4 ms·

Hang on. The longshoreman part is a bit more complicated than that. Longshoreman was actually not a shit job. The workers had a great deal of flexibility and

Hang on. The longshoreman part is a bit more complicated than that. Longshoreman was actually not a shit job. The workers had a great deal of flexibility and good pay for the hours worked. The labor unions protected them too. What caused that job to decline and disappear was the container box. The container box moved the packing and unpacking part from the source and destination instead of the ports. During the Vietnam war, the US military basically forced the ports to adopt container boxes. This dramatically increased the efficiency of shipping and eradicated longshoremen jobs. Nowadays though, the people operating the cranes loading and unloading the container boxes from/to container ships actually make 6 digit salaries. The problem with shit jobs is that they tend to be "muscle" based jobs in unpleasant conditions, which makes them vulnerable to automation and mechanization. (Source for all this is: The Box (https://www.amazon.com/Box-Shipping-Container-Smaller-Economy/dp/0691170819/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1503601940&sr=8-5&keywords=the+box https://www.amazon.com/Box-Shipping-Container-Smaller-Econom...)

paultopia 9y ago
Do you think part of the reason the longshore industry managed to keep a really strong union was just the geographic concentration? When you only have a few major container ports, it's gotta be pretty easy to keep union solidarity...
- hangonhn 9y ago
  Yes! Actually, a lot of the older port cities were eventually bypassed because of this. For example, SF and NYC are no longer ports for shipping because rather than deal with the unions and their power, new ports such as Oakland and Newark (think that's the city in NJ) with facilities for containers were simply built close by.
  - wahern 9y ago
    If I remember The Box properly, West Coast unions faired better than East Coast unions. The East Coast unions fought container shipping tooth and nail, and when the Newark port and other East Coast ports were built they lost alot of clout and many more union jobs than necessary. Simultaneously, the leadership of the West Coast unions saw the writing on the wall and were able to achieve a less disruptive shift and downsizing. And this happened despite the fact that the West Coast unions had, historically, a more contentious relationship with business owners.
mikestew 9y ago
The longshoreman part is a bit more complicated than that. An admittedly bad example, I guess. I was thinking welding might fit in that category (wearing a hot, dark mask all day in not always pleasant conditions), but it takes a fair bit of skill, and it might still pay well. And, oddly enough, a lot of welders I've known over the years seem to like it. OTOH, a lot of welders I've known over the years were heavy drinkers.
- hangonhn 9y ago
  "but it takes a fair bit of skill, and it might still pay well. And, oddly enough, a lot of welders I've known over the years seem to like it." This is the part that I often find the most fascinating and unintuitive. Difficult but skillful jobs often have very satisfied workers. I used to use janitor as the canonical example of an unfulfilling job but was recently corrected by a friend who told me that janitors actually seem to enjoy their jobs because their workload is bounded. They just need to clean the building so they just get their job done and don't have to worry about it when they're not working. Also, janitors at places like hospitals find a lot of worth in what they do and some will go the extra mile because they believe they help patients feel more comfortable in the hospital.
wahern 9y ago
The Box is a _great_ book. Easily one of the best books I've read in the past 10 years. The history and analysis was fascinating, and remains surprisingly memorable and relevant even 5 years after reading the book. In the past 20 or so years a literary genre has emerged that uses esoteric subjects as a narrative device for exploring broader social topics. The Box doesn't fit neatly into that genre because, AFAIU, the historical material is novel, rather than recapitulating a standard theory or, on the other hand, reframing beliefs with a contradictory or counter-intuitive narrative. The book remains earnestly focused on the history of container shipping, albeit at a more macro scale. The broader relevance just naturally follows from the keen, objective description of that history.

paultopia 9y ago

Do you think part of the reason the longshore industry managed to keep a really strong union was just the geographic concentration? When you only have a few major container ports, it's gotta be pretty easy to keep union solidarity...

hangonhn 9y ago
Yes! Actually, a lot of the older port cities were eventually bypassed because of this. For example, SF and NYC are no longer ports for shipping because rather than deal with the unions and their power, new ports such as Oakland and Newark (think that's the city in NJ) with facilities for containers were simply built close by.
- wahern 9y ago
  If I remember The Box properly, West Coast unions faired better than East Coast unions. The East Coast unions fought container shipping tooth and nail, and when the Newark port and other East Coast ports were built they lost alot of clout and many more union jobs than necessary. Simultaneously, the leadership of the West Coast unions saw the writing on the wall and were able to achieve a less disruptive shift and downsizing. And this happened despite the fact that the West Coast unions had, historically, a more contentious relationship with business owners.

mikestew 9y ago

The longshoreman part is a bit more complicated than that. An admittedly bad example, I guess. I was thinking welding might fit in that category (wearing a hot, dark mask all day in not always pleasant conditions), but it takes a fair bit of skill, and it might still pay well. And, oddly enough, a lot of welders I've known over the years seem to like it. OTOH, a lot of welders I've known over the years were heavy drinkers.

hangonhn 9y ago
"but it takes a fair bit of skill, and it might still pay well. And, oddly enough, a lot of welders I've known over the years seem to like it." This is the part that I often find the most fascinating and unintuitive. Difficult but skillful jobs often have very satisfied workers. I used to use janitor as the canonical example of an unfulfilling job but was recently corrected by a friend who told me that janitors actually seem to enjoy their jobs because their workload is bounded. They just need to clean the building so they just get their job done and don't have to worry about it when they're not working. Also, janitors at places like hospitals find a lot of worth in what they do and some will go the extra mile because they believe they help patients feel more comfortable in the hospital.

wahern 9y ago

The Box is a _great_ book. Easily one of the best books I've read in the past 10 years. The history and analysis was fascinating, and remains surprisingly memorable and relevant even 5 years after reading the book. In the past 20 or so years a literary genre has emerged that uses esoteric subjects as a narrative device for exploring broader social topics. The Box doesn't fit neatly into that genre because, AFAIU, the historical material is novel, rather than recapitulating a standard theory or, on the other hand, reframing beliefs with a contradictory or counter-intuitive narrative. The book remains earnestly focused on the history of container shipping, albeit at a more macro scale. The broader relevance just naturally follows from the keen, objective description of that history.