The Longshoremen’s union has authorized an East Coast and Gulf port strike this week. The unions demands are asinine.
Strike Set for Tuesday
Please consider Longshoremen’s Union Authorizes a Strike Starting Tuesday
A port strike on the U.S. East Coast and Gulf of Mexico will go ahead starting on Tuesday, the International Longshoremen’s Association union said on Sunday, signaling action that could cause delays and snarl supply chains.
“United States Maritime Alliance … refuses to address a half-century of wage subjugation,” the union said in a statement. The United States Maritime Alliance, known as USMX, represents employers of the East and Gulf Coast longshore industry.
If union members walk off the job at ports stretching from Maine to Texas, it would be the first coast-wide ILA strike since 1977, affecting ports that handle about half the nation’s ocean shipping.
A strike could stop the flow of everything from food to automobiles at major ports – in a dispute that could jeopardize jobs and stoke inflation weeks ahead of the U.S. presidential election.
For months, the union has threatened to shut down the 36 ports it covers if employers like container ship operator Maersk and its APM Terminals North America do not deliver significant wage increases and stop terminal automation projects.
The dispute is worrying businesses that rely on ocean shipping to export their wares, or secure crucial imports.
The USMX employer group has accused the ILA of refusing to negotiate.
Asinine Demands
The New York Post spotlights the ILA Demands
International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) on Sunday said its 85,000 members, along with “tens of thousands of dockworkers and maritime workers around the world,” will hit the picket lines Tuesday “and strike at all Atlantic and Gulf Coast ports from Maine to Texas.”
The union is demanding higher wages and a total ban on the automation at ports regarding cranes, gates and moving containers in the loading and unloading of freight.
An analysis by J.P. Morgan estimated a strike would cost the US economy up to $5 billion per day.
Ban on Automation
Yeah, right. And let’s go back to building houses without cranes too.
The proper response is to automate everything.
The Benchmark Capital’s Bill Gurley reacted on social media to the union’s demands, writing that the federal government should step in if the union seeks a total ban on automation.
I agree. This is very similar to the PATCO setup in which Reagan told the workers to go back to work or be fired. There is one difference though. PATCO was a public union.
The similarity is shutting down ports holds a nation hostage, not a manufacturer.
“Outlawing the effective use of technology will unquestionably doom our nation,” Gurley wrote. “We will become globally uncompetitive.”
You can’t force people to work. But you can’t have luddites disrupting half the trade US trade either.
This could get interesting, especially the responses from Trump and Harris,