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Dockworkers at ports from Maine to Texas go on strike

150 points by mikeocool 2y ago

jsiepkes 2y ago
> The union wants a complete ban on automation. I understand that in a negotiation you always "over ask" so you have room to compromise and you have bargaining chips. But this just sounds absurd.
- MBlume 2y ago
  The strike emphasizes the importance of automation. We should be prioritizing the investments that will allow us to fire as many of them as possible as soon as possible.
  - Nathanba 2y ago
    Yeah... it's a pretty strong signal to send to the company owners. It's a direct threat to the company's ability to compete and therefore survive in exchange for maximum personal benefits. I guess it's probably mutual and the company squeezed them for maximum profit too but man.. This is not a fight that can be won unless the entire world stagnates at the current technological level forever.
    - treyd 2y ago
      The solution is to resolve the conflict, if the workers reaped the profits of the company, so that automation benefits them instead of being a threat.
      - SpicyLemonZest 2y ago
        The union has made it clear that they're not willing to entertain such discussions. They don't want any robot to perform any work which a human being has historically done. (https://www.ap.org/news-highlights/spotlights/2024/longshoremen-at-key-us-ports-threatening-to-strike-over-automation-and-pay/ https://www.ap.org/news-highlights/spotlights/2024/longshore...)
        waffleiron 2y ago
        >The union has made it clear that they're not willing to entertain such discussions. That's not the same discussion. I am sure they are more than willing to turn docks into worker co-ops, then automate so it's a benefit to them not a threat. But I am sure the shareholders and dock owners wouldn't want that.
        SpicyLemonZest 2y ago
        Right. I was discussing positions the union has actually taken and what their advocates have actually said. If you're looking to discuss wild hypotheticals about what you think they might support in some scenario that doesn't exist, more power to you, but I don't find such conversations productive.
        johnnyanmac 2y ago
        I find it productive. And I find it maddening that negotiations haven't seemingly entertained the idea of talks like "yes automation will come but we'll make sure you can pay your bills and transition". That would be the first topic in eastern countries. The west treating labor as a dog eat dog world is what lead to this in the first place.
        dialup_sounds 2y ago
        This leaves me scratching my head: > Daggett contends, though, that higher-paid longshoremen work up to 100 hours a week, most of it overtime, and sacrifice much of their family time in doing so. > “We do not believe that robotics should take over a human being’s job,” he said. “Especially a human being that’s historically performed that job.”
        eric-hu 2y ago
        You might be looking at the 100 hours thinking that’s grueling work. Meanwhile workers could be looking at that thinking it’s their AWS auto scaling for their family income. I have a friend doing electrical line work. He’s gone back and forth between IC work and management. ICs trend to get paid better, because of strong overtime compensation rules and there’s a queue of overtime work. Those overtime weeks sound rough though. 12+ hour work days working with heavy machinery and 10 Kv power lines.
    - snapcaster 2y ago
      Hence they're striking before it's possible to try to get the agreement right? I see what you mean on signaling but this seems like the correct play for them
  - Vegenoid 2y ago
    It's no wonder people fight the automation - there is no support to help them upskill or retrain. Although they are fighting a force that nobody has successfully stopped, it makes sense why they would do this when the response to "we don't want automation because it threatens our livelihoods" is "get that automation in place ASAP so we can get these people out of here".
  - archagon 2y ago
    Accordingly, it’s a great idea to strike before this becomes a viable option.
- fleabagmange 2y ago
  For context, the USMX countered with 50% over 6 years which still sounds high to my ears, having only received 5, 5, and 3% in the years prior. On top of this, the starting wage for an ILA member is 81k per year and it really starts to seem out of touch for the average American to witness. While I actually do have personal friends working as ILA members from my years living in a coastal port city, I’m having a hard time getting straight answers from his circle on social media. Just the usual political head talking points about “deserving a fair wage” and “corporate greed,” which, on paper seem reasonable but in the face of the numbers seem, again, out of touch. At a personal level I’m in an Appalachian town still grappling with storm aftermath spending the morning with trying to research if this will cause any material shortages that I need to attempt to acquire already scarce goods for - or if it will just be a penalty for imports. I see bananas are likely going be scarce but oh well, I can eat an apple instead.
  - hysan 2y ago
    > For context, the USMX countered with 50% over 6 years which still sounds high to my ears, having only received 5, 5, and 3% in the years prior. This is fully dependent on historical numbers. What I’ve learned about following the Boeing strike is that Boeing’s offers also looked very high. However, news came out that the workers had received almost no raises for far longer and that the offer doesn’t even bring the workers to match COL adjustments during those prior years. I would tread very carefully with reading the news around unions because media outlets will latch onto these big numbers because it catches audience’s eyes. Good reporting and adding context is work that modern media outlets will not do.
  - johnnyanmac 2y ago
    >countered with 50% over 6 years which still sounds high to my ears, having only received 5, 5, and 3% in the years prior. Sounds good to the ear, then you do the math and it turns into 2% raises every year. Probably not even keeping up with inflation for the 2020's. And Assuming they don't try to lay off a lot of that union somehow in those 6 years. But I get what you're saying about crabs in a bucket. This would all be low balls for tech, but dreams for many other workers.
dopamean 2y ago
I'm about as pro union as anyone I know. I'm not blind to the problems with unions but I do think that generally the benefits outweigh the costs. This situation has me pretty torn however. I specifically take issue with the demand for a complete ban on automation. This just seems unreasonable and anti progress. I understand that automation costs jobs and a union's primary responsibility is to protect the jobs of its members but what are we really supposed to do here? Continue with antiquated processes that affect an entire economy just to protect the jobs of a relatively small number of people? I get that that's unfortunate and perhaps a very serious problem for people working in that industry but what choice do we really have? I'm reminded of something a teacher said to me in high school about how one day many of my classmates and I would have jobs that didn't exist when he was a kid. Isn't that how this works? As time goes on some jobs go away and new jobs come about and there is some pain in the interim? I'm all for figuring out some way to ease that pain for the people in the transitional period but I don't know who's really responsible for that.
- sanswork 2y ago
  If you read the book the box they did the same when standard containers came in. The docks were forced to pay for like 5x the number of workers required because of Union agreements.
  - dustincoates 2y ago
    I'm reading that right now, and it's incredible the amount of rent seeking that went on. It was a system that wasn't great for anyone except those who got the bribes from people looking to work. (I also had a good laugh when they described "shape up," or the process of choosing workers from those who assembled for the day. It was horribly corrupt. And, of course, the term is now used as a software planning process.)
- dools 2y ago
  Yeah recently Rail Workers in Sydney struck and one of the things they objected to was driverless trains. It just makes them look like fucking idiots.
ghayes 2y ago
> “The ILA is fighting for respect, appreciation and fairness in a world in which corporations are dead set on replacing hard-working people with automation,” the statement said. “Robots do not pay taxes and they do not spend money in their communities.” A tale as old as Ned Ludd. I am interested to see how we reconcile the benefits of automation without leaving workers behind. Hopefully there are more cases similar to the creation of Microsoft Excel, where the automation tools largely helped the field grow.
- Mistletoe 2y ago
  This is a problem we will see over and over in the future. We can’t just create more bullshit jobs to give people busywork to do. We should have already been in the 10-15 hour work weeks era from previous automation and industrialization, but we’ve filled the time with nonsense and now both people in a home have to work. https://www.npr.org/2015/08/13/432122637/keynes-predicted-we-would-be-working-15-hour-weeks-why-was-he-so-wrong https://www.npr.org/2015/08/13/432122637/keynes-predicted-we...
cyberax 2y ago
[flagged]
- unethical_ban 2y ago
  You're next. Enjoy the breadline. This is a harbinger for a world where skilled workers can be replaced by amoral, skilled automatons.This isn't analogous to the cotton gin. Our world is getting turned upside down and the ownership class will be comfortable while domestic decay creeps over the rest of the country. It's a class war, and you're not Warren Buffet. Tax the rich, redistribute the wealth.
  - cyberax 2y ago
    > This is a harbinger for a world where skilled workers can be replaced by amoral, skilled automatons. And?
    - snapcaster 2y ago
      And we don't have any of the cultural, societal or economic infrastructure in place to ensure that it results in anything besides the top 0.01% capturing an increasing share of wealth. This will have horribly destabilizing effects on society and result in either violent revolution or a repressive dystopia depending on who wins
      - t-3 2y ago
        Violent revolution and regressive dystopia seem to be necessary impetuses (impeti?) for social progress throughout history. It would be nice if we could avoid them, but will that really be possible when there are so many vested interests supporting the status quo? It's hard to pull roots without disturbing the soil.
      - cyberax 2y ago
        That's because we're pretty far from that utopia where everything is replaced with automation.
cyberax 2y ago
I generally support unions. If a union cares about workers and makes sure they get a fair wage, I'm all for it. Nurse unions? Love you. UAW? Ditto. However, pretty much all maritime unions are just corrupt racketeers that need to be disbanded. For example, their union membership is closed, there is a literal lottery conducted when they have openings for apprenticeship. However, the members can give their position to their children upon retiring. This is not a labor organization. This is a literal mafia. Edit: and even with that, I don't really have issues if the union represents people who love their work and give it their all. But the US union ports are all at the bottom of the The Container Port Performance Index. And it's not even close when compared to the ultra-capitalist no-social-safety-net hellscape of... Europe? https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/099060324114539683/pdf/P17583313892300871be641a5ea7b90e0e6.pdf https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/0990603241145396...
- t-3 2y ago
  > a union cares about workers and makes sure they get a fair wage, I'm all for it ... UAW Uh, have you ever been a member or known a member? I haven't met many members who have positive feelings about the UAW leadership who are always blocking strikes and pushing sellout deals.
jmyeet 2y ago
There is a common trend that the more inelastic demand is for a particular good or service, the more devastating the profit motive is. Insulin, housing, electricity (eg [1]), health care in general and, yes, essential workers in logistics. We saw this in the 2022 railroad worker dispute and we're seeing it now with ports. So a myth that perpetuates around this sort of thing is that unions will bankrupt a company while the owners are the only ones taking a risk. None of this is true. Take, for example, the Big Three automakers and the 2008 GFC where the UAW took pay cuts and voluntarily gave up benefits (like the cost of living adjustment) in order to keep the automakers solvent, benefits I might add that they didn't get back until last year after striking. Did executive compensation go down? At all? People are their own worst enemies here. Many will be against the maritime union getting their demands yet when collective action benefits everyone, boht union and non-union workers [2]. So my default position is that I pretty much side with the union in 100% of these disputes (except for police unions, of course). So should you. And it shouldn't matter if you work a s-called blue collar job, work in an office or work for yourself. [1]: https://www.tiktok.com/@mrglobaltoo/video/7416024170225569054?lang=en https://www.tiktok.com/@mrglobaltoo/video/741602417022556905... [2]: https://www.workrisenetwork.org/working-knowledge/unions-raise-pay-nonunion-workers https://www.workrisenetwork.org/working-knowledge/unions-rai...
- gruez 2y ago
  >So my default position is that I pretty much side with the union in 100% of these disputes (except for police unions, of course). So should you. And it shouldn't matter if you work a s-called blue collar job, work in an office or work for yourself. So what's your take on this case in particular? Unions wanting to shut down automation entirely seems pretty bad. Why should we side with the union aside from some vague sense of "collective action benefits everyone"?
  - johnnyanmac 2y ago
    unions want to shut down automation because there's never been talks about how to make sure the replaced labor moves on properly after they are fired. I wouldn't vy for automation without some very specific stipulations on retraining at the minimum. Companies long since broke that social contract, so extremes need to be countered with extremes.
dools 2y ago
Anyone who is sympathetic to the cause of a "Just Transition" to a more automated, more technical, lower carbon economy, would do well to familiarise themselves with the federal job guarantee proposal: https://www.jobguarantee.org/ https://www.jobguarantee.org/ We should eliminate all involuntary unemployment, not just that caused by changes in technology or demography.
- Zarathustra30 2y ago
  Instead of giving people makework, we could move towards divorcing "livelihood" from "employment".
  - dools 2y ago
    > Instead of giving people makework Who suggested that? > we could move towards divorcing "livelihood" from "employment". Why would we do that?
  - snapcaster 2y ago
    Why would this be a good idea? I don't mean in the narrow sense of our current society etc. etc. but in general should't people have to contribute to society to get resources from society? this seems so anti social
    - Zarathustra30 2y ago
      If worker productivity keeps increasing, we may reach a point where it exceeds total labor required. If we keep livelyhood tied to employment, the only two options would be busywork or mass starvation.
      - dools 2y ago
        As Bill Mitchell once told me (in person) "Sure when all work is removed by automation, assuming we share the gains of productivity equally, a Job Guarantee automatically becomes a UBI".
  - 2y ago
DiscourseFan 2y ago
"History always repeats itself. First time as tragedy, second time as farce." Unions were hollowed out by neoliberalism, so much so that we forgot, entirely, why we let it happen. Of course, when the dream world of ultra-low interest rate venture capitalism began to collapse after '07, in its wake old ways of handling economic sluggishness rose: break the giant corporations, which are by nature uncompetitive, with union organizing.
- loudestdog 2y ago
  [flagged]
modeless 2y ago
I am surprised that they didn't delay this given the timing right before the election. Doesn't this seem like it could affect the outcome, if it actually hurts the economy and results in shortages?
- ruined 2y ago
  the union will use the election to demand intervention, the company will use the election to demand suppression.
- jnsaff2 2y ago
  Thats a feature not a bug in the plan. The union is effecting maximum leverage here.
  - modeless 2y ago
    Really? Seems to me that economic disruption under Biden would hurt Harris. Obviously the union wants Harris over Trump. They could very well tip the election against themselves. The only leverage the election gives them is against Biden, but they're not negotiating with Biden.
    - thephyber 2y ago
      Plot twist: Biden/Harris are no longer favorites of the union workers like Democrats were decades ago. Trump doesn’t seem to support unions (except that astroturfed “union” rally in Sept 2023), but union workers seem like they are equally likely to support Trump for his other policies.
    - jnsaff2 2y ago
      There is a very interesting podcast episode[0] (no transcript unfortunately) about this where they discuss this strike and find that this is a no win situation for Biden/democrats. They also talk about the automation demands .. which in this strike context involves stuff like automatically scanning container tags .. stuff which people are rather bad and error prone at. [0] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/audio/2024-09-27/will-there-be-a-strike-at-east-coast-ports-what-longshoremen-are-looking-for https://www.bloomberg.com/news/audio/2024-09-27/will-there-b...
thephyber 2y ago
3 notes: > Robots don’t pay taxes The point of automation isn’t to have 0 longshoremen / dock workers. It’s to increase throughput. Some mega ports in Europe and China are great examples of what a modern, efficient port could look like. The entire country benefits from not having each port union strategically prevent high throughput. 2 - According to a news podcast, the longshoremen at West Coast ports have stated they will refuse to unload ships which are diverted from striking East Coast ports. While this is beneficial for union solidarity and for union leverage, it will cause lots of pain for everyone else in the country/economy. 3 - The timing is interesting. Usually strikes happen only as negotiations break down after existing contracts expire, but this is clearly going to affect the election.
- serial_dev 2y ago
  People care more about their immediate social circle, so to achieve any kind of success, unions will need to hold out even if someone doesn’t get their avocados or TV. I tend to see it as ruling class propaganda in action, when a fellow poor or middle class person expresses their wish to improve their situation or else they won’t work, the shaming and blaming start immediately.
  - thephyber 2y ago
    I’m not sure how to interpret this: > I tend to see it as ruling class propaganda in action, when a fellow poor or middle class person expresses their wish to improve their situation or else they won’t work, the shaming and blaming start immediately. I’m fine with supporting unions and their collective bargaining to the extent it benefits groups larger than just the union. If the negotiations benefit the port, the country/economy, or improve the experience of many consumers downstream of the port, I’ll support their efforts. However, I see the longshoremen claiming to want 0 automation. I see them trying to negotiate a contract now to get some profit sharing from a once-in-a-century event which led to some of the ports/shipping companies charging massive premiums (those premiums are gone now, BTW). I’m not inclined to support a union if the opening bids for negotiations do not appear to help anyone outside of the union. I look at the massive US spending bills which were designed to improve US infrastructure but we can’t get modern ports because one group of self-interested people figured out how to use massive leverage at a specific time. And I do care who wins the next election. I don’t expect a union to ignore some of their best leverage just because there is a significant election a month away, but I just might hold it against those union members if I perceive it tilts the election away from my preferred candidate.
lifeisstillgood 2y ago
Please stop seeing this as some “unions are hurting us all” lens - this is bigger. The biggest and most important global economic act was during Covid worldwide governments printed trillions with a T of dollars, euros and yens which ended up in the pockets of those with wealth. And the end result is that there is trillions more money hanging around trying to buy the same amount of goods / real estate / labour. That’s inflation and it has been mega high - I mean since 2018 UK CPI has been nearly 40% - and I have basically had a 40% pay cut So has everyone. And unions are doing the right thing - giving their members a fair share of the increased amount of dollars Finally MMT suggests of course what governments should do is tax back the increased trillions but without that point of view there is just a lot of pain in the system Edit: clarity
- gruez 2y ago
  >And the end result is that there is trillions more money hanging around trying to buy the same amount of goods / real estate / labour. That’s inflation and it has been mega high - I mean since 2018 UK CPI has been nearly 40% - and I have basically had a 40% pay cut >So has everyone. I can't speak to your specific situation, but on average "everyone" did not get a "40% pay cut". If anything, real (ie. inflation adjusted) wages are slightly up since pre-pandemic levels. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q
  - lifeisstillgood 2y ago
    I’m sorry - without looking at the Feds graphs, are you saying that most workers, he’ll most HNers have had a pay rise of over 30% in the past five years ? If more than 1 in 10 of HNers on this thread have had annual pay rises of 5% each year every year since 2019 Inwill eat my hat
    - SpicyLemonZest 2y ago
      Yes. The statistics show (https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881500Q https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881500Q) that median wages are up 28% since Q1 2019. Note that this is less true of the typical HN crowd, since managerial and professional wages are only up 20% (https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LEU0254631400Q https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LEU0254631400Q).
zooq_ai 2y ago
Dockworkers abusing their monopoly powers and raising prices is price gouging?
blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
Unions are monopolies and I don’t see how the current system makes sense. Workers should be able to organize and choose to strike, but others should be able to work and compete with unions without joining them. Oh and break up the biggest corporations so there is more competition for them too. And then let it all just work itself out.
- moshegramovsky 2y ago
  A union is a business formed by workers who collectively negotiate an exclusive contract to provide labor to another business. In this case, both the union and the port take advantage of certain strategic advantages granted to them by geography. The port has an advantage because it's in a fixed location with favorable features like a good harbor and nearby rail lines. The union has an advantage because the port needs workers who live close. It's perfectly natural to form these types of agreements - the port is a business trying to captures the market for people shipping goods to the area, and the union is a business trying to provide the labor required to do so. When you say that others should be able to work and compete with unions without joining them, that's a moral position, not a legal position. (And, to be clear, it's not a bad position at all!) The legal position is that the contract will be exclusive, and both parties are agreeing to it. Labor unions exist because people don't get what they deserve. They get what they negotiate.
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  >And then let it all just work itself out. Monopolies are the endgoal of "work itself out". Conway's Game of Life demonstrates this elegantly (and there's so many visualizations of it to fit your fancy). >Workers should be able to organize and choose to strike, but others should be able to work and compete with unions without joining them. due to the prisoner's dilemma this never really works out. You really need almost everyone behind a union to make it work.
AmVess 2y ago
Half of these striking workers make $250k a year or more. They want a 77% increase over 6 years on top of that. They also want a ban on automation, which simply means they will have a perpetual lock on being able to hold our economy hostage. Fully or nearly fully automated ports are the future, and that future is happening in China and EU right now. Obscene demands such as theirs will simply hasten the demise of those jobs they are seeking to protect.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- archagon 2y ago
  I doubt the ports will survive without labor if they wish to wait for full automation.
- VerminOctopus1 2y ago
  Is this accurate? I thought wages were between 20 and 40 hourly.
  - t-3 2y ago
    It should be ~40/hr for East Coast, but will easily hit six figures for senior positions or with plenty of OT. The numbers OP is citing are probably about right for West Coast dockworkers from the numbers I've seen. IIUC, part of the reason for the striking is due to that disparity between east and west.
  - johnnyanmac 2y ago
    You're both right. Base salary is around 20-40. Overtime work can put it well into the 6 figures, though. So I wonder if the wages will also help relieve their hours. people making 200k must be doing 70 hours on average.
dang 2y ago
Recent and related: US East and Gulf coast ports face shutdown as union announces intent to strike - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41693001 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41693001 - Sept 2024 (99 comments)
rasz 2y ago
This is how future looks like https://www.wired.com/story/rotterdam-port-ships-automation/ https://www.wired.com/story/rotterdam-port-ships-automation/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NULoelb7PzA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NULoelb7PzA tldr: robotic electric tractors, batteries swapped automatically, robotic cranes union also protested https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_2ZlT_PePQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_2ZlT_PePQ
alkonaut 2y ago
Automation creates value. It gets more work done with less. The response to that should be having an argument about how that value is shared in society. You can't stop progress like that, it's a ridiculous stance. Unions should demand retraining instead of replacement, good conditions for those who are made redundant and so on. Not "stopping the automation".
- aziaziazi 2y ago
  I think you got lost between « how the value is shared » and « retraining ». Where does the shared value did go ? I ask because sharing is the only way for a society to improve robustness and stability.
  - alkonaut 2y ago
    I think employment security is one such measure. If employers have to retrain rather than replace, that would help. Some of the value from effectivization is then turned into training. And striking for better job security would make a lot more sense than striking in protest of automation. In this case, a lot of the value will be shared to society via lower prices of the products passing through the port. Another of course would be higher corporate taxes.
    - johnnyanmac 2y ago
      >In this case, a lot of the value will be shared to society via lower prices of the products passing through the port. they say this everytime, and I feel 99% of the time they just pocket the profits instead of lowering the prices. Unless a new disruptor comes up then suddenly they feel generous.
Yeul 2y ago
Interesting the number of strikes in my euro socialist country can be counted on one hand every year. You'd have to go back a very long time indeed for a harbour strike.
infecto 2y ago
I have always seen dockworkers unions as some of the most corrupt and do not position themselves well. I am guessing they have position but this was the exact reasons docks like the Oakland dock died. Resistance to the technological innovation of cargo containers.
speeder 2y ago
According to what I've been reading online the most insane requeriment they have is the "touch" fees, that seemly are the culprit for USA need of 1.2 trillion law to fix roads. In other countries after the load arrives on the port, it is distributed to smaller ports, and then to trucks and trains. In USA seemly every time the load ends on a crane, a "touch" fee must be paid because of the union. As result they just take the containers and crane them straight into trucks, and then the trucks drive around with the full containers, ruining the roads. Because for the port owners, this is cheaper, they pay less "touch" fees, and it is the taxpayer that foot the bill for the ruined roads, not them.
anonfornoreason 2y ago
Quite the dichotomy we have in tech. "Eh, that's progress" in one conversation, and "I can't believe they would vote against their own interests".

150 points by mikeocool 2y ago

> The union wants a complete ban on automation. I understand that in a negotiation you always "over ask" so you have room to compromise and you have bargaining chips. But this just sounds absurd.

MBlume 2y ago
The strike emphasizes the importance of automation. We should be prioritizing the investments that will allow us to fire as many of them as possible as soon as possible.
- Nathanba 2y ago
  Yeah... it's a pretty strong signal to send to the company owners. It's a direct threat to the company's ability to compete and therefore survive in exchange for maximum personal benefits. I guess it's probably mutual and the company squeezed them for maximum profit too but man.. This is not a fight that can be won unless the entire world stagnates at the current technological level forever.
  - treyd 2y ago
    The solution is to resolve the conflict, if the workers reaped the profits of the company, so that automation benefits them instead of being a threat.
    - SpicyLemonZest 2y ago
      The union has made it clear that they're not willing to entertain such discussions. They don't want any robot to perform any work which a human being has historically done. (https://www.ap.org/news-highlights/spotlights/2024/longshoremen-at-key-us-ports-threatening-to-strike-over-automation-and-pay/ https://www.ap.org/news-highlights/spotlights/2024/longshore...)
      - waffleiron 2y ago
        >The union has made it clear that they're not willing to entertain such discussions. That's not the same discussion. I am sure they are more than willing to turn docks into worker co-ops, then automate so it's a benefit to them not a threat. But I am sure the shareholders and dock owners wouldn't want that.
        SpicyLemonZest 2y ago
        Right. I was discussing positions the union has actually taken and what their advocates have actually said. If you're looking to discuss wild hypotheticals about what you think they might support in some scenario that doesn't exist, more power to you, but I don't find such conversations productive.
        johnnyanmac 2y ago
        I find it productive. And I find it maddening that negotiations haven't seemingly entertained the idea of talks like "yes automation will come but we'll make sure you can pay your bills and transition". That would be the first topic in eastern countries. The west treating labor as a dog eat dog world is what lead to this in the first place.
      - dialup_sounds 2y ago
        This leaves me scratching my head: > Daggett contends, though, that higher-paid longshoremen work up to 100 hours a week, most of it overtime, and sacrifice much of their family time in doing so. > “We do not believe that robotics should take over a human being’s job,” he said. “Especially a human being that’s historically performed that job.”
        eric-hu 2y ago
        You might be looking at the 100 hours thinking that’s grueling work. Meanwhile workers could be looking at that thinking it’s their AWS auto scaling for their family income. I have a friend doing electrical line work. He’s gone back and forth between IC work and management. ICs trend to get paid better, because of strong overtime compensation rules and there’s a queue of overtime work. Those overtime weeks sound rough though. 12+ hour work days working with heavy machinery and 10 Kv power lines.
  - snapcaster 2y ago
    Hence they're striking before it's possible to try to get the agreement right? I see what you mean on signaling but this seems like the correct play for them
- Vegenoid 2y ago
  It's no wonder people fight the automation - there is no support to help them upskill or retrain. Although they are fighting a force that nobody has successfully stopped, it makes sense why they would do this when the response to "we don't want automation because it threatens our livelihoods" is "get that automation in place ASAP so we can get these people out of here".
- archagon 2y ago
  Accordingly, it’s a great idea to strike before this becomes a viable option.
fleabagmange 2y ago
For context, the USMX countered with 50% over 6 years which still sounds high to my ears, having only received 5, 5, and 3% in the years prior. On top of this, the starting wage for an ILA member is 81k per year and it really starts to seem out of touch for the average American to witness. While I actually do have personal friends working as ILA members from my years living in a coastal port city, I’m having a hard time getting straight answers from his circle on social media. Just the usual political head talking points about “deserving a fair wage” and “corporate greed,” which, on paper seem reasonable but in the face of the numbers seem, again, out of touch. At a personal level I’m in an Appalachian town still grappling with storm aftermath spending the morning with trying to research if this will cause any material shortages that I need to attempt to acquire already scarce goods for - or if it will just be a penalty for imports. I see bananas are likely going be scarce but oh well, I can eat an apple instead.
- hysan 2y ago
  > For context, the USMX countered with 50% over 6 years which still sounds high to my ears, having only received 5, 5, and 3% in the years prior. This is fully dependent on historical numbers. What I’ve learned about following the Boeing strike is that Boeing’s offers also looked very high. However, news came out that the workers had received almost no raises for far longer and that the offer doesn’t even bring the workers to match COL adjustments during those prior years. I would tread very carefully with reading the news around unions because media outlets will latch onto these big numbers because it catches audience’s eyes. Good reporting and adding context is work that modern media outlets will not do.
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  >countered with 50% over 6 years which still sounds high to my ears, having only received 5, 5, and 3% in the years prior. Sounds good to the ear, then you do the math and it turns into 2% raises every year. Probably not even keeping up with inflation for the 2020's. And Assuming they don't try to lay off a lot of that union somehow in those 6 years. But I get what you're saying about crabs in a bucket. This would all be low balls for tech, but dreams for many other workers.

dopamean 2y ago

I'm about as pro union as anyone I know. I'm not blind to the problems with unions but I do think that generally the benefits outweigh the costs. This situation has me pretty torn however. I specifically take issue with the demand for a complete ban on automation. This just seems unreasonable and anti progress. I understand that automation costs jobs and a union's primary responsibility is to protect the jobs of its members but what are we really supposed to do here? Continue with antiquated processes that affect an entire economy just to protect the jobs of a relatively small number of people? I get that that's unfortunate and perhaps a very serious problem for people working in that industry but what choice do we really have? I'm reminded of something a teacher said to me in high school about how one day many of my classmates and I would have jobs that didn't exist when he was a kid. Isn't that how this works? As time goes on some jobs go away and new jobs come about and there is some pain in the interim? I'm all for figuring out some way to ease that pain for the people in the transitional period but I don't know who's really responsible for that.

sanswork 2y ago
If you read the book the box they did the same when standard containers came in. The docks were forced to pay for like 5x the number of workers required because of Union agreements.
- dustincoates 2y ago
  I'm reading that right now, and it's incredible the amount of rent seeking that went on. It was a system that wasn't great for anyone except those who got the bribes from people looking to work. (I also had a good laugh when they described "shape up," or the process of choosing workers from those who assembled for the day. It was horribly corrupt. And, of course, the term is now used as a software planning process.)
dools 2y ago
Yeah recently Rail Workers in Sydney struck and one of the things they objected to was driverless trains. It just makes them look like fucking idiots.

ghayes 2y ago

> “The ILA is fighting for respect, appreciation and fairness in a world in which corporations are dead set on replacing hard-working people with automation,” the statement said. “Robots do not pay taxes and they do not spend money in their communities.” A tale as old as Ned Ludd. I am interested to see how we reconcile the benefits of automation without leaving workers behind. Hopefully there are more cases similar to the creation of Microsoft Excel, where the automation tools largely helped the field grow.

Mistletoe 2y ago
This is a problem we will see over and over in the future. We can’t just create more bullshit jobs to give people busywork to do. We should have already been in the 10-15 hour work weeks era from previous automation and industrialization, but we’ve filled the time with nonsense and now both people in a home have to work. https://www.npr.org/2015/08/13/432122637/keynes-predicted-we-would-be-working-15-hour-weeks-why-was-he-so-wrong https://www.npr.org/2015/08/13/432122637/keynes-predicted-we...

cyberax 2y ago

[flagged]

unethical_ban 2y ago
You're next. Enjoy the breadline. This is a harbinger for a world where skilled workers can be replaced by amoral, skilled automatons.This isn't analogous to the cotton gin. Our world is getting turned upside down and the ownership class will be comfortable while domestic decay creeps over the rest of the country. It's a class war, and you're not Warren Buffet. Tax the rich, redistribute the wealth.
- cyberax 2y ago
  > This is a harbinger for a world where skilled workers can be replaced by amoral, skilled automatons. And?
  - snapcaster 2y ago
    And we don't have any of the cultural, societal or economic infrastructure in place to ensure that it results in anything besides the top 0.01% capturing an increasing share of wealth. This will have horribly destabilizing effects on society and result in either violent revolution or a repressive dystopia depending on who wins
    - t-3 2y ago
      Violent revolution and regressive dystopia seem to be necessary impetuses (impeti?) for social progress throughout history. It would be nice if we could avoid them, but will that really be possible when there are so many vested interests supporting the status quo? It's hard to pull roots without disturbing the soil.
    - cyberax 2y ago
      That's because we're pretty far from that utopia where everything is replaced with automation.

cyberax 2y ago

I generally support unions. If a union cares about workers and makes sure they get a fair wage, I'm all for it. Nurse unions? Love you. UAW? Ditto. However, pretty much all maritime unions are just corrupt racketeers that need to be disbanded. For example, their union membership is closed, there is a literal lottery conducted when they have openings for apprenticeship. However, the members can give their position to their children upon retiring. This is not a labor organization. This is a literal mafia. Edit: and even with that, I don't really have issues if the union represents people who love their work and give it their all. But the US union ports are all at the bottom of the The Container Port Performance Index. And it's not even close when compared to the ultra-capitalist no-social-safety-net hellscape of... Europe? https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/099060324114539683/pdf/P17583313892300871be641a5ea7b90e0e6.pdf https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/0990603241145396...

t-3 2y ago
> a union cares about workers and makes sure they get a fair wage, I'm all for it ... UAW Uh, have you ever been a member or known a member? I haven't met many members who have positive feelings about the UAW leadership who are always blocking strikes and pushing sellout deals.

jmyeet 2y ago

There is a common trend that the more inelastic demand is for a particular good or service, the more devastating the profit motive is. Insulin, housing, electricity (eg [1]), health care in general and, yes, essential workers in logistics. We saw this in the 2022 railroad worker dispute and we're seeing it now with ports. So a myth that perpetuates around this sort of thing is that unions will bankrupt a company while the owners are the only ones taking a risk. None of this is true. Take, for example, the Big Three automakers and the 2008 GFC where the UAW took pay cuts and voluntarily gave up benefits (like the cost of living adjustment) in order to keep the automakers solvent, benefits I might add that they didn't get back until last year after striking. Did executive compensation go down? At all? People are their own worst enemies here. Many will be against the maritime union getting their demands yet when collective action benefits everyone, boht union and non-union workers [2]. So my default position is that I pretty much side with the union in 100% of these disputes (except for police unions, of course). So should you. And it shouldn't matter if you work a s-called blue collar job, work in an office or work for yourself. [1]: https://www.tiktok.com/@mrglobaltoo/video/7416024170225569054?lang=en https://www.tiktok.com/@mrglobaltoo/video/741602417022556905... [2]: https://www.workrisenetwork.org/working-knowledge/unions-raise-pay-nonunion-workers https://www.workrisenetwork.org/working-knowledge/unions-rai...

gruez 2y ago
>So my default position is that I pretty much side with the union in 100% of these disputes (except for police unions, of course). So should you. And it shouldn't matter if you work a s-called blue collar job, work in an office or work for yourself. So what's your take on this case in particular? Unions wanting to shut down automation entirely seems pretty bad. Why should we side with the union aside from some vague sense of "collective action benefits everyone"?
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  unions want to shut down automation because there's never been talks about how to make sure the replaced labor moves on properly after they are fired. I wouldn't vy for automation without some very specific stipulations on retraining at the minimum. Companies long since broke that social contract, so extremes need to be countered with extremes.

dools 2y ago

Anyone who is sympathetic to the cause of a "Just Transition" to a more automated, more technical, lower carbon economy, would do well to familiarise themselves with the federal job guarantee proposal: https://www.jobguarantee.org/ https://www.jobguarantee.org/ We should eliminate all involuntary unemployment, not just that caused by changes in technology or demography.

Zarathustra30 2y ago
Instead of giving people makework, we could move towards divorcing "livelihood" from "employment".
- dools 2y ago
  > Instead of giving people makework Who suggested that? > we could move towards divorcing "livelihood" from "employment". Why would we do that?
- snapcaster 2y ago
  Why would this be a good idea? I don't mean in the narrow sense of our current society etc. etc. but in general should't people have to contribute to society to get resources from society? this seems so anti social
  - Zarathustra30 2y ago
    If worker productivity keeps increasing, we may reach a point where it exceeds total labor required. If we keep livelyhood tied to employment, the only two options would be busywork or mass starvation.
    - dools 2y ago
      As Bill Mitchell once told me (in person) "Sure when all work is removed by automation, assuming we share the gains of productivity equally, a Job Guarantee automatically becomes a UBI".
- 2y ago

DiscourseFan 2y ago

"History always repeats itself. First time as tragedy, second time as farce." Unions were hollowed out by neoliberalism, so much so that we forgot, entirely, why we let it happen. Of course, when the dream world of ultra-low interest rate venture capitalism began to collapse after '07, in its wake old ways of handling economic sluggishness rose: break the giant corporations, which are by nature uncompetitive, with union organizing.

loudestdog 2y ago
[flagged]

modeless 2y ago

I am surprised that they didn't delay this given the timing right before the election. Doesn't this seem like it could affect the outcome, if it actually hurts the economy and results in shortages?

ruined 2y ago
the union will use the election to demand intervention, the company will use the election to demand suppression.
jnsaff2 2y ago
Thats a feature not a bug in the plan. The union is effecting maximum leverage here.
- modeless 2y ago
  Really? Seems to me that economic disruption under Biden would hurt Harris. Obviously the union wants Harris over Trump. They could very well tip the election against themselves. The only leverage the election gives them is against Biden, but they're not negotiating with Biden.
  - thephyber 2y ago
    Plot twist: Biden/Harris are no longer favorites of the union workers like Democrats were decades ago. Trump doesn’t seem to support unions (except that astroturfed “union” rally in Sept 2023), but union workers seem like they are equally likely to support Trump for his other policies.
  - jnsaff2 2y ago
    There is a very interesting podcast episode[0] (no transcript unfortunately) about this where they discuss this strike and find that this is a no win situation for Biden/democrats. They also talk about the automation demands .. which in this strike context involves stuff like automatically scanning container tags .. stuff which people are rather bad and error prone at. [0] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/audio/2024-09-27/will-there-be-a-strike-at-east-coast-ports-what-longshoremen-are-looking-for https://www.bloomberg.com/news/audio/2024-09-27/will-there-b...

thephyber 2y ago

3 notes: > Robots don’t pay taxes The point of automation isn’t to have 0 longshoremen / dock workers. It’s to increase throughput. Some mega ports in Europe and China are great examples of what a modern, efficient port could look like. The entire country benefits from not having each port union strategically prevent high throughput. 2 - According to a news podcast, the longshoremen at West Coast ports have stated they will refuse to unload ships which are diverted from striking East Coast ports. While this is beneficial for union solidarity and for union leverage, it will cause lots of pain for everyone else in the country/economy. 3 - The timing is interesting. Usually strikes happen only as negotiations break down after existing contracts expire, but this is clearly going to affect the election.

serial_dev 2y ago
People care more about their immediate social circle, so to achieve any kind of success, unions will need to hold out even if someone doesn’t get their avocados or TV. I tend to see it as ruling class propaganda in action, when a fellow poor or middle class person expresses their wish to improve their situation or else they won’t work, the shaming and blaming start immediately.
- thephyber 2y ago
  I’m not sure how to interpret this: > I tend to see it as ruling class propaganda in action, when a fellow poor or middle class person expresses their wish to improve their situation or else they won’t work, the shaming and blaming start immediately. I’m fine with supporting unions and their collective bargaining to the extent it benefits groups larger than just the union. If the negotiations benefit the port, the country/economy, or improve the experience of many consumers downstream of the port, I’ll support their efforts. However, I see the longshoremen claiming to want 0 automation. I see them trying to negotiate a contract now to get some profit sharing from a once-in-a-century event which led to some of the ports/shipping companies charging massive premiums (those premiums are gone now, BTW). I’m not inclined to support a union if the opening bids for negotiations do not appear to help anyone outside of the union. I look at the massive US spending bills which were designed to improve US infrastructure but we can’t get modern ports because one group of self-interested people figured out how to use massive leverage at a specific time. And I do care who wins the next election. I don’t expect a union to ignore some of their best leverage just because there is a significant election a month away, but I just might hold it against those union members if I perceive it tilts the election away from my preferred candidate.

lifeisstillgood 2y ago

Please stop seeing this as some “unions are hurting us all” lens - this is bigger. The biggest and most important global economic act was during Covid worldwide governments printed trillions with a T of dollars, euros and yens which ended up in the pockets of those with wealth. And the end result is that there is trillions more money hanging around trying to buy the same amount of goods / real estate / labour. That’s inflation and it has been mega high - I mean since 2018 UK CPI has been nearly 40% - and I have basically had a 40% pay cut So has everyone. And unions are doing the right thing - giving their members a fair share of the increased amount of dollars Finally MMT suggests of course what governments should do is tax back the increased trillions but without that point of view there is just a lot of pain in the system Edit: clarity

gruez 2y ago
>And the end result is that there is trillions more money hanging around trying to buy the same amount of goods / real estate / labour. That’s inflation and it has been mega high - I mean since 2018 UK CPI has been nearly 40% - and I have basically had a 40% pay cut >So has everyone. I can't speak to your specific situation, but on average "everyone" did not get a "40% pay cut". If anything, real (ie. inflation adjusted) wages are slightly up since pre-pandemic levels. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q
- lifeisstillgood 2y ago
  I’m sorry - without looking at the Feds graphs, are you saying that most workers, he’ll most HNers have had a pay rise of over 30% in the past five years ? If more than 1 in 10 of HNers on this thread have had annual pay rises of 5% each year every year since 2019 Inwill eat my hat
  - SpicyLemonZest 2y ago
    Yes. The statistics show (https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881500Q https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881500Q) that median wages are up 28% since Q1 2019. Note that this is less true of the typical HN crowd, since managerial and professional wages are only up 20% (https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LEU0254631400Q https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LEU0254631400Q).

zooq_ai 2y ago

Dockworkers abusing their monopoly powers and raising prices is price gouging?

blackeyeblitzar 2y ago

Unions are monopolies and I don’t see how the current system makes sense. Workers should be able to organize and choose to strike, but others should be able to work and compete with unions without joining them. Oh and break up the biggest corporations so there is more competition for them too. And then let it all just work itself out.

moshegramovsky 2y ago
A union is a business formed by workers who collectively negotiate an exclusive contract to provide labor to another business. In this case, both the union and the port take advantage of certain strategic advantages granted to them by geography. The port has an advantage because it's in a fixed location with favorable features like a good harbor and nearby rail lines. The union has an advantage because the port needs workers who live close. It's perfectly natural to form these types of agreements - the port is a business trying to captures the market for people shipping goods to the area, and the union is a business trying to provide the labor required to do so. When you say that others should be able to work and compete with unions without joining them, that's a moral position, not a legal position. (And, to be clear, it's not a bad position at all!) The legal position is that the contract will be exclusive, and both parties are agreeing to it. Labor unions exist because people don't get what they deserve. They get what they negotiate.
johnnyanmac 2y ago
>And then let it all just work itself out. Monopolies are the endgoal of "work itself out". Conway's Game of Life demonstrates this elegantly (and there's so many visualizations of it to fit your fancy). >Workers should be able to organize and choose to strike, but others should be able to work and compete with unions without joining them. due to the prisoner's dilemma this never really works out. You really need almost everyone behind a union to make it work.

AmVess 2y ago

Half of these striking workers make $250k a year or more. They want a 77% increase over 6 years on top of that. They also want a ban on automation, which simply means they will have a perpetual lock on being able to hold our economy hostage. Fully or nearly fully automated ports are the future, and that future is happening in China and EU right now. Obscene demands such as theirs will simply hasten the demise of those jobs they are seeking to protect.

deleted 2y ago
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archagon 2y ago
I doubt the ports will survive without labor if they wish to wait for full automation.
VerminOctopus1 2y ago
Is this accurate? I thought wages were between 20 and 40 hourly.
- t-3 2y ago
  It should be ~40/hr for East Coast, but will easily hit six figures for senior positions or with plenty of OT. The numbers OP is citing are probably about right for West Coast dockworkers from the numbers I've seen. IIUC, part of the reason for the striking is due to that disparity between east and west.
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  You're both right. Base salary is around 20-40. Overtime work can put it well into the 6 figures, though. So I wonder if the wages will also help relieve their hours. people making 200k must be doing 70 hours on average.

dang 2y ago

Recent and related: US East and Gulf coast ports face shutdown as union announces intent to strike - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41693001 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41693001 - Sept 2024 (99 comments)

rasz 2y ago

This is how future looks like https://www.wired.com/story/rotterdam-port-ships-automation/ https://www.wired.com/story/rotterdam-port-ships-automation/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NULoelb7PzA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NULoelb7PzA tldr: robotic electric tractors, batteries swapped automatically, robotic cranes union also protested https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_2ZlT_PePQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_2ZlT_PePQ

alkonaut 2y ago

Automation creates value. It gets more work done with less. The response to that should be having an argument about how that value is shared in society. You can't stop progress like that, it's a ridiculous stance. Unions should demand retraining instead of replacement, good conditions for those who are made redundant and so on. Not "stopping the automation".

aziaziazi 2y ago
I think you got lost between « how the value is shared » and « retraining ». Where does the shared value did go ? I ask because sharing is the only way for a society to improve robustness and stability.
- alkonaut 2y ago
  I think employment security is one such measure. If employers have to retrain rather than replace, that would help. Some of the value from effectivization is then turned into training. And striking for better job security would make a lot more sense than striking in protest of automation. In this case, a lot of the value will be shared to society via lower prices of the products passing through the port. Another of course would be higher corporate taxes.
  - johnnyanmac 2y ago
    >In this case, a lot of the value will be shared to society via lower prices of the products passing through the port. they say this everytime, and I feel 99% of the time they just pocket the profits instead of lowering the prices. Unless a new disruptor comes up then suddenly they feel generous.

Yeul 2y ago

Interesting the number of strikes in my euro socialist country can be counted on one hand every year. You'd have to go back a very long time indeed for a harbour strike.

infecto 2y ago

I have always seen dockworkers unions as some of the most corrupt and do not position themselves well. I am guessing they have position but this was the exact reasons docks like the Oakland dock died. Resistance to the technological innovation of cargo containers.

speeder 2y ago

According to what I've been reading online the most insane requeriment they have is the "touch" fees, that seemly are the culprit for USA need of 1.2 trillion law to fix roads. In other countries after the load arrives on the port, it is distributed to smaller ports, and then to trucks and trains. In USA seemly every time the load ends on a crane, a "touch" fee must be paid because of the union. As result they just take the containers and crane them straight into trucks, and then the trucks drive around with the full containers, ruining the roads. Because for the port owners, this is cheaper, they pay less "touch" fees, and it is the taxpayer that foot the bill for the ruined roads, not them.

anonfornoreason 2y ago

Quite the dichotomy we have in tech. "Eh, that's progress" in one conversation, and "I can't believe they would vote against their own interests".