relatively small amount of money compared to how much is moving through the system.

> Buy the unions off and automate it.

There’s an old marxist saying: “if workers owned the means of production, automation would be a holiday, not a layoff”. If you’re proposing turning over the shipyard profits to the workers, that’s a policy the unions will absolutely get behind. It’s also something the shipyard owners will fight tooth and nail to prevent, they’re the ones you’ll need to buy off, and buying the shipyards will be expensive.

At the end of the day I don’t think enough people share your sentiments to make any policy of this scale (even the 30 years of payments you specify elsewhere) politically viable. And as I said in another thread: if your solutions aren’t viable in the current political environment, they’re just wishful thinking, and the workers on strike want solutions that will work today.

Slight nitpick: I think you mean ports, not shipyards. Shipyards are where ships get constructed and repaired. Ports are where cargo is loaded and offloaded.

> You need to take the long view. The United States is the only global superpower because of our economic might. If other countries catch up to us, they will start to test the waters on whether going to war is advantageous for them.

Personally, I wouldn't mind if there was no "global super powers". And I don't believe there has to always be at least one "super power" country either. This is considering the long view, not just "USA #1" view that seems many in the US seems to hold.

> If other countries are able to ship goods cheaper and faster than us, more industry will be transferred overseas.

Are other countries able to ship goods cheaper and faster than the US currently? This seems uncertain.

> Everyone only cares about a relatively small amount of money compared to how much is moving through the system.

Seems like the executives of the companies refusing to give people a living wage is the ones "cares about a relatively small amount" if what you are writing is true.

If we’re going to take the long view, then we’re long past due to create a society where the excess wealth generated by labor is shared among us all such that nobody must work to survive, as opposed to the current model of allowing a handful who already have enough money to never need to work again to hoover up even more wealth for themselves.

If we’re going to take the long view, we’re about fifty years late to the transition away from fossil fuels so we protect and preserve our current climate.

If we’re going to take the long view, then we’re about a hundred years too late in the US to expanding and modernizing our mass transit such that it benefits the whole, rather than the private.

If we want to talk about the long view so damn bad, then we need more housing and less office space; we need more integrated communities and less segregated zoning; we need equitable and affordable access to healthcare and education to ensure a functioning worker base, and less gatekeeping of knowledge or health behind individual wealth.

Don’t trot out the tired trope of automation as a long view goal, and then ignore the entire past century of sacrificing the long view for short teem gains. It reveals your insincerity as well as your ignorance.

This comment is an example of why we need Unions

From a national security and economic perspective, we need guaranteed pensions, robust health benefits, and automatic wage increases tied to COL increases for workers in all industries.

The political angle here is obvious: elections in a month, and this could make a lot of people feel like the economy needs a strong leader.

The union leader, Harold Daggett, is on record saying that Trump supports the union's aims: https://ilaunion.org/ila-president-harold-daggett-asks-ila-m...

> The union leader, Harold Daggett, is on record saying that Trump supports the union's aims:

I wish the Democrats were on the side of the unions like they used to be...

I wish the right wing in America hadn't spent 90 years demonising socialism, leading to the hollowing-out of unions in America.

The US has one of the lowest union membership rates in the OECD, at 10%.

Democrats might not currently have Trump's level of protectionism and tariffs, but I think they're still better for unions. For example, the NLRB gets less effective as republicans put more anti-union folks on the board, let alone as the Trump appointees on the supreme court et al. reduce the ability of agencies to regulate.

My brother is a union organizer, according to him Trump’s NLRB folks have been terrible for unions, Biden’s have been much better. I feel like I hear more of this “Republicans are more pro-union than Democrats” stuff from people who aren’t in unions than from people who are (also I’ll trust the word of boots-on-the-ground organizers over union leadership anyday).

This comment is correct and people may not be aware of the history. This is mostly Bill Clinton's fault [1]. That was really a response to Ronald Reagan being incredibly effective at union-busting [2]. Since Bill Clinton's presidency, the Democratic Party has largely chased the same large and corporate donors the Republican Party has. On a lot of issues there is no sunlight between the positions of both parties, notably with foreign policy.

For all his faults, Biden is actually the most pro-labor president since at least Jimmy Carter. This article claims since FDR [3]. I realize the bar is pretty low on this. Some notable examples:

- The first sitting president to walk a picket line [4];

- Yes, Biden blocked the rail strike but later was credited with helping secure a deal for paid sick leave [5];

- Pro-labor efforts by the NLRB [6];

- More [7].

As much as the Democratic Party has abandoned unions, one cannot overstate the impact of the Red Scare. Decades of successful propaganda about the threat of communism has led us to where we are right now.

[1]: https://lawcha.org/2016/11/23/bill-clinton-remade-democratic...

[2]: https://onlabor.org/ronald-reagan-has-shaped-u-s-labor-law-f...

[3]: https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/biden-is-the-mo...

[4]: https://aflcio.org/2023/9/27/service-solidarity-spotlight-bi...

[5]: https://www.ibew.org/media-center/Articles/23Daily/2306/2306...

[6]: https://www.epi.org/publication/bidens-nlrb-restoring-rights...

[7]: https://www.govexec.com/management/2024/05/bidens-labor-repo...

> The political angle here is obvious: elections in a month

Let's assume that statement is true for the sake of argument: can you tell me why that's a bad thing?

Politicians need to earn votes. They're not owed votes. By anyone. What better time to exercise influence and exact concessions from politicians than an election?

Your comment reminded me of the pervasive idea that governments giving money to poor people is somehow a moral hazard yet that's never the case when governments give money to wealthy people. Wealthy people never turn down money from the government. They actually demand it.

So I have no idea of the political affiliations of the port union leadership or its member. I also don't care. I want people to be paid fairly for their labor regardless of their political leanings. And if the best way to do that is to exert political pressure in an election, that only seems logical.

A few points… - The ILA workers are well paid today. Average somewhere around $150k and 1/3 of them are over $200k - The contract they want keeps base, starting wages low… - … coupled with generous OT allowances means they basically have guaranteed OT and low likelyhood of competition from new-comers - They also want a near total ban on automation - ILA President has met several times with Trump but refused any assistance from Biden. - ILA president, publicity people, and members are actively spreading fake news about shipping prices in order to garner sympathy from the general population.

I’m usually pro-union and pro-labor, but this strike reeks of massive extortion at best and an attempt by the ILA president to sway the election (regardless of outcome for his members) at worst. His claims that Trump will be good for the union fly in the face of all we know about Trump and the people he places in cabinet level positions.

They make this much by working significant overtime [1]:

> That top-tier hourly wage of $39 amounts to just over $81,000 annually, but dockworkers can make significantly more by taking on extra shifts. For example, according to a 2019-20 annual report from the Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor, about one-third of local longshoremen made $200,000 or more a year.

> A more typical longshoreman's salary can exceed $100,000, but not without logging substantial overtime hours. Daggett, the ILA president, maintains that these higher earners work up to 100 hours a week.

Working 100 hours a week to get to this level of salary hardly seems excessive to me. The real question is why is this necessary? are the ports not hiring enough people? Is the union blocking hiring to protect overtime? I don't know.

But I'd like to see someone only needing to work ~40 hours a week to live comfortably and, given that the above is from the New York ports, one of the more expensive areas to live, that currently doesn't seem to be the case.

> His claims that Trump will be good for the union fly in the face of all we know about Trump and the people he places in cabinet level positions.

I agree. It's similar with the Teamsters president, Sean O'Brien. Politically, these union workers tend to be pretty split politically and that's really the Democrats' fault for abandoning organized labor.

It's worth noting that the leadership is accountable to the members. The union president is elected.

But regardless of their political leanings, I want them to get paid a living wage. I also have no problem with them, or anyone, exerting political pressure in an election. That's what elections are for.

[1]: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/how-much-do-dock-workers-make-l...

are the ports not hiring enough people? Is the union blocking hiring to protect overtime?

Yes. The union wants the starting base salary kept at $20, where it’s been for ages. The big wage gains are for people with seniority. They appear to want to work these hours.

Here’s some more lovely info about Harold Daggett:

https://x.com/mualphaxi/status/1841148551646286258?s=46

> He was acquitted on RICO charges after the main witness against him, mobster Lawrence Ricci, was found decomposing in a car trunk in New Jersey.

> rejected an offer from the port management group USMX on Monday that included a wage hike over six years near 50%.

Way to make me regret my career choices. ;)

[dupe] Some more discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41704618

I'm very happy to see the working class in the US is slowly waking up to the reality that they posses more power than they think, when they work together. It says it's their first strike since 1977, must have been pretty horrible conditions for them to strike after so long of not having to.

It's sad that the average person will be affected by the supply chain shock that will happen, but hopefully the corporations involved realize it's better to have happy workers than no business at all. Even more sad, many people will jump to blame the striking workers rather than the corporations...

Smart people who are also wealthy understand their best play is to take their money and nope out of the game entirely, essentially becoming gut bacteria to a healthy biome. What we’re seeing now is the logical and expected response to unchecked wealth accumulation and corporate exploitation of the past hundred years, which has rotted multiple systems (economic, political, environmental, social, financial) to the point they teeter on collapse.

Collective action of the masses against the elite is essentially an immune response of the organism against an infection.

If you’re a leader and you don’t want a strike, the cheapest solution is to just pay your workers well and enable them to live a healthy, thriving life for themselves. Workers that feel valued and respected are less likely to organize, and in turn less likely to strike or make unreasonable demands. Paying everyone a thriving wage and benefits is a hell of a lot cheaper than the cost of that anti-labor law firm and resulting lawsuits.

Yep. The blue collar workers of the US get demeaned and mocked at a large scale in the US. They are the functioning backbone of our country and without them everything stops.

They're asking for a reasonable salary and limits on automation. Seems reasonable on the surface.

It's striking to see this event juxtaposed with the college-class demanding student loan bailouts for their worthless degrees.

Limits on automation do not seem reasonable to me.

That tends to be the common reaction amongst SW developers who's jobs revolved around automating away other jobs or developing SW products that help employers monitor and squeeze more "efficiently" out of their workers, but wait util some form of automation or workplace surveillance threatens your own job, then you'll start to empathize.

Software developers’ jobs have been automated and outsourced for many decades. It just so happens that demand for more software has kept up.

Where will this explosive growth in SW keep coming from next? How many more music streaming apps does the market have room for? How many food delivery and ride sharing apps does the market have room for? How many more social networks and dating apps does the market have room for? How many more digital payment processors, stock and crypto trading platforms does the market have room for?

Just like with every job in history, the demand for SW jobs can't continue at the same high rate indefinitely, eventually you'll run out of things to digitize and monetize by moving to the internet/AppStore while also having too many candidates in the industry.

What then?

Longshoreman is not a typical blue collar job. You cannot just go out and become one today. It is a nepotistic profession where positions are passed within families and closely guarded from external competition. Go read The Box. It outlines all of this in the later chapters.

It says it's their first strike since 1977, must have been pretty horrible conditions for them to strike after so long of not having to.

Not quite. The union WANTS to keep the massive OT schedule because it enables their members to earn $150k+. The union contract has a relatively low base starting wage, limits on automation, and limits on hiring, basically ensuring the existing longshoremen have a high income.

I understand that they want to keep their incomes high. And they enable the rest of the economy to function, so they're definitely adding value. And the docks and shipping companies are turning tidy profits right now. But, the limits on automation and low base wages are a major red flag to me. Sure, keep the $150k+ income, but allow automation because we (the rest of the country) need efficient, competitive ports to play in the world economy.

Anyways, I don't have a solution. I'm just not thrilled with some of the anti-competitive demands the union is making. I'm all for good pay and benefits (in particular parity with west coast equivalents, who do earn more today), but they seem to be asking for even more than that.

> because we (the rest of the country) need efficient, competitive ports to play in the world economy.

Are you saying that the ports are currently not competitive enough to "play in the world economy"?

As far as I understand what's happening now, is that they've had agreement with the companies since 2018 about that the company cannot implement new automation without consulting the union (so not a ban on automation, just require a dialogue before implementing anything). The strike is happening because the companies want to relax the language around this, so they can implement whatever automation they want without having to talk to the union about it.

So currently the automation is already limited, meaning the ports aren't currently competitive in your mind?

My understanding is Chinese ports have a much higher level of automation than ours. Whether or not that translates into overall higher efficiency I do not know.

So you go from:

> allow automation because we (the rest of the country) need efficient, competitive ports to play in the world economy

to:

> Chinese ports have a much higher level of automation than ours. Whether or not that translates into overall higher efficiency I do not know.

How are you able to make the former argument if you don't actually know it'll help at all?

They want a total ban on automation of gates, trucks, and cranes. [1]

Gates? Come on, do we really need to pay somebody $150k+ to open/close a gate?

The same article implies the west coast ports apparently also have more automation than the east coast ports. And depending on who you believe (the union or a CA professor), the automation didn't hurt man/hours at the ports.

1- https://apnews.com/article/longshoremen-strike-pay-automatio...

the union’s demand for a ban on automation seems quite absurd.

Particularly given that they walked away from talks this summer because of an autogate system that has been in use since 2008.

Surely if automated cranes is bad for employment, then having motorized cranes is too, and they should hire 10000x more people to move containers using muscle strength alone.

> the union’s demand for a ban on automation seems quite absurd.

I don't see where this is coming from? The only thing I find from the union is that there is an existing agreement since 2018 that any automation the companies want to be implemented, needs to be discussed with the union beforehand.

So there doesn't seem to be any "ban on automation" as far as I can tell, so wondering where you are getting this from?

https://apnews.com/article/port-strike-ila-dockworkers-begin...

>the alliance said it had increased its offer to 50% raises over six years, and it pledged to keep limits on automation in place from the old contract. The union wants a complete ban on automation. It wasn’t clear just how far apart both sides are

> The union wants a complete ban on automation

I only find media reports about "complete ban on automation". The only thing I can find from the union itself is "keep limits on automation in place", which was already in the existing agreement.

"Limits" is very different from "ban".

> Bottom line: the ILA does not support any kind of automation, including semi-automation. These companies cannot be trusted! They continue to sneak in automated programs and eliminate our clerical functions behind our backs. They better get ready for the biggest fight they’ve ever seen. We are done with them unilaterally implementing work processes and having zero respect for our members and their work functions.

https://ilaunion.org/letter-of-opposition-to-usmxs-misleadin...

retreating to an extreme is a fairly ineffective argument strategy.

The idea is to keep employed people, employed. They have that in the very front of their minds. Understand that and you can sort out behavior quickly.

The union, of course, supports people who are currently members of the union! Perfectly understandable.

Don’t much care how effective it is since I’m not negotiating

Not particularly extreme either, given the history of the ILA’s opposition to shipping containers and cranes

Is there a SpaceX sized opportunity for US-bound shipping and US ports? Is it 10x the size?

Yes and no. Automation of the intermodal cargo transportation system should be within our means.

However, finding a place where you can build a pilot of an automated port is very hard.

SpaceX didn't build new spaceports to achieve its success, it used Cape Canaveral and Vandenberg, both of which are old legacy spaceports that weren't designed for SpaceX's cadence or cost structure (they were designed for the Atlas and Delta and ICBM tests etc).

If you wanted to be the SpaceX of ports, you'd need to find a location that could accommodate large cargo ships, and I guarantee that every potential natural harbor location for scalable traffic in cargo ships along both seaboards was figured out centuries ago. Where are you going to set up that doesn't have existing infrastructure sitting there as either a path-dependent sunk cost or expensive tear-down operation? Where are you going to set up that doesn't already have the port work controlled by union labor?

Good.

Reading through the comments I'm reminded of the incalculable damage and legacy of the Red Scare. To see just how far we, as a country, have moved right, look at the statement by Abraham Lincoln [1]:

> Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed.

That right there is Marx's Labor Theory of Value from the then Republican president.

According to Marx, there are two classes: workers and capital owners. You are most likely not, nor will ever be, a capital owner. Owning 50 shares in Amazon does not make you a capital owner. If you dervive your income from your labor then you are a worker. LeBron James is a worker. Patrick Mahomes is a worker. Taylor Swift is arguably a worker.

The moneyed interests around you create division, intentionally. The Red Scare was used very successfully to destroy any sense of class solidarity. Even the whole idea of the "middle class" is divisive. The so-called "middle class" have way more in common with the "lower class" than the capital-owning class..

I'm reminded of something LBJ said [2]:

> If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you.

The predictable kneejerk reaction of "they don't deserve it" or "automate their jobs" makes me so sad. Those workers are you. Those workers earning a fair wage helps you.

But really all it should take is seeing how much Starbucks [3] or Amazon or whoever spends on union-busting efforts to convince you of the necessity of unions. They're not doing that for your benefit. The fact that you get a weekend or sick leave or any number of other benefits is because people who came before you fought for those things, sometimes in blood [4].

[1]: https://www.cooperative-individualism.org/lincoln-abraham_on...

[2]: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/lbj-convince-the-lowest-wh...

[3]: https://www.fastcompany.com/91031203/starbucks-union-busting...

[4]: https://www.history.com/topics/industrial-revolution/homeste...

I was all about this idea until I learned that if you pay a worker more than what they produce, the whole system will collapse. The second cold hard truth was that most workers keep most of the value they produce (and ironically it is generally the highest paid workers that keep the smallest share).

> According to Marx, there are two classes: workers and capital owners. You are most likely not, nor will ever be, a capital owner. Owning 50 shares in Amazon does not make you a capital owner. If you dervive your income from your labor then you are a worker. LeBron James is a worker. Patrick Mahomes is a worker. Taylor Swift is arguably a worker.

Which class is the member of a mob family? If they’re not the one’s doing the killing are they the owner class?

https://x.com/mualphaxi/status/1841148551646286258?s=46

But more seriously, that Marx quote is too simplistic to model reality. For one, it ignores the fact that people are simultaneously in multiple different tribes (or classes), and that these change over a person’s life.

One big one change is from the young class to the old class, where people change from being proponents of labor to being proponents of capital (including taxing labor to pay for old age benefits), and more broadly, to ensure social order because people get physically less capable and more dependent on a top down ordered society.

Fill your gas tank (cans if you have them). Buy some stock items (water, canned food, paper products).

Why my gas tank? Does this strike affect Gulf Port imports of petroleum? (And don't at least some US refineries depend on imported oil to get their blend right?)

Why water? I know that some brands of water are imported, but most non-name-brand waters are domestic, aren't they?

Paper products... yeah, I learned about that during Covid...

TP is dometic, water is weird, tap water is perfectly safe in US/Canadian cities, outside of rare issues. People with carbon filters might want to stock up, but that's flavour only.

Gas? I bet gas will go up from this, even if there is no reason.

Because everything is globalized and almost every supply chain has a part from somewhere else.

The pumps in the gas stations eventually break and need repair

This is only East and Gulf Coast ports there will still be a myriad of ways to get critical equipment and parts into the country.

Globalized, means there may be critical components that need to be exported, so a forgone factory can send back some other critical part.

Not everything can easily be shipped via rail to ship from another port or exported by air.

The US alone almost produces enough crude oil for it's own consumption, it's only net -1 million barrels a day and that's not including production from Canadian oil fields. Total we're about 1.5m b/d net exporters of crude oil these days.

The TP disruption was, in my opinion, more about a major shift in consumption patterns rather than a supply disruption. When offices closed half of people's waking (ie pooping) hours shifted back to the home to the small individual rolls instead of the office sized rolls. That plus some panic buying and hoarding/scalping explains the whole thing as far as I know.

If you feel the need to stockpile, these are all the things least affected by this strike.

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