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Heroic workers confront capitalism, win living wage.
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2024-10-04 at 9:59 PM UTC
The agreement ending a three-day port strike that threatened to gum up the economy just weeks ahead of the election will lift pay for some workers to levels many doctors get. But the picture is more complicated than that.
https://www.barrons.com/articles/port-workers-ila-pay-deal-62dfb440
Thousands of dockworkers represented by the International Longshoremen’s Association are back on the job, allowing ports from Maine to the Gulf of Mexico to reopen after port operators agreed to increase their wages by 62% over the next six years. That compares with a previous offer of a 50% raise.
Port workers have some of the highest wages among blue-collar workers. Under the ILA contract that expired Monday, a top-scale longshoreman could earn up to $39 an hour. Assuming someone works a 40-hour week, that is about $81,000 a year. The 62% raise would lift that number to $131,220 per year, before overtime and other factors that can boost the total.
But most workers weren’t paid at such high rates. Dockworkers’ wages vary widely depending on skill and seniority. “Many of our members are operating multi-million-dollar container-handling equipment for a mere $20 an hour,” wrote the ILA in a statement earlier this week.50,000 port workers went on strike, but only 25,000 had jobs? Why? Container Royalties, according to WSJ:
Nearly 50,000 dockworkers launched a strike this week at ports from Maine to Texas — but, in a bizarre quirk that has resulted from massive concessions to the union over the decades, the affected ports only employ 25,000.
There’s a massive gulf in the numbers between those who show up for work and total membership in the powerful International Longshoremen’s Association, which won a deal late Thursday for a 62% wage increase over the next six years.
That’s because half of the dockworkers at the East and Gulf coast ports are allowed to sit at home collecting “container royalties” negotiated decades ago to protect against job losses that result from innovation, according to The Wall Street Journal. -
2024-10-05 at 6:59 AM UTCVinny down at da docks is eatin' well this Christmas
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2024-10-05 at 1:26 PM UTCDamn I was really hoping to hit this big motherfucker I know with a rock in the head and consume him.
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2024-10-05 at 2:21 PM UTCNot that the longshoremen have their pay rise, when do we longhousedmen go on strike?
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2024-10-05 at 2:57 PM UTCthat's still not that much adjusted for inflation
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2024-10-05 at 6:15 PM UTC
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2024-10-05 at 7:11 PM UTC
Originally posted by Kingoftoes FTFY
They would have never agreed to the demands in that case. It's still not that much money and what I would consider average for such an industry. Anyone with long term union contracts is being priced out of inflation every year that passes and the economy gets worse.
The companies can afford to pay them perfectly fine but the underlying economy that these companies rely on cannot continue like this forever
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2024-10-05 at 7:52 PM UTC
Originally posted by the man who put it in my hood They would have never agreed to the demands in that case.
They agreed to the demands because when workers go on strike they don't make a profit.
All of these workers aren't just working for 1 company. They work for a multitude of companies. Some of the companies will be able to afford the increase, some won't.
Oh, also our stuff will be more expensive now.
Originally posted by the man who put it in my hood It's still not that much money and what I would consider average for such an industry.
https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Longshoreman/Hourly_Rate
131k a year is ridiculous for unskilled labor. -
2024-10-05 at 8:10 PM UTC
Originally posted by Kingoftoes They agreed to the demands because when workers go on strike they don't make a profit.
It's not illegal to just hire someone else who is willing to do the job, if negotiations broke down that's what would have to happen, but that doesn't benefit either workers or the company in that case so this actually costs less to pay them more.
Originally posted by Kingoftoes All of these workers aren't just working for 1 company. They work for a multitude of companies. Some of the companies will be able to afford the increase, some won't.
I agree. Unions can kill a company and it is actually illegal to break union contracts, according to the government. Unions control capitalism, enforced by the state and funded by the worker. If you don't like this system than stop voting for Democrats and Republicans because it will never change.
Originally posted by Kingoftoes https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Longshoreman/Hourly_Rate
131k a year is ridiculous for unskilled labor.
"An entry-level Longshoreman with less than 1 year experience can expect to earn an average total compensation (includes tips, bonus, and overtime pay) of $20.91 based on 26 salaries. An early career Longshoreman with 1-4 years of experience earns an average total compensation of $24.30 based on 70 salaries. A mid-career Longshoreman with 5-9 years of experience earns an average total compensation of $31.13 based on 39 salaries. An experienced Longshoreman with 10-19 years of experience earns an average total compensation of $44.25 based on 62 salaries. In their late career (20 years and higher), employees earn an average total compensation of $40"
That's trash. So basically you have to sell your soul to the company for 10 years in the hopes that you might make a living wage for a blue collar industry working full time in a union? that sounds like shit and I can see why they went on strike. The current rates seem correct where they should be.
It might be unskilled labor but it's not their fault that the entire globalized economy relies on them and there would be mass panic if the supply chain went back to covid levels. It's an essential industry like farming or healthcare at this point, which is kinda sad and strange and says a lot about the state of the economy I think.
No longer is the beacon of western civilization "what can we produce?, what can we innovate?" but "how many ships from China can we unload?" -
2024-10-06 at 4:38 PM UTCthis is why factories left "america" in droves in the first place and why trumpf's, or anyone elses reshoring of the US manufacturing will fail.
"americans" produce boeing-tier craps and expect to be paid their weights worth of gold.
ja ok. sure. -
2024-10-06 at 4:39 PM UTC"ban the robots"
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2024-10-06 at 4:43 PM UTCLongshoremen are needed to do things like load cargo ships to bring munitions to Israel. All economies are centrally planned. The reason factories left America is because Americans don't want to work their ass off just for a subsistence wage when there are a billion Chinese who will do so. And tariffs targeting China aren't meant to bring jobs back, they're just meant to punish China, that's all. Libertarianism is retarded.The following users say it would be alright if the author of this post didn't die in a fire!
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2024-10-06 at 4:59 PM UTC
Originally posted by 🦄🌈 MORALLY SUPERIOR BEING - vaxxed and octoboosted 💉 (we beat covid!) 👬💕👭🍀 (🍩✊) Longshoremen are needed to do things like load cargo ships to bring munitions to Israel.
not at all. their job could have been easily replaced with robots.
a guaranteed derobotization was part of their condition to end the strike. -
2024-10-06 at 5:14 PM UTCThere is no reason a union should require state regulations to exist. They can exist and function perfectly fine without court enforced union contracts.
Because we have smart contracts now
The inefficient third party is removed and the system functions perfectly fine. Why is the government involved in union bargaining? the penalties for breaking union contracts should be enforceable by the market itself, but currently that's not the case and it's required to pay taxes to people that are not union or contract or market experts to decide and enforce the rules for everyone
https://www.reddit.com/r/CanadaPublicServants/comments/16ddv0p/why_there_is_so_much_fraud_in_the_canadian_unions/
https://www.quora.com/Why-are-labour-unions-in-Canada-so-corrupted
https://www.chicagotribune.com/2008/05/18/members-question-backdoor-union-deals/But such backdoor deals are causing an uproar within the unions themselves. Some unionists believe that the pacts take away workers’ rights to strike, picket or even exercise their freedom of speech and doubt that unions can grow when their hands are tied.”The fundamental dispute is about some leaders making top-down, secret deals that affect workers’ future,” said Rosselli, head of a 150,000-member SEIU local, which is embroiled in a bitter squabble with the leadership of the 1.7 million-member national union.
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/01/20/vjyr-j20.htmlThe emerging scandal comes on the heels of last year’s exposure of former Unifor president Jerry Dias, who was disgraced after an investigation revealed he, acting as a shameless pandemic profiteer, received and tried to cover up a $50,000 kickback to promote a private company’s COVID-19 virus testing kits in factories organized by the union.
