In LATAM, dock workers make sure this goes undetected. I know of an IE who was championing a dock worker scheduling optimization algo, typical Operations Management stuff. Dude was killed.
I'd like to think that this kind of things do not happen here. But every time I've thought along those lines, I've been mistaken. It's just happens at a different scale.
https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-59379474
https://www.vice.com/en/article/belgium-netherlands-cocaine-...
https://www.occrp.org/en/project/narcofiles-the-new-criminal...
The argument here is that the union is directly involved in drug smuggling, which is why some of the union reps live in multimillion dollar luxury homes. They're opposed to automation because it would mess up their system
Harold Daggett has been the main labor leader getting criticized recently for a large salary. He's the leader of the International Longshoremen's Association (ILA), and makes somewhere in the ballpark of ~$1M a year. The ILA is striking right now in the hopes of getting a ~70% wage increase over the next 6 years, better healthcare benefits, and better retirement contribution.
If I were a longshoremen making $130k, and I stood to get a ~70% wage increase + benefits, I'd absolutely be okay with the person who could make that happen making a low 7 figure salary.
Generally, I think the discussion around labor leader salaries to be very insidious. The truth is that they're fighting for chump change against an industry that's pulling in hundreds of billions in profit. And the same goes for the Teamsters. I'll let the respective unions determine leadership profits, but I'll 1000% support whatever they agree upon, so long as the union leaders are making sure that workers get treated well.
> The ILA is striking right now in the hopes of getting a ~70% wage increase over the next 6 years, better healthcare benefits, and better retirement contribution.
And a permanent ban on automation, you forgot to mention that part. Also, the strike is on pause until January 15th.
> The truth is that they're fighting for chump change against an industry that's pulling in hundreds of billions in profit.
Ports aren’t private industry. They’re public infrastructure, owned by the public, and the ones that do turn a profit are a source of funding for public services.
> And the same goes for the Teamsters.
Teamsters are, among other things, a cop union.
Or are there ghost containers on ships, which are filled with drugs and not part of the manifest, that an automated system would flag but people with greased hands know to let it through?
Just divert the container to an area without cameras for a few minutes, pop it open and remove the kilos.
In a manual world, nobody notices that the container takes 15 minutes longer to reach the storage area.
In a manual world, nobody notices that the container suddenly became 100lbs lighter.
In a manual world, nobody notices the GPS trace showing the container going behind the warehouse where the camera coverage is spotty.
https://www.occrp.org/en/project/narcofiles-the-new-criminal...
On the other hand, if there aren't supposed to be humans around it's a lot easier to spot people who don't belong: that would be literally every single human.
The second season of The Wire (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wire_season_2) covers this, as they track containers that come off a ship and end up in The Stack, and never make it onboard a truck (at least according to the tracking system).
This is the real reason and one of the primary reasons productivity won't be optimized, especially at the LATAM ports.
Imagine halfway through a kitchen remodel, your contractor stops working and demands 70% more than the initial quote. But not only that, the government prohibits you from hiring a different contractor at market rates and forces you to negotiate with the original contractor. That's what union negotiations are like.
https://www.opm.gov/forms/pdfimage/sf61.pdf
There were existing laws on the books to remove the striking ATCs.
That’s not the case with the ILA. The most they can do is block strikes for 80 days.
The Taft-Hartley Act already made it illegal for public sector unions to strike (later replaced by a similar law, the same law from which the SF-61 oath is derived). That same act allows the President to suspend private union strikes, so I don't think there is a fundamental difference. It's been used 37 times since passage. There's even precedent in this specific area: President GW Bush use the Taft-Hartley Act in 2002 for a port dispute.
>The most they can do is block strikes for 80 days
The 80 days is part of the "cooling off" period: 60 initial negotiation days + 15 days of secret voting + 5 days of certification. While the President and courts can't stop a strike after a legal cooling off period, Congress may still have the power to do so. Congress has been given Constitutional authority to intervene is labor disputes that affect inter-state commerce (see the arguments around the recent rail labor dispute). "They" (as in the entire govt) still have cards to play after the cooling off period ends.
Given the historical and legal context, I don't think the OPs assumption that govt is inherently pro-union holds.
My original comment was assuming that Congress in its current state would be unable to pass such legislation.
[1] https://www.npr.org/2022/12/01/1140123647/rail-strike-bill-s...
Now add that to a bigger time scale and mass inflation happened between the batrhoom and he bedroom. They have to charge more just to keep buying power.
If it's that critical, give the older workers their pension early and let them enjoy their life. And the younger workers should he retrained to work with the automation. But we know that's never what happens when work gets more efficient. So it's not just about "advancement" for the ports. The fact that those things were never even on the table speaks for itself.
----
Alternatively, congress can always repeal the law and break whatever contracts they have. Surely their own dysfunction wouldn't bite them in the butt when it's in the government interest, right?
Companies aren't a monolith, and dock worker unions screwing over port companies isn't magically going to make all other workers better off. If anything the supply chain disruptions resulting from a strike and costs (as a result of lack of automation) is going to make their lives worse through higher inflation.
>If it's that critical, give the older workers their pension early and let them enjoy their life.
If your business is that critical, just pay the mafia protection money so they can enjoy their life!
no, it won't fix everywhere else overnight. But it'll remind other companies of what happens if they go too far (hence why they spend so much on union busting/prevention). Or show that unions can indeed work to the workers who think it's hopeless.
>If anything the supply chain disruptions resulting from a strike and costs (as a result of lack of automation) is going to make their lives worse through higher inflation.
And the current status quo is so much better as our buying power decreases slowly and goes to businesses? If companies are so greedy they'd rather crash the economy than pay workers fairly, so be it.
I'll clarify here that unionization is the best of the worst options. If the government properly kept housing costs down and minimum wage reasonable, and made it so companies can't just layoff because it's in fashion, we wouldn't need to collectively bargain just to survive and pay rent. But I'm open to other alernatives for this that's not "just lie down and hope things get better". Been hoping for decades.
>If your business is that critical, just pay the mafia protection money so they can enjoy their life!
I guess the Pinkertons had connections to the mafia. Gets harder to just kill people overnight in this interconnected era though. The Boeing stuff shows that old style mafia scheme is outdated and just makes your case worse.
How did the ports "go too far"? They agreed to 50% raises over 6 years. That's still well above inflation.
Laid off dock workers still get paid via container royalties. In fact, about half of the ILA isn't even working, they're being paid to do nothing by mere virte of the fact that they used to be longshoremen. Even if the get another job.
Increased shipping costs are a regressive tax: when the price of toilet paper goes up, proportionally the poor pay more because billionaires crap as much as paupers. Longshoremen already make well above average wages. They jealously guard union membership, a past lawsuit revealed that 50% of new union members had family ties to existing members, despite 20,000 people applying to just 350 positions. There is absolutely nothing progressive about this strike: their demands are to make the US economy less competitive, and to increase costs for the many to further enrich a privileged few.
I think you can look up all the stipulations dock workers had to put up with, especially over the pandemic. But just to keep it to this question: we had inflation a lot crazier than 7% or so they initially offered.
And given historical ways they use "automation" I would want better contracts highlighting what they do with workers when automation is stationed in. The whole bust of "okay we don't need you get out." is already way over the line of what EU and Asia would do. Especially for pensioned workers.
>they're being paid to do nothing by mere virte of the fact that they used to be longshoremen. Even if the get another job.
Yeah, sounds like a pension by another name of "royalties". I'm sure the first thing to automate out is whatever they define "container royalties" as. Even if it is indeed less efficient.
There's probably issues to address, but my general theme is that companies (including the government) will always keep trying to take from workers. If that means higher taxes, then whatever. They'd make up any other reason for tax hikes anyway.
>I think you can look up all the stipulations dock workers had to put up with, especially over the pandemic. But just to keep it to this question: we had inflation a lot crazier than 7% or so they initially offered.
Since the start of the pandemic (Jan 2020) till August 2024 (the latest date for which data is available), the cumulative inflation has been 21%. Inflation has also mostly returned back to normal. The last few prints were around 3% YOY. In light of all this, 50% over 6 years is ludicrous.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CPIAUCSL
>Yeah, sounds like a pension by another name of "royalties". I'm sure the first thing to automate out is whatever they define "container royalties" as. Even if it is indeed less efficient.
The difference is that pensions are "earned" through years of service, and are agreed on ahead of time. Asking for payments for no work being done, under the threat of labor disruptions is closer to a shakedown.
Only of you think 21% raises makes up for years of lost costs, and ignore what inflation did to the rest of the economy that did not in fact come down.
>The difference is that pensions are "earned" through years of service, and are agreed on ahead of time
>Asking for payments for no work being done.
Sure, like a union contract. Or a job contract with pension. Given the amount of employee contracts broken, employees need to play hardball. Why would I sympathize with people have historically broken contracts in spirits.
They've proven they need actual, immediate consequences, because even suing them is just a stall tactic. I have no sympathy.
The work is done and still utilized. Thars how royalties work. Peolel who hate pensions say the exact same thing, "why am I paying this worker who isn't working"?
>under the threat of labor disruptions is closer to a shakedown.
Shakedown makes it sound like the poor USMX is some small businessman struggling to stay afloat.
Meanwhile they are paid with our money. If they can't keep labor happy with my tax dollars then they reap what they sow. The workers getting the money they deserve is great.
And if you only read that one report that says how a third of workers make 200k+, you should read their hours and actual hourly pay.
That overtime pay is probably also in their contracts. And if you would rather push overtime pay than hire more docks men, you reap what you sow.
> And if you would rather push overtime pay than hire more docks men, you reap what you sow.
The ports would absolutely love to hire more workers. It's the union that tightly controls membership, to rake in that lucrative overtime.
Overtime isn't a good thing to rely on. Especially blue collar work where your phyaical body is being whittled away. And yes, I wish we had more royalties for jobs. Everyone would jump on AI overnight if we got a kickback.
>The ports would absolutely love to hire more workers. It's the union that tightly controls membership, to rake in that lucrative overtime.
Seems backwards that people would want to work 14+ hours a day to make more money. What's money without a life to live? At least CEOs can vacation at their leisure. Blue collar overtime is just draining your life.
That's exactly what people are doing. The shipping companies would gladly hire two longshoremen to work at normal hours instead of paying one worker overtime. Unions are extremely restrictive with membership. There's no lack of people trying to become longshoremen. Only 3% of applicants were granted position in one port: https://www.mercurynews.com/2017/06/02/longshoreman-lottery-...
> Anyone can put their name in the drawing by sending in a postcard, but ILWU members get a specially marked postcard for their friends and family.
> The two are placed in separate barrels and drawn randomly from alternating piles.
Institutionalized nepotism.
> If it's that critical, give the older workers their pension early and let them enjoy their life.
We expect ports to be run like efficient businesses, who pays for that? Consumers I guess via increased shipping fees. Isn’t that just stealing from Peter to pay Paul?
I see many "easy" ways out of it. None that would satisfy the USMX. Because their primary goal isn't efficiency of process but of costs.
So I guess I agree.
>We expect ports to be run like efficient businesses, who pays for that? Consumers I guess via increased shipping fees. Isn’t that just stealing from Peter to pay Paul?
Sure. But the ILA didn't make that cost increase directly. The USMX decides instead to pass the costs to the people. Because they'd rather do that than simply pay their way into automation that satisfies the port workers.
In addition to fees from traders: our tax dollars? The USMX isn't some fully private company, it's a mixture of government funding and various private contractors. As long as the US needs ports they will budget for it.
>but we all pay in the end for these contracts, the money doesn’t come from some magic source, in the long run inefficiency and higher costs get passed on one way or the other.
Yes, to us. Becsuse the USMX isn't in risk of going out of business. They have little skin in the game. So we lose either way. If I'm gonna lose I may as well make sure others get something out of it.
But when it comes to the management of the majority of our lives (the system we conduct our lives within, and according to), right thinking people insist on mediocrity.
There are many paradoxes like this in the world, but for some reason it is not possible to get minds to focus on them. I wonder what the underlying cause of this is...perhaps there is a causal relationship between the two phenomena in this case?
Are you forgetting decades of Windows blue screens? It took Windows ages to become somewhat reliable, and when it finally did, they added a bunch of advertisements to it. Yet, in all that time of enduring BSODs, most people happily stuck with it instead of exploring alternatives that were proven to be far more reliable.
But the important part is that they had the choice of exploring other alternatives. Unlike ports, which have to deal with union workers and have no alternative labor options.
Really? In 1995-98? I'm pretty sure OS/2 offered a better experience for most things at the time, except gaming. And I don't think MS Office existed at the time; WordPerfect was pretty strong still, as was Lotus.
The part I'm interested in is that most people aren't averse to discussing improvements and alternatives, for these kinds of operating systems...but others are different.
How about this: imagine you're a multi-billion dollar per annum organization openly researching how to put tens of thousands of your core workforce out of a career, and they ask for more money to protect their families and livelihood. And the government forces you to negotiate.
More expensive shipping is a regressive tax: any product requiring shipping becomes more expensive. Dock workers are quite literally demanding worsening income inequality: they make well above average wages, and the cost of their demands would be borne by the public at large who on average make less than dock workers.
It is pretty unusual here for wageys to be targets of hits.