9 ms·

East and Gulf Coast ports strike

typeofhuman 2y ago
Fill your gas tank (cans if you have them). Buy some stock items (water, canned food, paper products).
- AnimalMuppet 2y ago
  Why my gas tank? Does this strike affect Gulf Port imports of petroleum? (And don't at least some US refineries depend on imported oil to get their blend right?) Why water? I know that some brands of water are imported, but most non-name-brand waters are domestic, aren't they? Paper products... yeah, I learned about that during Covid...
  - b112 2y ago
    TP is dometic, water is weird, tap water is perfectly safe in US/Canadian cities, outside of rare issues. People with carbon filters might want to stock up, but that's flavour only. Gas? I bet gas will go up from this, even if there is no reason.
  - newsclues 2y ago
    Because everything is globalized and almost every supply chain has a part from somewhere else. The pumps in the gas stations eventually break and need repair
    - rtkwe 2y ago
      This is only East and Gulf Coast ports there will still be a myriad of ways to get critical equipment and parts into the country.
      - newsclues 2y ago
        Globalized, means there may be critical components that need to be exported, so a forgone factory can send back some other critical part. Not everything can easily be shipped via rail to ship from another port or exported by air.
  - rtkwe 2y ago
    The US alone almost produces enough crude oil for it's own consumption, it's only net -1 million barrels a day and that's not including production from Canadian oil fields. Total we're about 1.5m b/d net exporters of crude oil these days. The TP disruption was, in my opinion, more about a major shift in consumption patterns rather than a supply disruption. When offices closed half of people's waking (ie pooping) hours shifted back to the home to the small individual rolls instead of the office sized rolls. That plus some panic buying and hoarding/scalping explains the whole thing as far as I know.
- dialup_sounds 2y ago
  If you feel the need to stockpile, these are all the things least affected by this strike.
diggan 2y ago
I'm very happy to see the working class in the US is slowly waking up to the reality that they posses more power than they think, when they work together. It says it's their first strike since 1977, must have been pretty horrible conditions for them to strike after so long of not having to. It's sad that the average person will be affected by the supply chain shock that will happen, but hopefully the corporations involved realize it's better to have happy workers than no business at all. Even more sad, many people will jump to blame the striking workers rather than the corporations...
- stego-tech 2y ago
  Smart people who are also wealthy understand their best play is to take their money and nope out of the game entirely, essentially becoming gut bacteria to a healthy biome. What we’re seeing now is the logical and expected response to unchecked wealth accumulation and corporate exploitation of the past hundred years, which has rotted multiple systems (economic, political, environmental, social, financial) to the point they teeter on collapse. Collective action of the masses against the elite is essentially an immune response of the organism against an infection. If you’re a leader and you don’t want a strike, the cheapest solution is to just pay your workers well and enable them to live a healthy, thriving life for themselves. Workers that feel valued and respected are less likely to organize, and in turn less likely to strike or make unreasonable demands. Paying everyone a thriving wage and benefits is a hell of a lot cheaper than the cost of that anti-labor law firm and resulting lawsuits.
- typeofhuman 2y ago
  Yep. The blue collar workers of the US get demeaned and mocked at a large scale in the US. They are the functioning backbone of our country and without them everything stops. They're asking for a reasonable salary and limits on automation. Seems reasonable on the surface. It's striking to see this event juxtaposed with the college-class demanding student loan bailouts for their worthless degrees.
  - sanxiyn 2y ago
    Limits on automation do not seem reasonable to me.
pg_bot 2y ago
From a national security and economic perspective we need to automate the ports.
- diggan 2y ago
  How does this affect national security? Seems the union already made exceptions for Military cargo and other related transit. > “We continue our pledge to never let our brave American troops down for their valour and service and we will proudly continue to work all military shipments beyond October 1st, even if we are engaged in a strike.” https://ilaunion.org/ila-will-maintain-pledge-to-handle-military-cargo-during-strike-passenger-cruise-ships-to-be-unaffected-by-10-1-strike/ https://ilaunion.org/ila-will-maintain-pledge-to-handle-mili... Economically, there is a easy and suitable way of reducing all strikes across the country, rather than just focusing on the ports. Pay people a wage they can live on, provide with, and people won't have to strike.
  - gruez 2y ago
    >Economically, there is a easy and suitable way of reducing all strikes across the country, rather than just focusing on the ports. Pay people a wage they can live on, provide with, and people won't have to strike. Except the union isn't only asking for a 77% pay raise over 6 years, they're also want a "complete ban on automation"[1] [1] https://apnews.com/article/port-strike-ila-dockworkers-begins-e5468e760f46a64e4322d1702beb1f72 https://apnews.com/article/port-strike-ila-dockworkers-begin...
    - diggan 2y ago
      That article is kind of weird, first it says: > Local ILA president Boise Butler said workers want a fair contract that doesn’t allow automation of their jobs. But then there is no actual quote from Boise Butler about "doesn't allow automation". Then later, the article states: > “We are prepared to fight as long as necessary, to stay out on strike for whatever period of time it takes, to get the wages and protections against automation our ILA members deserve,” Which is more in line with the existing (well, since yesterday not anymore) agreement that automation should be discussed with the union beforehand, not completely banned.
snapcaster 2y ago
In america it feels like anytime there is a big strike like this everyone is immediately mad at the strikers (not the executives, shareholders, etc.). In countries like France that have more of a culture of strikes and protests is there more solidarity? Does the french middle class whine and cry every time a union strikes like they do in the US?
- nine_zeros 2y ago
  > In america it feels like anytime there is a big strike like this everyone is immediately mad at the strikers That's just mainstream media making you feel that way. If your neighbor with kids was a union worker, you'd want them to have a better life and not end up struggling.
  - scoofy 2y ago
    It's always complicated, there is always nuance. >Workers began walking picket lines early Tuesday in a strike over wages and the ports’ use of automation, though some progress was reported in negotiations over a new contract. Any strike on wages/profit sharing is generally fairly straightforward. The union leaders typically want to make the lives of their members better, and that's good and reasonable. This is simply increasing cogs and decreasing net profit. You'll find me in support of these strikes in the vast majority of cases. A strike on the use of automation is a direct form of ludditism. It strives to subvert technological advancement simply to preserve archaic jobs. It often leads to total collapses of industries as when the technology overwhelms the leverage labor has (such as the mule-drawn barges being completely destroyed by the railroads), which can cause significant frictional harm that could be avoided if the industry deflates instead of collapses. The problem here is that strikes over technological advancement have real consequences and costs that are often born by consumers. The example of pre-fab homes being effectively banned in CA because of labor is a wealth transfer, not from businesses, but from home purchasers. Sometimes it's just better for everyone in the long run to abandon inefficient forms of production. Pretending that organized labor always acts virtuously is naive. Pretending that organized labor always act nefariously is also naive. Anyone who makes support for workers as part of their identity chooses an instinctive ingroup loyalty position in a world full of nuance. https://apnews.com/article/dockworkers-strike-ports-ila-longshoremen-91703e4798dbc9ee82185e983f31a3f6 https://apnews.com/article/dockworkers-strike-ports-ila-long...
muglug 2y ago
The political angle here is obvious: elections in a month, and this could make a lot of people feel like the economy needs a strong leader. The union leader, Harold Daggett, is on record saying that Trump supports the union's aims: https://ilaunion.org/ila-president-harold-daggett-asks-ila-members-to-pray-for-former-president-donald-trump-and-victims-at-saturdays-pennsylvania-rally-recalls-productive-meeting-last-november-with-trump/ https://ilaunion.org/ila-president-harold-daggett-asks-ila-m...
- FollowingTheDao 2y ago
  > The union leader, Harold Daggett, is on record saying that Trump supports the union's aims: I wish the Democrats were on the side of the unions like they used to be...
  - muglug 2y ago
    I wish the right wing in America hadn't spent 90 years demonising socialism, leading to the hollowing-out of unions in America. The US has one of the lowest union membership rates in the OECD, at 10%.
    - iphoneisbetter 2y ago
      [flagged]
  - sfilmeyer 2y ago
    Democrats might not currently have Trump's level of protectionism and tariffs, but I think they're still better for unions. For example, the NLRB gets less effective as republicans put more anti-union folks on the board, let alone as the Trump appointees on the supreme court et al. reduce the ability of agencies to regulate.
  - Uehreka 2y ago
    My brother is a union organizer, according to him Trump’s NLRB folks have been terrible for unions, Biden’s have been much better. I feel like I hear more of this “Republicans are more pro-union than Democrats” stuff from people who aren’t in unions than from people who are (also I’ll trust the word of boots-on-the-ground organizers over union leadership anyday).
doctorpangloss 2y ago
Is there a SpaceX sized opportunity for US-bound shipping and US ports? Is it 10x the size?
- Perceval 2y ago
  Yes and no. Automation of the intermodal cargo transportation system should be within our means. However, finding a place where you can build a pilot of an automated port is very hard. SpaceX didn't build new spaceports to achieve its success, it used Cape Canaveral and Vandenberg, both of which are old legacy spaceports that weren't designed for SpaceX's cadence or cost structure (they were designed for the Atlas and Delta and ICBM tests etc). If you wanted to be the SpaceX of ports, you'd need to find a location that could accommodate large cargo ships, and I guarantee that every potential natural harbor location for scalable traffic in cargo ships along both seaboards was figured out centuries ago. Where are you going to set up that doesn't have existing infrastructure sitting there as either a path-dependent sunk cost or expensive tear-down operation? Where are you going to set up that doesn't already have the port work controlled by union labor?
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
jmyeet 2y ago
Good. Reading through the comments I'm reminded of the incalculable damage and legacy of the Red Scare. To see just how far we, as a country, have moved right, look at the statement by Abraham Lincoln [1]: > Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. That right there is Marx's Labor Theory of Value from the then Republican president. According to Marx, there are two classes: workers and capital owners. You are most likely not, nor will ever be, a capital owner. Owning 50 shares in Amazon does not make you a capital owner. If you dervive your income from your labor then you are a worker. LeBron James is a worker. Patrick Mahomes is a worker. Taylor Swift is arguably a worker. The moneyed interests around you create division, intentionally. The Red Scare was used very successfully to destroy any sense of class solidarity. Even the whole idea of the "middle class" is divisive. The so-called "middle class" have way more in common with the "lower class" than the capital-owning class.. I'm reminded of something LBJ said [2]: > If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you. The predictable kneejerk reaction of "they don't deserve it" or "automate their jobs" makes me so sad. Those workers are you. Those workers earning a fair wage helps you. But really all it should take is seeing how much Starbucks [3] or Amazon or whoever spends on union-busting efforts to convince you of the necessity of unions. They're not doing that for your benefit. The fact that you get a weekend or sick leave or any number of other benefits is because people who came before you fought for those things, sometimes in blood [4]. [1]: https://www.cooperative-individualism.org/lincoln-abraham_on-labor-and-capital-1861.htm https://www.cooperative-individualism.org/lincoln-abraham_on... [2]: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/lbj-convince-the-lowest-white-man/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/lbj-convince-the-lowest-wh... [3]: https://www.fastcompany.com/91031203/starbucks-union-busting-may-cost-it-240-million https://www.fastcompany.com/91031203/starbucks-union-busting... [4]: https://www.history.com/topics/industrial-revolution/homestead-strike https://www.history.com/topics/industrial-revolution/homeste...
- Workaccount2 2y ago
  I was all about this idea until I learned that if you pay a worker more than what they produce, the whole system will collapse. The second cold hard truth was that most workers keep most of the value they produce (and ironically it is generally the highest paid workers that keep the smallest share).
beej71 2y ago
> rejected an offer from the port management group USMX on Monday that included a wage hike over six years near 50%. Way to make me regret my career choices. ;)
ChrisArchitect 2y ago
[dupe] Some more discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41704618 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41704618
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]

Fill your gas tank (cans if you have them). Buy some stock items (water, canned food, paper products).

AnimalMuppet 2y ago
Why my gas tank? Does this strike affect Gulf Port imports of petroleum? (And don't at least some US refineries depend on imported oil to get their blend right?) Why water? I know that some brands of water are imported, but most non-name-brand waters are domestic, aren't they? Paper products... yeah, I learned about that during Covid...
- b112 2y ago
  TP is dometic, water is weird, tap water is perfectly safe in US/Canadian cities, outside of rare issues. People with carbon filters might want to stock up, but that's flavour only. Gas? I bet gas will go up from this, even if there is no reason.
- newsclues 2y ago
  Because everything is globalized and almost every supply chain has a part from somewhere else. The pumps in the gas stations eventually break and need repair
  - rtkwe 2y ago
    This is only East and Gulf Coast ports there will still be a myriad of ways to get critical equipment and parts into the country.
    - newsclues 2y ago
      Globalized, means there may be critical components that need to be exported, so a forgone factory can send back some other critical part. Not everything can easily be shipped via rail to ship from another port or exported by air.
- rtkwe 2y ago
  The US alone almost produces enough crude oil for it's own consumption, it's only net -1 million barrels a day and that's not including production from Canadian oil fields. Total we're about 1.5m b/d net exporters of crude oil these days. The TP disruption was, in my opinion, more about a major shift in consumption patterns rather than a supply disruption. When offices closed half of people's waking (ie pooping) hours shifted back to the home to the small individual rolls instead of the office sized rolls. That plus some panic buying and hoarding/scalping explains the whole thing as far as I know.
dialup_sounds 2y ago
If you feel the need to stockpile, these are all the things least affected by this strike.

I'm very happy to see the working class in the US is slowly waking up to the reality that they posses more power than they think, when they work together. It says it's their first strike since 1977, must have been pretty horrible conditions for them to strike after so long of not having to. It's sad that the average person will be affected by the supply chain shock that will happen, but hopefully the corporations involved realize it's better to have happy workers than no business at all. Even more sad, many people will jump to blame the striking workers rather than the corporations...

stego-tech 2y ago
Smart people who are also wealthy understand their best play is to take their money and nope out of the game entirely, essentially becoming gut bacteria to a healthy biome. What we’re seeing now is the logical and expected response to unchecked wealth accumulation and corporate exploitation of the past hundred years, which has rotted multiple systems (economic, political, environmental, social, financial) to the point they teeter on collapse. Collective action of the masses against the elite is essentially an immune response of the organism against an infection. If you’re a leader and you don’t want a strike, the cheapest solution is to just pay your workers well and enable them to live a healthy, thriving life for themselves. Workers that feel valued and respected are less likely to organize, and in turn less likely to strike or make unreasonable demands. Paying everyone a thriving wage and benefits is a hell of a lot cheaper than the cost of that anti-labor law firm and resulting lawsuits.
typeofhuman 2y ago
Yep. The blue collar workers of the US get demeaned and mocked at a large scale in the US. They are the functioning backbone of our country and without them everything stops. They're asking for a reasonable salary and limits on automation. Seems reasonable on the surface. It's striking to see this event juxtaposed with the college-class demanding student loan bailouts for their worthless degrees.
- sanxiyn 2y ago
  Limits on automation do not seem reasonable to me.

pg_bot 2y ago

From a national security and economic perspective we need to automate the ports.

diggan 2y ago
How does this affect national security? Seems the union already made exceptions for Military cargo and other related transit. > “We continue our pledge to never let our brave American troops down for their valour and service and we will proudly continue to work all military shipments beyond October 1st, even if we are engaged in a strike.” https://ilaunion.org/ila-will-maintain-pledge-to-handle-military-cargo-during-strike-passenger-cruise-ships-to-be-unaffected-by-10-1-strike/ https://ilaunion.org/ila-will-maintain-pledge-to-handle-mili... Economically, there is a easy and suitable way of reducing all strikes across the country, rather than just focusing on the ports. Pay people a wage they can live on, provide with, and people won't have to strike.
- gruez 2y ago
  >Economically, there is a easy and suitable way of reducing all strikes across the country, rather than just focusing on the ports. Pay people a wage they can live on, provide with, and people won't have to strike. Except the union isn't only asking for a 77% pay raise over 6 years, they're also want a "complete ban on automation"[1] [1] https://apnews.com/article/port-strike-ila-dockworkers-begins-e5468e760f46a64e4322d1702beb1f72 https://apnews.com/article/port-strike-ila-dockworkers-begin...
  - diggan 2y ago
    That article is kind of weird, first it says: > Local ILA president Boise Butler said workers want a fair contract that doesn’t allow automation of their jobs. But then there is no actual quote from Boise Butler about "doesn't allow automation". Then later, the article states: > “We are prepared to fight as long as necessary, to stay out on strike for whatever period of time it takes, to get the wages and protections against automation our ILA members deserve,” Which is more in line with the existing (well, since yesterday not anymore) agreement that automation should be discussed with the union beforehand, not completely banned.

snapcaster 2y ago

In america it feels like anytime there is a big strike like this everyone is immediately mad at the strikers (not the executives, shareholders, etc.). In countries like France that have more of a culture of strikes and protests is there more solidarity? Does the french middle class whine and cry every time a union strikes like they do in the US?

nine_zeros 2y ago
> In america it feels like anytime there is a big strike like this everyone is immediately mad at the strikers That's just mainstream media making you feel that way. If your neighbor with kids was a union worker, you'd want them to have a better life and not end up struggling.
- scoofy 2y ago
  It's always complicated, there is always nuance. >Workers began walking picket lines early Tuesday in a strike over wages and the ports’ use of automation, though some progress was reported in negotiations over a new contract. Any strike on wages/profit sharing is generally fairly straightforward. The union leaders typically want to make the lives of their members better, and that's good and reasonable. This is simply increasing cogs and decreasing net profit. You'll find me in support of these strikes in the vast majority of cases. A strike on the use of automation is a direct form of ludditism. It strives to subvert technological advancement simply to preserve archaic jobs. It often leads to total collapses of industries as when the technology overwhelms the leverage labor has (such as the mule-drawn barges being completely destroyed by the railroads), which can cause significant frictional harm that could be avoided if the industry deflates instead of collapses. The problem here is that strikes over technological advancement have real consequences and costs that are often born by consumers. The example of pre-fab homes being effectively banned in CA because of labor is a wealth transfer, not from businesses, but from home purchasers. Sometimes it's just better for everyone in the long run to abandon inefficient forms of production. Pretending that organized labor always acts virtuously is naive. Pretending that organized labor always act nefariously is also naive. Anyone who makes support for workers as part of their identity chooses an instinctive ingroup loyalty position in a world full of nuance. https://apnews.com/article/dockworkers-strike-ports-ila-longshoremen-91703e4798dbc9ee82185e983f31a3f6 https://apnews.com/article/dockworkers-strike-ports-ila-long...

muglug 2y ago

The political angle here is obvious: elections in a month, and this could make a lot of people feel like the economy needs a strong leader. The union leader, Harold Daggett, is on record saying that Trump supports the union's aims: https://ilaunion.org/ila-president-harold-daggett-asks-ila-members-to-pray-for-former-president-donald-trump-and-victims-at-saturdays-pennsylvania-rally-recalls-productive-meeting-last-november-with-trump/ https://ilaunion.org/ila-president-harold-daggett-asks-ila-m...

FollowingTheDao 2y ago
> The union leader, Harold Daggett, is on record saying that Trump supports the union's aims: I wish the Democrats were on the side of the unions like they used to be...
- muglug 2y ago
  I wish the right wing in America hadn't spent 90 years demonising socialism, leading to the hollowing-out of unions in America. The US has one of the lowest union membership rates in the OECD, at 10%.
  - iphoneisbetter 2y ago
    [flagged]
- sfilmeyer 2y ago
  Democrats might not currently have Trump's level of protectionism and tariffs, but I think they're still better for unions. For example, the NLRB gets less effective as republicans put more anti-union folks on the board, let alone as the Trump appointees on the supreme court et al. reduce the ability of agencies to regulate.
- Uehreka 2y ago
  My brother is a union organizer, according to him Trump’s NLRB folks have been terrible for unions, Biden’s have been much better. I feel like I hear more of this “Republicans are more pro-union than Democrats” stuff from people who aren’t in unions than from people who are (also I’ll trust the word of boots-on-the-ground organizers over union leadership anyday).

doctorpangloss 2y ago

Is there a SpaceX sized opportunity for US-bound shipping and US ports? Is it 10x the size?

Perceval 2y ago
Yes and no. Automation of the intermodal cargo transportation system should be within our means. However, finding a place where you can build a pilot of an automated port is very hard. SpaceX didn't build new spaceports to achieve its success, it used Cape Canaveral and Vandenberg, both of which are old legacy spaceports that weren't designed for SpaceX's cadence or cost structure (they were designed for the Atlas and Delta and ICBM tests etc). If you wanted to be the SpaceX of ports, you'd need to find a location that could accommodate large cargo ships, and I guarantee that every potential natural harbor location for scalable traffic in cargo ships along both seaboards was figured out centuries ago. Where are you going to set up that doesn't have existing infrastructure sitting there as either a path-dependent sunk cost or expensive tear-down operation? Where are you going to set up that doesn't already have the port work controlled by union labor?
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]

jmyeet 2y ago

Good. Reading through the comments I'm reminded of the incalculable damage and legacy of the Red Scare. To see just how far we, as a country, have moved right, look at the statement by Abraham Lincoln [1]: > Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. That right there is Marx's Labor Theory of Value from the then Republican president. According to Marx, there are two classes: workers and capital owners. You are most likely not, nor will ever be, a capital owner. Owning 50 shares in Amazon does not make you a capital owner. If you dervive your income from your labor then you are a worker. LeBron James is a worker. Patrick Mahomes is a worker. Taylor Swift is arguably a worker. The moneyed interests around you create division, intentionally. The Red Scare was used very successfully to destroy any sense of class solidarity. Even the whole idea of the "middle class" is divisive. The so-called "middle class" have way more in common with the "lower class" than the capital-owning class.. I'm reminded of something LBJ said [2]: > If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you. The predictable kneejerk reaction of "they don't deserve it" or "automate their jobs" makes me so sad. Those workers are you. Those workers earning a fair wage helps you. But really all it should take is seeing how much Starbucks [3] or Amazon or whoever spends on union-busting efforts to convince you of the necessity of unions. They're not doing that for your benefit. The fact that you get a weekend or sick leave or any number of other benefits is because people who came before you fought for those things, sometimes in blood [4]. [1]: https://www.cooperative-individualism.org/lincoln-abraham_on-labor-and-capital-1861.htm https://www.cooperative-individualism.org/lincoln-abraham_on... [2]: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/lbj-convince-the-lowest-white-man/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/lbj-convince-the-lowest-wh... [3]: https://www.fastcompany.com/91031203/starbucks-union-busting-may-cost-it-240-million https://www.fastcompany.com/91031203/starbucks-union-busting... [4]: https://www.history.com/topics/industrial-revolution/homestead-strike https://www.history.com/topics/industrial-revolution/homeste...

Workaccount2 2y ago
I was all about this idea until I learned that if you pay a worker more than what they produce, the whole system will collapse. The second cold hard truth was that most workers keep most of the value they produce (and ironically it is generally the highest paid workers that keep the smallest share).

beej71 2y ago

> rejected an offer from the port management group USMX on Monday that included a wage hike over six years near 50%. Way to make me regret my career choices. ;)

ChrisArchitect 2y ago

[dupe] Some more discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41704618 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41704618

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]