Dock Workers Strike

I don't know...my wife is pretty high up on the chain of command so I've gotten to meet quite a few of these so called bigwigs. It's amazing how many of them were fired from previous positions only to be picked up by another company because they knew somebody.

For every Jack Welch there are 10 Jonathan Schwartzes or Ken Lay's. I think you give these guys a bit more credit than they deserve. It's the directors and VP's that push the everyday commerce.

I could give some great personal examples but I'm not going to take any chance of hurting my wifes position on a public forum.

 

I am not disagreeing with you at all that there are some dud CEO's. That being said, there are a bunch of lazy assed longshoremen too so that seems like it would be a wash. The group that I had to work with offloading a rig had maybe 2 good workers and 10 shovel leaners that did nothing except look for their next break.

 

I have mentioned before that I work directly for the former CEO of Blackwater/XE. I have spent more than enough time with him to know that I, nor 99% of people, can do that job.

 

The 147K is an average of the pay scales for different jobs, some of them foreman that make over 200k. Averaging pay scales instead of actual wages paid is misleading.

As for the benefits package. "per active worker" is the same word smithing that had people thinking UAW workers were making $70 an hour with benefits. In that case they took the benefits cost of all the retirees and added it to the active workers benefits number to inflate it.

 

What ever the exact numbers are that they make it's still pretty damn good pay. I'd take the job with that kinda pay in a heartbeat. Think the unions getting a little greedy, as usual.

 

Good point. A range would be more useful. A REAL range not a pay scale range if no one is making the extremes.

Except having a wimpy burger pay plan makes it cost that. Had the benefits been into a fixed account like a 401K then there would be no cost for non-workers still.

 

OK, so the real pay for a dock worker is 137,213.61. Fuck if I know, I'm just showing what I'm seeing on the net. Sheeze, I'm guessing it's good pay what ever it is......

 

Sounds like alot of jealousy up in heeere. I wish I made that kinda cash but I can't hate on them for wanting their piece of the pie.

 

As to wages vs the work, there's a hell of a lot of difference between moving boxes that weigh 40lbs and moving boxes that weigh 40,000lbs.

 

True. Lifting the 40,000 lb box doesn't require a lifting belt.

 

You guys really crack me up!
So, I am in the trucking and cold storage industry here on the west coast. What these guys are doing is reprehensible. This "slow down" has been going on since August but no one really taking any notice until about November. What they are asking for in lieu of the amount of pain they have caused me, my company, and family is just mind blowing.
The Longshoremen earn an average $147000 and were asking, in the negotiation, a 3% raise over the next 5 YEARS!!!
In the negotiation, the PMA (port terminal operators) accepted/gave them the raise and a 40 hour guranteed work week. They gave them the chassis jurisdiction. They kept their medical (no copay, paid 100%, includes dependents). They increased their pension from $77,000 to $88,000 per year. Retirees get health insurance for life as well.
By giving them an offer, they made the Longshoreman take a vote. If they don’t vote, they could lock them out and pull the offer off the table.....so the vote happened last night (thursday). Technically, they are working today but my guys (at the pier) are trying to pick up and are getting nowhere. The production is slower than before. Rumors are flying about what is and what isn’t happening this weekend, but I bet a large portion of the Longshoremen will be sitting in parks drinking this weekend vs working unloading ships.
Theses "workers" have caused us hundreds of thousands of dollars in per diem charges. They are working so slow, our turn times (the time it takes to pick up/drop off containers at the pier) have increased 300-400% across the board. Many times, we have been told to leave as they couldn't even service us.
We get charged daily for the container and daily for the chassis. Product is moving so slow, we can’t get the containers back to the pier and no one cares....including the steamship lines who are charging the trucker and threatening the trucker to pay the claims or be shut out.
Additionally, they are using us as storage yards (while charging us) as their docks are full with product that isn’t moving. It’s a giant cluster.
It really is a sore subject and kills me to know these idiots have this much power over a little company just trying to make an honest living.
This happened in 2002. The PMA locked out the Longshoreman for the exact same behavior. I have no idea why they have been holding on and not firing all of them. The lockout lasted 10 days and President Bush got involved and invoked the Taft/Hartley Act forcing them to go back to work. Personally, I hope they get locked out and fired.
….someone mentioned the Panama Canal earlier. The canal is going through a widening project. The west coast will not see all the super container ships from China, etc. We (the los angeles/long beach port) will lose a lot of revenue but quite honestly, they are shooting themselves in the foot for allowing the union to run so recklessly.

 

3% over 5 years isn't much to ask for.

 

They got it.

 

Jesus, I take back my statement about them not making that much. That's fuckin absurd. I don't doubt for a minute that it's hard work, but $140k+ a year is generally the realm of either extremely skilled work or extremely dangerous work - I work in a very fast-paced, very specialized and very lots-of-specialized-skill-required part of the (very lucrative) software world, and I don't make that much.

Perhaps there's something more to longshoreman-ing than I realize. Is it not basically just using a crane to move containers from trucks to docks to ships, and making sure the boat is balanced? Granted it's not quite simply stacking blocks.. but.. It'd literally be cheaper even during development to pay me to program robots to do that job.

 

Conex boxes are, by far, not the only thing handled as cargo.

Diesel-electric locomotives weighing around 400,000lbs and even other ships weighing in thousands of tons are some extreme examples.

Forklift drivers, unloading semi-trailers, got nothin' on longshoremen.