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Hey. I worked at a major steamship line for five years. The coolest part was watching the ships come into the terminal and get worked by the longshoremen. It's
by kyllo 13y ago
Hey. I worked at a major steamship line for five years. The coolest part was watching the ships come into the terminal and get worked by the longshoremen.
It's still a dangerous job though. Someone gets badly hurt or killed at the port here once every year or two.
Ever heard of Euromax in the Netherlands?
Not a single human on the docks there most of the time. The entire terminal is robotic now. Just a few engineers up in a control tower, to make sure the computers keep running. That won't happen in the US for a long time, though. The ILA and ILWU have a lot of political power.
- raymondduke 13y agoI have heard of fully automated ports, but not Euromax in particular. I suppose the ILWU and ILA do have a lot of political power when you compare them to other ports. But from my perspective, we are losing more and more ground each day. Since a majority of the workers are temps who can't get involved with meetings and other "official bidness", then I don't know who will take the reigns 10-20 years from now. Did you keep up to date with what happened in Hong Kong?
- kyllo 13y agoI wasn't really following it, but I see they had to strike for six weeks to get a 9.8% pay raise to keep up with inflation. I believe they probably did need it just for that reason, Hong Kong is a crazy expensive place to live. I feel bad for longshoremen in Asia, they have more dangerous conditions and weaker unions, so it's much harder for them to get reasonable pay and benefits. And the rate of inflation/cost of living is getting crazy in China and Hong Kong.