East coast Port strike?

z31maniac said:

alfadriver said:

In reply to Noddaz :

Hard to tell if you are or not.  When I looked at salaries- one hiring site has them peak below $50k/year, another the peak is $75k, but there are a lot complaining about $150k.  Given the complaining doesn't seem to have data, and a $30/hr raise is 76%, then they make ~$40/hr now.  

$40/hr is almost $77k/year.  And $70/hr is $134k/year.

$40/hr matches the senior wages of one of the sites I saw.

I wonder if the big deal about the 50% over 6 years is more about automation than not- or at least some other clause in the deal being offered.  

We have to bear in mind that the news we get on both sides of a negotiation is just what they want to say to get you on their side.  

 

edit- given these guys haven't gotten a raise in a long time, they are certainly not the reason for inflation.  And when I looked at the total spend for shipping in the US, the raise they are asking for is 0.3% of all shipping cost from 2022.  So at the same time, it's a lot of money to the individual, but almost nothing as part of the overall system.

$40/hr = $83,200 annually before taxes, health insurance, 401k contributions. 

Assuming you count 40 hour work weeks, 52 weeks of the year. Unless you don't don't get paid sick time or paid vacation, you make the same per hour when you use them. 

All you have to do is take the hourly rate and multiply by 2080.

Yea, and I don't think the unions would be dumb enough to make them actually work 52 weeks out of the year.  I looked up that union contracts have them working mostly 48 weeks a year.   That's why there is a difference between hourly and salary workers.

In reply to STM317 :

Before we get too deep into worrying about people making $250k as longshoremen- how many are actually making that kind of money?  That makes the guy working hard making the minimum look really bad even though they could be struggling to feed and house their families.

The union has to represent both the top and bottom earners.  

And 590 people out of ~85k?  Lets not get too caught up on those bad ones when there are good ones making min and middle, and probably are no able to get OT thanks to that very small fraction of workers.  Let alone how tiny $150M is compared to the over $1T that we spend on shipping.

This is about the normal person, not the bad apples who somehow make mint.  We just had a thread about CEO's that make over 500x what the normal worker is, and even though there's no evidence they earned that, somehow we think that is ok and normal.  But when someone on the other end of the org chart is doing that, it's somehow the worst thing?

alfadriver said:

z31maniac said:

alfadriver said:

In reply to Noddaz :

Hard to tell if you are or not.  When I looked at salaries- one hiring site has them peak below $50k/year, another the peak is $75k, but there are a lot complaining about $150k.  Given the complaining doesn't seem to have data, and a $30/hr raise is 76%, then they make ~$40/hr now.  

$40/hr is almost $77k/year.  And $70/hr is $134k/year.

$40/hr matches the senior wages of one of the sites I saw.

I wonder if the big deal about the 50% over 6 years is more about automation than not- or at least some other clause in the deal being offered.  

We have to bear in mind that the news we get on both sides of a negotiation is just what they want to say to get you on their side.  

 

edit- given these guys haven't gotten a raise in a long time, they are certainly not the reason for inflation.  And when I looked at the total spend for shipping in the US, the raise they are asking for is 0.3% of all shipping cost from 2022.  So at the same time, it's a lot of money to the individual, but almost nothing as part of the overall system.

$40/hr = $83,200 annually before taxes, health insurance, 401k contributions. 

Assuming you count 40 hour work weeks, 52 weeks of the year. Unless you don't don't get paid sick time or paid vacation, you make the same per hour when you use them. 

All you have to do is take the hourly rate and multiply by 2080.

Yea, and I don't think the unions would be dumb enough to make them actually work 52 weeks out of the year.  I looked up that union contracts have them working mostly 48 weeks a year.   That's why there is a difference between hourly and salary workers.

I'm pretty sure the Union guys aren't taking a month off for free. 

When I worked at MerCruiser, which was Union, they always had the last two weeks off, paid. And it didn't count toward holiday/PTO time. 

alfadriver said:

In reply to STM317 :

Before we get too deep into worrying about people making $250k as longshoremen- how many are actually making that kind of money?  That makes the guy working hard making the minimum look really bad even though they could be struggling to feed and house their families.

The union has to represent both the top and bottom earners.  

And 590 people out of ~85k?  Lets not get too caught up on those bad ones when there are good ones making min and middle, and probably are no able to get OT thanks to that very small fraction of workers.  Let alone how tiny $150M is compared to the over $1T that we spend on shipping.

This is about the normal person, not the bad apples who somehow make mint.  We just had a thread about CEO's that make over 500x what the normal worker is, and even though there's no evidence they earned that, somehow we think that is ok and normal.  But when someone on the other end of the org chart is doing that, it's somehow the worst thing?

Did you bother to read either link in my post? It only covered the NY/NJ port workers, not all of the ILA membership. 15% of the ~3700 workers in NY/NJ were making far more money than their job justified. Some didn't do any work at all as long as they had the right connections. They were rejecting over 10% of new applicants annually due to known organized crime connections.

The NY/NJ port is the largest one on the East coast. And the head of the ILA comes from that location. If that spot is corrupt, and the ILA leader has enough questionable stuff going on that the US Dept of Justice has brought charges twice, then that's not a great sign for the labor force in general.

I support workers making fair wages. But this particular case doesn't stir much sympathy. The UAW still has a bad rep for corruption decades ago. They've seemingly worked pretty hard to clean house and change their operationsand they're still labeled in a negative way. Meanwhile, the dockworkers union leader seems to be actively working against such clean up efforts, and talking about bringing the economy to it's knees. That feels more like mob protection money than supporting fair wages for the bottom of the pay scale.

As I said before, if the dockworkers are legitimately being productive with their overtime efforts, then more power to them. But if they're just bilking the system, and then complaining that they're not making enough money while they threaten to bring the economy to it's knees, that's just greed and corruption that should be rooted out. Corrupt unions end up hurting the membership more than they help, and will likely increase motivation for the corporations to replace the workers with automation.

alfadriver said:

In reply to STM317 :

Before we get too deep into worrying about people making $250k as longshoremen- how many are actually making that kind of money?  That makes the guy working hard making the minimum look really bad even though they could be struggling to feed and house their families.

A large portion of them are. I work at a terminal on the west coast. I'm not longshore but I'm IAM so I see a lot of what goes on at least around here. The big cranes that load and unload ships? The guys man'ing those get paid for 8 hours and only work 4. Now, technically their supposed to be onsite for the other 4 but most aren't. It isn't just a matter of how much they make overall but how little work they actually do. For a 3 shift day you need to pay at least double that in wages.

Do you keep the good stuff for yourself and the generic stuff for the guests?

AClockworkGarage said:

This is similar to the Rail workers strike from a while back.

If the industry is such a lynch pin to our economy that any interruption would be devastating, it stands to reason that we should be taking care of the people doing those jobs.

 

SOLIDARITY

IAM-751

I supported with (votes and donations) the Railworkers, the UAW, UPS, the grad students, John Deer workers and anybody else who wants to strike to improve their conditions. Union membership is the reason my parents and grand parents ended up in the middle class.

But you're out of your mind if you think I'm gonna support a strike that will could directly lead to the appointment of hundreds of anti-union judges to the federal, appellate, and supreme courts, the elimination of 10's of thousands of union jobs in the federal government, the continued gutting of OSHA and god only knows what sort of anti-union legislation.

I'm pro-labor, not a berkeleying idiot. 

The powers that be need to call the the ILA president into a meeting with a copy of the Taft Hartley on the table and tell him to FAFO.

In reply to AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) :

Everyone on social media is buying up all this TP but most of it comes from the paper mills in Neenah and Green Bay, Wisconsin.  Why the panic?

wvumtnbkr said:

Do you keep the good stuff for yourself and the generic stuff for the guests?

We don't have guests. Generic is for the kid's bathroom.

Datsun240ZGuy said:

In reply to AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) :

Everyone on social media is buying up all this TP but most of it comes from the paper mills in Neenah and Green Bay, Wisconsin.  Why the panic?

So dumb, right?!?! Charmin says "made in USA of domestic and imported components". This store brand says "Made in Canada".

Bananas will go up, but Eggs might come down. Apparently we export A LOT of eggs through east coast ports. 

Consumers can shift their buying patterns from Bananas to Eggs or Apples, but they can't easily errr comfortably replace toilet paper with tissues or paper towels. That's why folks buy toilet paper not unlike how they might panic buy milk, eggs and bread in the past. 

I'm all about paying people more but there is always a tradeoff between getting paid more and getting more scrutiny over your work. In theory, more pay should come with some level of competition (although that rarely happens) that can be defeated through increased efficiency of a superior workforce. Seems like the ILA wants more money but wants to avoid any additional improvements to efficiency or transparency. 

Totally normal union guy, totally not connected to the mob.

From: https://nypost.com/2024/10/01/business/who-is-harold-daggett-the-port-union-boss-with-alleged-mafia-ties/

"Meanwhile, Daggett — has worked at the ILA for 57 years and took the helm as president in 2011 — raked in $728,000 in compensation last year from the ILA. He collected another $173,000 as president emeritus of a local union branch, according to labor department filings.

He lives in a 7,136 square-foot house valued at $1.7 million on a 10-acre lot in Sparta, New Jersey, according to Zillow and NJ Property Records.

By comparison, his fellow union bosses at the AFL-CIO, Teamsters and autoworkers unions earn less than $300,000 a year, according to a Politico report."

Payrolls go up.  Price of goods go up.  Spend your raise on stuff you buy. 

$39/hour, requiring a 75% pay increase to $69/hour. OT is paid per 8 hour shift, Holidays and sundays are double time. I did the math elsewhere but a 45 hour week works out to $96k a year, plus bennies. 

CrustyRedXpress said:

Totally normal union guy, totally not connected to the mob.

From: https://nypost.com/2024/10/01/business/who-is-harold-daggett-the-port-union-boss-with-alleged-mafia-ties/

"Meanwhile, Daggett — has worked at the ILA for 57 years and took the helm as president in 2011 — raked in $728,000 in compensation last year from the ILA. He collected another $173,000 as president emeritus of a local union branch, according to labor department filings.

He lives in a 7,136 square-foot house valued at $1.7 million on a 10-acre lot in Sparta, New Jersey, according to Zillow and NJ Property Records.

By comparison, his fellow union bosses at the AFL-CIO, Teamsters and autoworkers unions earn less than $300,000 a year, according to a Politico report."

 

So is Elon going to build the robots that replace the workers?

$100k is a lot of money in some places, for the guys working in NY/NJ they won't be buying homes within two hours of their jobs.  The way home prices here are climbing they'll be three hours away soon.  We have guys making $85-90k with roommates or living in campers near the building so they don't have to travel like I do every day.  They can't really move the ports to the cheaper areas so they're going to have to pay wages to live here to attract anyone. 

Are these guys also pushing to not allow automation?

I can see a somewhat reasonable argument would be not to replace any CURRENT workers with automation, but I think the position is never (the west coast guys went through this a few years ago).

Automation of course is cheaper, and a lot faster from what I hear.  At some point it's the horse union trying to stop cars.  Of course we could also end up with the absurdity of requiring a completely unnecessary union worker to watch over automated operations (obviously some oversight is necessary).  At some point we really do need to move on.

1988RedT2 said:

Payrolls go up.  Price of goods go up.  Spend your raise on stuff you buy. 

But price of goods already went up?

aircooled said:

Of course we could also end up with the absurdity of requiring a completely unnecessary union worker to watch over automated operations (obviously some oversight is necessary).

Oh, you mean like me paying a union electrician to watch me plug in extension cords at a trade booth in the Philadelphia Convention Center?

But maybe I digress.

Mr_Asa said:

1988RedT2 said:

Payrolls go up.  Price of goods go up.  Spend your raise on stuff you buy. 

But price of goods already went up?

I don't think there's an upper limit.   You see 'em coming back down anytime soon?

In reply to 1988RedT2 :

They're going to need raises just to cover the inflationary pressure the supply chain shortages they're creating will cause.

In reply to RX Reven' :

While the rest of us get a 4% raise every other year if we're lucky.

CrustyRedXpress said:

The powers that be need to call the the ILA president into a meeting with a copy of the Taft Hartley on the table and tell him to FAFO.

Current admin doesn't believe in Taft Hartley.  Per WH.GOV

All I'm going to say about that.

Wally (Forum Supporter) said:

$100k is a lot of money in some places, for the guys working in NY/NJ they won't be buying homes within two hours of their jobs.  The way home prices here are climbing they'll be three hours away soon.  We have guys making $85-90k with roommates or living in campers near the building so they don't have to travel like I do every day.  They can't really move the ports to the cheaper areas so they're going to have to pay wages to live here to attract anyone. 

If the majority were only working 40hr weeks you'd have a point. But these guys have been hitting the OT enough that their actual yearly salary has been upwards of 150-200k a year. Sorry, I don't feel sorry if every single one of them gets replaced by a T800  greed is greed, it's not just "evil corporations " doing it.