Welcome to TheOhioOutdoors
Wanting to join the rest of our members? Login or sign up today!
Sign up

Dock workers strike

hickslawns said:
Maybe you don't realize I was in a union for 6 years?

As a business owner I do NOT come in at a higher than giraffe coochie price and negotiate down. I would look like a crook for asking such a high price to start with. I bid to make a fair wage. If they don't like it, maybe we can lower their needs/wants or hire someone else. We have a waiting list. I'm not losing sleep over it.

In a free market they laugh off the demands of the union. They hire other workers at $100-125k/yr and maybe $15-20k benefit packages. I'm not here to bash unions. They served (past tense) their place. It was a great thing we had them at the time. Unfortunately, it seems like they are pricing their workers out of jobs now.
Click to expand...
I would argue that the more successful a small business gets the more they become like a union with their fellow small business competitors. If I were to call 3 successful well respected tree trimming companies, all would be within a couple hundred of each other on the higher end of bidding. What’s the difference between that an a well skilled set of tradesmen bargaining better wages 🤔. 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.
 
If you say so. I get your thinking. Maybe in small towns it could happen. If you are a successful business you know you incremental costs of doing business. You establish pricing based upon costs and desired profit margin. Unless you have a niche market with no competition. . . Most of them have similar costs and bid as high as they feel their local market will bear. There is some validity in what you say. I don't think there is price fixing taking place though. Not for me anyway. That is illegal.
 
  • Like
Reactions: LonewolfNopack
Port performance index for 2023

1727873239591.png


US ports are in the bottom 100

1727873273496.png


This strike isn't (as much) about getting more $$ IMO, it's about keeping automation out of the ports. However, that is also why things cost so much when you lose efficiency at the first stop coming into/out of the country. It's just like the auto industry IMO, you lose jobs with automation at the work location however you will get jobs on the repair and maintenance of the equipment.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Bigcountry40 and Tipmoose
Big_Holla said:
Port performance index for 2023

View attachment 200087

US ports are in the bottom 100

View attachment 200088

This strike isn't (as much) about getting more $$ IMO, it's about keeping automation out of the ports. However, that is also why things cost so much when you lose efficiency at the first stop coming into/out of the country. It's just like the auto industry IMO, you lose jobs with automation at the work location however you will get jobs on the repair and maintenance of the equipment.
Click to expand...


Bingo. It's all about slowing automation. Come in with some crazy high salary demands and a limit to the implementation of automation. In the end, take a little increase in salary but win the ability to keep automation out of the ports and maintain jobs and salaries for years to come. The worst thing that could happen is they accept the salary demand but refuse the automation demand. That creates an even larger incentive to speed up the use of automation to cut the impact of the new increase in labor costs.

The problem is you can't fight automation implementation, it's going to happen. In our lifetime we will see completely autonomous shipping be it rail, truck, ship etc. Over-the-road trucking will be the slowest as they share roads with motorists. But rail and shipping are ripe for automation, especially self-driving. Even unloading / loading.
 
  • Like
Reactions: finelyshedded, Bigcountry40, Tipmoose and 1 other person
Bigcountry40 said:
I would argue that the more successful a small business gets the more they become like a union with their fellow small business competitors. If I were to call 3 successful well respected tree trimming companies, all would be within a couple hundred of each other on the higher end of bidding. What’s the difference between that an a well skilled set of tradesmen bargaining better wages 🤔. 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.
Click to expand...
The laziest, most inefficient people I ever dealt with were all in union shops. (ATT/Lucent Tech) is one fine example. I’d say they were without question “sketchy fuck sticks”. Pathetic in every way.
I’m not interested in an argument. Probably should not have bothered with above comment, but when the term fuck stick comes to mind, that group stands out.
With all the mess going on in the southern states right now, the union striking at this time shows them to be the classless fools their mouthpiece proves himself to be every time he speaks.
 
  • Like
Reactions: LonewolfNopack, Wiley E Coyote, finelyshedded and 2 others
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.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Wiley E Coyote, finelyshedded and Big_Holla
To
Hedgelj said:
She had a few points but her vulgarity ridden tweet or tic tack was full of propaganda as well.....

He's notdoing it for the American people, it's a job for a paycheck, get off your high horseand quit trying to use patriotism to win yourargument. It's weak.
Click to expand...
Toby Keith basically used the same formula to sell all his cds 😂
 
  • Haha
Reactions: Hedgelj
brock ratcliff said:
The laziest, most inefficient people I ever dealt with were all in union shops. (ATT/Lucent Tech) is one fine example. I’d say they were without question “sketchy fuck sticks”. Pathetic in every way.
I’m not interested in an argument. Probably should not have bothered with above comment, but when the term fuck stick comes to mind, that group stands out.
With all the mess going on in the southern states right now, the union striking at this time shows them to be the classless fools their mouthpiece proves himself to be every time he speaks.
Click to expand...
As we all know all careers have bad apples, but in most trades you must have a certain level of skill to even obtain the job, but unions do lead to complacency or laziness sometimes. Definitely not perfect.
 
  • Like
Reactions: finelyshedded
brock ratcliff said:
The laziest, most inefficient people I ever dealt with were all in union shops. (ATT/Lucent Tech) is one fine example. I’d say they were without question “sketchy fuck sticks”. Pathetic in every way.
I’m not interested in an argument. Probably should not have bothered with above comment, but when the term fuck stick comes to mind, that group stands out.
With all the mess going on in the southern states right now, the union striking at this time shows them to be the classless fools their mouthpiece proves himself to be every time he speaks.
Click to expand...
Can’t argue with you on that first comment. I was a shop steward for a few years until I tired of the good old boys club. I’ve seen unions put legitimate grievances on hold for years to invest their time getting some worthless piece of shit their job back. They would go home and mow their lawn on overtime, go grocery shopping, even go golfing all day while their work truck sat in a mall parking lot. Some worked second jobs during the time they were supposed to be working for Ma Bell. When I worked in Atlantic City for 13 years, it was common to see guys with hookers, gambling, sitting in a bar while I was fixing the payphones…..and they were getting paid the same as me. I hated the unions for protecting people who didn’t deserve that job. I knew a lot of good people who would’ve jumped at the chance for a job like that with good pay/benefits.
 
  • Like
Reactions: brock ratcliff and hickslawns
Sgt Fury said:
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.
Click to expand...

I agree in that they are a necessary evil. Unfortunately, the union Presidents and higher ups are no different than our high level politicians. They pad their pockets and we are just pawns. They don't truly have the best interest of their workers in many cases.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Hedgelj and Sgt Fury
One last rant before I keep quiet. I knew a guy who had over 20 years as a construction splicer. I did one splice on a section throw and he did the other. I checked his splice before we left as I was the senior guy and it would’ve came back on me. The dude didn’t know the color code for wires. He placed them in randomly. I had to redo the entire splice….and he got paid while he sat in his truck playing with his phone. The bosses knew this guy didn’t know how to do his job, and the union did also. The bosses protected people like that (and there were a lot more than you could imagine) because they didn’t want to tell their boss that these guys worked for 20 years and didnt know their job….the first level boss wouldve lost their job for not making sure these guys were doing their jobs right. Some guys would come into work, pick up their truck, go hammer and play video games all day, close out their jobs (without ever going out to them) then bring their truck back to work. A few days later, some sucker like me would get the job back and have to go out and actually fix it. Couldn’t say anything because it was frowned upon to throw another union guy under the bus. I’m sure this stuff goes on in every shop all over the country.
 
  • Like
  • Angry
Reactions: brock ratcliff and Big_Holla
You must log in or register to reply here.