I worked for NJ bell, Bell Atlantic and then Verizon. Was there for 34 years. If you added up all of my raises over those years, it didn’t come anywhere near 77%. We would fight and go on strike for up to 7 weeks for a 2% increase. Contracts lasted from 2-5 years. Largest I ever got was 3.5%. I know some longshoreman who are members of a gun club up In Pennsylvania and it seems odd that a twenty year old can drive a $80,000 truck and make $150k a year. Those same guys would brag about how easy the job was and they hardly ever really worked. One dude would always leave a paystub laying around so everyone else could be “impressed” on how much he made. I know a lot of people who would literally kill to get a job that pays that much. A 50% pay hike over 6 years is like winning the lottery. As far as automation goes, like Joe said, you ain’t gonna stop it. You may have to adapt and create another job to fix or watch over the automated machines. A lot will probably follow in the steps of self check out and they will remove them when they figure out that some of it just doesn’t work. I’m all for unions as if they weren’t here, the corporations and employers would take advantage of the workers, but there seems to be a lot of greed and corruption in the unions also. I view them as a necessary evil. These workers on strike are waaaay out of line. They are going to hurt a lot of consumers because they are greedy. Hate to say it but in this case, I’m for the company.
. If a company wants their shit unloaded by sketchy fuck sticks, it may end up on the bottom of the ocean much like a shitty tree trimming business puts tree through your house.
