But but it’s the nasty 2% that are the problem, not hardworking union guys, right?
The small band of strikers that has effectively shut down the nation’s busiest shipping complex forced two huge cargo ships to head for other ports Thursday and kept at least three others away, hobbling an economic powerhouse in Southern California.
The disruption is costing an estimated $1 billion a day at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, on which some 600,000 truckers, dockworkers, trading companies and others depend for their livelihoods.
“The longer it goes, the more the impacts increase,” said Paul Bingham, an economist with infrastructure consulting firm CDM Smith. “Retailers will have stock outages, lost sales for products not delivered. There will be shutdowns in factories, in manufacturing when they run out of parts.”
Despite the union’s size — about 800 members of a unit of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union — it has managed to flex big muscles. Unlike almost anywhere else in the nation, union loyalty is strong at the country’s ports. Neither the longshoremen nor the truckers are crossing the tiny union’s picket lines. […]
In Los Angeles and Long Beach, the 800 clerical workers have been able to shut down most of the ports because the 10,000-member dockworkers union is honoring the picket lines. Work continues at only four cargo terminals, where the office clerical unit has no workers. […]
Stephen Berry, lead negotiator for the shipping lines and cargo terminals, said the clerical workers have been offered a deal that includes “absolute job security,” a raise that would take average annual pay to $195,000 from $165,000, 11 weeks’ paid vacation and a generous pension increase.
there are good reasons union trash don’t feel secure in their jobs
Good grief, what the hell am I still doing in academia? Clearly, I’ve been played for a sucker.
Solution goes like this ->
You are warned that you will be fired if you do not stop->
you are fired ->
you are warned that you are now trespassing and that this is against the law ->
police are summoned -> if you resist and do not disperse, you are bleeding a little and have pepper spray in your eyes. Don’t tase me bro! ->
you are arrested ->
you are checked out and treated by an EMT ->
You are charged ->
you are detained until trial and bail is set tried ->
you are released or fined or given jail time as appropriate. ->
you are subjected to claims of civil liability for the harm your strike caused and barring reaching a settlement are sued in court. ->
you move out of California because it finally blew up.
They’re making a lot more than I am, where my job skills cost me years of education and serious coin.
Fuck ’em.
it is the chicago way
oops racist
Wow. These guys better get ready to be extremely hated by hundreds of thousands of people.
No, they won’t be hated, William. It’s California. They will be regaled and considered Heroes of the People.
By the press, sure, serr8d. But you can’t ignore the beyond ridiculous demands and numbers. Even California freaked out when it found out that major was making a million a year.
… But I’ll still give you even odds. You’re right, it’s California, the land of “I’ll support you, because then you’ll support me against the fat cats!!!1!”
greed is good dontcha know – i saw dat sumwhere
Don’t forget 21 paid holidays per year and unlimited 2HR paid leave for DR and dental visits.
That means they are on the job less than 3 1/2 days a week.
The strike involves a demand that the companies hire more people… I think the dirty secret is that the companies have figured out that when the clerks are gone on whatever leave, vacation, holiday (god, can you believe the OT available to the clerks that opt to work on Columbus day1) when those clerks are gone I’ll bet the companies have figured out they are already overstaffed.
Damned CEO fatcats! Oh, wait . . .
Gordon Gekko “Greed is Good”
As a Californian, I hate those assholes.
Greed is good when it spurs creation of value, and destruction of wasteful or stupid enterprises. Greed is bad when it leads to rent seeking, fraud, theft, graft, beak dipping, turnpikes, dangeld, cronyism, extortion, sabotage, treachery, general malfeasance, fiduciary misconduct, reckless gambling, pursuit of fads (see tulips in Holland) that have no real value only bubble value, or the intentional destruction or hobbling of good businesses to pave the way for the success of a crappier business (again a form of red tape supported cronyism) .
Is slipperyslop posting in the LATimes comments as “the_age_of_great_dreams”?
I thought he was Dippery Dope?
Steely Dan – Barackytown(1974 Live)
a deal that includes “absolute job security,” a raise that would take average annual pay to $195,000 from $165,000, 11 weeks’ paid vacation and a generous pension increase.
If we had a real media this would probably be getting blasted from the roof tops while we made this pricks look like the selfish little thieving bastards that they are.
Here’s a comment written by a suffering small business owner that is heartfelt and timely. Snippet…
It may just be coincidence, but the restaurant where I work? IT’s been pretty slow ever since Obama was elected.
I wonder if anyone else has noticed anything similar?
This just in! Who could’ve known or guessed ?
There’s Been A Staggering Collapse In Small Business Optimism Since The Election
Car in,
Well, November turned out to be my worst month of the year, with about half the business I did in September. So, yeah.
we’re thinking about closing one of our stores.
YEA OBAMA ECONOMY!!!!
The weird thing is that business SHOULD be picking up around the holidays.
The night before thanksgiving is usually/traditionally busy. Dead.
And dead everywhere.
It was weird.
Why, these poor little union workers are getting dangerously close to the level of salary of those DIRTY 1%ers!!!!!!
Burn it down. The cleansing fire will sweep all these creeps away.
is very quiet in the Harpers Ferry National Historical Park but is also fairly cold
Lady said they have a much bigger number of tent campers than they usually expect after the weather turns
I said oh really
100 more in PA…
The company, with headquarters in Redding, Pa., produces thin plate lead batteries for a range of products under the Armasafe Plus, Genesis, Hawker, ODYSSEY and Powersafe brand names and is listed by Johnson County Economic Development Corporation’s website as the third largest employer in Johnson County, with a pre-layoff workforce of 668 people.
Odyssey is a high performance battery. Very expensive. $200 and up etc. My husband would know more about the other names.
But we’re doing a booming business in used batteries. That’s what everyone wants.
Because the economy is humming along, you see.
it’s the new normal
it’ll be like this til skynet becomes self-aware
either that or nanobots
Though, as in the case of Hostess, management is no doubt just as corrupt and stupid as the unions, so they just encourage each other to out-pig each other.
Send ’em to Mars or something.
I wonder if anyone else has noticed anything similar?
We just landed a deal with Australia’s DoD.
So Big Data forensics is booming, along with the proliferation of hackers and saboteurs and ID thieves.
Burn it down. The cleansing fire will sweep all these creeps away.
And the first in will be the sewer rats and the cockroaches, they being able to survive the apocalypse and stuff.
we have to make the twinkies in a balanced way
The company, with headquarters in Redding, Pa.,
Redding, PA? Is that near Reading, PA?
There is a Redding in California.
Who proofs this stuff?
Well…
I was wrong, and I admit it
[…] pay to $195,000 from $165,000, 11 weeks’ paid vacation and a generous pension increase. https://proteinwisdom.com/?p=45683 Laissez les bon temps rouler! Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than […]
Salaries to $195,000.00??That is far more than most pediatricians and many family practice physicians make, and more than other physicians as well. Doctors complete high school, go to 4 yrs of college, then 4 yrs of med school at least, then at least 3 years of training after med school,( sometimes 7 years or more for surgeons.) The stress for docs is high, you deal with life and death situations, the malpractice insurance is astronomical, reimbursement is decreasing daily, and now the government requires offices to purchase very expensive, and time consuming computer programs so every record is electronic ( and eventually be perused by bureaucrats). And these workers who clock in and clock out, with no GED required, are wanting more? I know there are risks working on the dock, but there are far more for cops and firemen, and they earn nowhere near that in most cities.
To be fair, these are the white-collar office workers, not the actual (useful) guys schlepping the goods (who probably have to get by on a mere $100K/yr), so they almost certainly require a college degree of some sort. But everything else you say about these useless B-ark’ers pulling in doctor-level money for shuffling some papers around is accurate. And outrageous.
There’s just something obscene about people pulling in $200k who feel they need to join a union to have any real power and no longer be kicked around and treated as disposable mooks by the management. Executive-level salaries, but you still need collective bargaining? Show’s a distinct lack of self-esteem. And an over-abundence of RICO.
Lots of good info at that pingback. For instance, the “$195k” is salary plus benefits; ‘only’ $90k of that is salary. The benefits are incredible, most notably the “don’t have to do a lick of work for 3.5 months a year” and the “you can’t be fired, and are guaranteed 40hrs/week 52 weeks a year salary for the duration of the contract”.
The dispute is, as you’d imagine, a union-boss thing, not necessarily something that the actual members are demanding. It’s about creating an endless sea of featherbedding patronage jobs, rehiring to replace every person who quits, retires, or dies, whether there’s work to do or not, hiring temps whenever one of the regulars takes advantage of their ludicrous vacation time, etc.
Oh, and theres no small amount of Mafia involvement. Goons need no-show, phoney-baloney jobs, for tax reasons.
See this post, and this one.
In business, colluding to limit supply and drive up prices is illegal.
In labor, colluding to limit supply and drive up prices is protected by law.
And it’s the businesses that are generally sketched out as corrupt.