And then, as though there wasn’t already enough going on, we have a dockworkers’ strike
How long will it last? Will there be major shortages? Tune in to find out:
Dockworkers at dozens of ports stretching along the East and Gulf coasts walked the picket line after midnight on Tuesday as they launched a massive strike that threatens to reignite inflation and spark product shortages at the start of the holiday season.
The work stoppage went into effect at 12:01 a.m. on Tuesday after the International Longshoremen’s Association, which represents 45,000 workers, and the alliance representing ports failed to renew a collective bargaining agreement that had just expired.
For the first time since 1977, 36 ports stretching from strategic seaboard locations as far north as Maine and as far south as Texas – all of which handle an aggregate $3 trillion in the country’s annual international trade – will be idle due to a work stoppage.
They want more pay, and “protection against automation.” The article says that large retailers have stocked up on goods in preparation for Christmas, but after a few weeks if the strike goes on the effects will be felt. And for things like bananas, they will be felt more immediately.
We’ve become accustomed to a great many products imported from all over the world.
And of course, if the strike goes on for a while, it will have political repercussions.
The ILA is thoroughly mobbed up, as it has been for many decades, and they are very adept at exploiting their monopoly power over the ports. In addition to pretty extreme compensation demands, they are furiously resisting automation.
Ports in Europe and especially Asia are highly automated, with large equipment efficiently unloading container ships, tracking the containers with high technology including advanced AI, dispatching containers in a very efficient chain of custody to ground handling systems that have also been optimized for bulk transfers by barge, rail, and truck.
US ports are among the lowest productivity ports in the global supply chain, with outdated and inadequate material handling systems, subject to ludicrous work rules, and overstaffing. Ground transport from the ports is also weak and inefficient, and port labor rules are the common element.
The current administration stresses their fidelity to the union leadership, and will not intervene. The timing of these actions before a national election further cedes power to the ILA in pressing their demands, while the US is blocked from securing and updating critical supply chain infrastructure. Not good…
Dan D:
On the Waterfront.
ban automation. ban self driving cars and robots. problem solved. make sure humans can make a living. especially after importing so many. then deport them all too. even more problems solved.
Before retirement, I was the operations manager at the US office for a Chinese trailer parts manufacturer (yeah, I know). We had containers coming to ports on the west and east coasts daily. The ineffeciencies at the ports is legendary, and I could tell stories till my dying day about it all. I worked there for 11 years, leaving at the end of 2021 so got to experience all the pandemic delays.
Interesting fact: when I started working there at the beginning of 2011, getting a container from China to one of our 4 warehouses, all-in, was around $3000. During the pandemic, at the peak of the shortages, it was around $16000 each, and then finally settled down around $9-$11000 by the time I left.
It was brutal.
My dad was in either Africa, Sicily, or Italy in WW2 when a dock strike was going on in America — he probably told the story to me a thousand times: ‘son, all of the troops over there said to bring those dock workers there, and we’ll go to America and unload the ships.‘
Don’t know the solution, but those are some good jobs – fire everyone on strike, and go full bore for automation. There are other ports that can help, from what I have heard…
If the US wishes to continue competing effectively in world markets, some automation at the ports is going to have to happen. Luddite protests will not change reality.
Hoping that Terry “I coulda been a contender” Molloy will lead his supporters back to work, walking all over Johnny Friendly in the process.
It sounds like the longshoremen’s union wants to do to American shipping what the railroad unions did to American railroads and the steel unions did to American steel.
Now is the time, for better or worse, to take advantage of the Biden/Harris administration’s disarray.
Events are coming at them faster than they can process.
If you want me, I’m hiding under my bed.
Well didn’t congress impose a contract on the railroad workers recently?
My neighbors report that gas stations are out of gas and stores are out of TP. Apparently people are overreacting to the port strike.
I will take steps to stock up, but gradually.
If the strike is still going on when Trump takes office it will by then have done a huge amount of damage to the country. He should then immediately declare a national emergency, fire all the strikers, temporarily mobilize the national guard to get the ships unloaded, and as Karmi said, go full bore with the automation.
Not at expert on this history, but there were (and are) both problems and merits in the labor strife we saw from the 1880’s, trying to balance the interests of bosses vs. workers. And property rights vs. self reliance and free market elements.
Today it strikes* me as legitimate that workers act collectively to ensure reasonable and responsible safety and health issues are in place, with a realistic cost/ benefit analysis as to what is implemented and what is too expensive to do. But when it comes to wage scale vs. skill and talent, that should perhaps not be part of collective bargaining as it distorts labor pricing in the market.
Have not seen any decent reporting on actual wage numbers, but seeking 60% raise over 5 years might be excessive, or merely playing catch up to monetary inflation. But trying to slow the push for productivity enhancements is a fools errand, both as personal workers and as national citizens. [And the case for public sector unions is even more egregious — negotiating with themselves, as it were.] Plus, is anyone aware if this union has taken a position pro or con on the application of tariffs?
*no pun intended