Dock strike/Toilet paper shortage??

[wmfamily]

As a dairy Farmer we worked 7 days a week with a short day starting at 5:00 AM and ending at 8:00 PM so I have no sympathy for someone working 80 hrs week. Highly doubt dock workers did more manual labor or operated equipment that was much more dangerous than farm equipment.

Hear, hear for the dairy farmer! I was one back when I had a strong back and a weak mind. As I got older I better understood why we sold everything when me and my five brothers left the farm. I also gained an appreciation for the good life we had growing up. I do not see how that could be recreated anywhere but a working farm.

The farm is still there and mom still lives there by herself at 90 years old but she has constant visitors from us all.

 

[D&D]

Just reminds me of my bumper sticker. The more people i meet, the more i love my dog

 

[D&D]

About automation...if a company does not advance with automation we would still be building cars one at a time. A company needs to become more efficient with the times and to make a profit for its stockholders. What would people say if doctors and hospital workers went on strike because some of the procedures became more efficient and did a better job fighting disease?

There needs to a line drawn in the sand somewhere though. The retail model with self serve everything is not pleasant. Seeing autonomous trucks and cranes replace hundreds of bodies would not be pleasant either. I know some of the mining community has done just that but I never looked at their stats.

 

[5030]

How dumb is America?
Dock strike starts and stores are running out of toilet paper!
We don't import toilet paper!
Did some internet rumor start it?
/edit -
looked it up:

You can always use leaves to wipe with...lol Americans are not stupid, however they are gullible when it comes to talking heads (media) telling lies.

 

[WinterDeere]

They moved her and her husband from Los Angeles. She liked the Detroit area, because they bought way house than they could have in LA.

Translation: Los Angeles has become such a hell-hole, that even Detroit looks great, by comparison!

Easy to be a go getter in your 20s. Not so easy in your 40s and older.

Lame. Two thoughts:

1. If you haven't accumulated enough knowledge and skill to make yourself more valuable at 40 than you were at 20, you are an unemployable person.

2. Why should a company not scale the pay of these two hypothetical workers according to what they actually produce or contribute through experience? Are these for-profit entities, or welfare?

I do understand the historic need for unions, and could even swallow arguments justifying them for unskilled labor positions today. But for skilled laborers, teachers... anyone where skill and knowledge are part of the job, they're really just organized crime against business.

Aside from that, I'm 50 and still out-dig, out-pull, out-lift, and just generally outwork 95% of 25 year olds I cross. These little softies that spend all day exercising their thumbs on iPhones are not exactly the young and mighty of the Greatest Generation, anymore.

 

[Hay Dude]

There needs to a line drawn in the sand somewhere though. The retail model with self serve everything is not pleasant. Seeing autonomous trucks and cranes replace hundreds of bodies would not be pleasant either. I know some of the mining community has done just that but I never looked at their stats.

As a dairy Farmer we worked 7 days a week with a short day starting at 5:00 AM and ending at 8:00 PM so I have no sympathy for someone working 80 hrs week. Highly doubt dock workers did more manual labor or operated equipment that was much more dangerous than farm equipment.

I listened to someone on the radio whine & cry for how hard dockworkers have to labor at their jobs.
A few of them do, but the vast majority are operating cranes, lifts & trucks. That is not necessarily an easy job either, but union workers are given extensive rest breaks, excellent benefits/retirement and excellent safety standards to work in.

I can safely say I work in much more difficult conditions, I work longer hours, with no benefits and I work every weekend for less pay in much less safety.

Unions were a great concept 100-50 years ago. They have done their job. I do not want to see them disbanded, but they need to chill out on the ridiculous demands.

I, too can physically out-work 20-somethings and have had a few get real defensive seeing me work while they take a rest-even with back pain I still can go longer than they can…..for now

 

[tradosaurus]

Translation: Los Angeles has become such a hell-hole, that even Detroit looks great, by comparison!


Lame. Two thoughts:

1. If you haven't accumulated enough knowledge and skill to make yourself more valuable at 40 than you were at 20, you are an unemployable person.

2. Why should a company not scale the pay of these two hypothetical workers according to what they actually produce or contribute through experience? Are these for-profit entities, or welfare?

I do understand the historic need for unions, and could even swallow arguments justifying them for unskilled labor positions today. But for skilled laborers, teachers... anyone where skill and knowledge are part of the job, they're really just organized crime against business.

Aside from that, I'm 50 and still out-dig, out-pull, out-lift, and just generally outwork 95% of 25 year olds I cross. These little softies that spend all day exercising their thumbs on iPhones are not exactly the young and mighty of the Greatest Generation, anymore.

Not saying much today when you can outwork a 25 yo.
My coworker is 50 and just spent his days off putting up a workshop. He’s a hard worker but the the next workday after he was finished he could barely move because of his back.
You ain’t out working a young fellow day in and day out.
That’s why seniority exists.

 

[CH4Ohio]

It's crazy that we've let the union block progress and technology for decades. In Asia and Europe, the docks are very automated. And they have been for 30+ years. They run day and night with fewer people because processes over time have been taken over by robots and autonomous machines.

At our docks, the union won't even allow a camera to capture and record the license plates of all the trucks as they come and go. Instead, two union workers with pencils and clipboards write the information on paper.

The union president bragged that HE was going to "cripple the US economy". Sounds like a national security issue to me ... Our national security is at stake and they want to lay down in the road to block modernization and progress??

This is like the grocery cashiers saying you can't install bar-code scanners.

This is like Amazon workers saying you can't use robots to pick and pack products.

No self-service gas pumps. You have to keep paying us to pump gas. (I wonder what ever happened to all those poor gas pump attendants when their industry was devastated. I was one of them as a kid too.)

There's a sort of government-entitlement-protectionist mentality going on here. Apparently, the argument is, "we currently need 45,000 people to do this work. Management can't make any changes that reduce the headcount." That's insane.

They should implement a hiring freeze immediately. Congress should mandate modernization of our ports. There are plenty of ways to phase in technology while taking advantage of retirement attrition and paying people to leave early.

I don't think the government can competently run a lemonade stand, but still . . . maybe we need to nationalize the ports and install current technology and run them like the rest of the world does. Workers that want to stay on and step into the 21st century would be able to. The rest need to go away. It will take many years for us to catch up and implement modern tech into these ports so there's plenty of time for the workers to get sorted out.

I think this particular strike, focusing on the absolute resistance to automation, is the most short-sighted and least sympathetic strike that I've ever seen.

 

[bigtiller]

My first experience with unions was an IBEW - full scale union member being paid to sit on a bucket and watch me install communication wiring for an Automated Call Distribution (ACD) system in Seattle back in the 80's.

He was "earning" 3 times more than me, just to watch me work because it was a union project and I was non-union doing something they were not technically skilled to do.

Sure he was stealing a big pay check...but what kind of self respect could he have?

He was on union welfare.

If you would have joined the union, your paycheck would have been 3 times more, AND saved the company money by not paying someone to sit and watch you work.

 

[steve tym]

Ya know, I'd love to pay my guys union wages. You know who wouldn't tolerate it? My customers. Now who's out of a job?