3 ms·
This is a dumb strawman argument. Repealing the Jones Act would not immediately revoke all worker protections and existing interstate commerce rules in the US.
by legitster 3y ago
This is a dumb strawman argument. Repealing the Jones Act would not immediately revoke all worker protections and existing interstate commerce rules in the US.
Trucking operators from Canada have no problem driving loads into the US on Hyundai semi trucks and it's crazy to think that a nationalist law from a suite of racist legislation in the 1920s is the only thing keeping our rivers from being flooded by slave barges.
- kmeisthax 3y agoThe biggest reason why international shipping is dominated by foreign vessels is specifically because they're running slave barges. If you merely repealed the Jones Act, foreign vessels would wipe the floor with domestic shippers specifically because the foreign ones don't have to pay American wages or obey American safety laws. If your idea is to require foreign vessels follow all US regulations while doing domestic shipping, that would only fix part of the safety issue and none of the wage issue. Even if you wanted to require foreign vessels pay US minimum wage, what's to stop a vessel from, say, paying less for "international" vs. "US domestic" hours to offset that? To be clear, the current system isn't great. But we can't break it down unilaterally. We need treaties with specific nations where they agree to bring their minimum wage, safety standards, and other legal protections up to American standards[0]. Ships in the bloc can access each other's domestic shipping markets because nobody has an unfair advantage. [0] Western Europeans, stop laughing, I know our standards aren't much.