Los Angeles ports facing strike threat

Yahoo! News ^ | July 16, 2007 | ALEX VEIGA

[Toddsterpatriot]

Let's not bring in more goods through Mexico, let's allow 750 clerks to shut down 40% of our cargo traffic.

NAFTA superhighway, now!

[Toddsterpatriot]

Look for the Union Label ping!

[Mase]

Under their most recent contract, full-time, port clerical workers earned about $37.50 an hour, or $78,000 a year. They also receive a pension, health care benefits free of premiums, and 20 paid holidays a year.

No doubt dragnet2 thinks these workers could be earning more working on a manufacturing assembly line. After all, services just don't pay.

[SeafoodGumbo]

Under their most recent contract, full-time, port clerical workers earned about $37.50 an hour, or $78,000 a year. They also receive a pension, health care benefits free of premiums, and 20 paid holidays a year.

WTF!!! Fire every last one of the idiots. Making 78K a year with all of those other perks...for clerical work...and that's not enough for them?

[Chicos_Bail_Bonds]

They want $53 an hour...WTF!! I remember when the longshoremen there went on strike a few years ago, making money that Democrats would describe as “rich folks”.

[stephenjohnbanker]

Some are making 150,000 with overtime.

[SeafoodGumbo]

Just like those NYC bus drivers who struck during the XMAS holidays a couple years ago. It seems like they were making 80K a year for an unskilled position and still thought that wasn't enough.

God help these fools if their pay actually reflected the market and their skills.

[Popman]

Offer them $100.00 per hour with stipulating at the end of the contract they must cut 50 % of their work force and modernize.

After 10 years it will be worth it.

Plus, the union thugs would sell their "union brothers" out in heartbeat.

[rbosque]

Less traffic on the 710 freeway!

[Walkingfeather]

HA I will bet you most are making over a hundred and hour. Do you know that they still work 2 men for every job( developed during wwII. Both guys show up for work, flip a coin the loser works the 8 hour shift the winner goes home and sleeps ( both collect 8 hours pay)

[truthkeeper]

Making 78K a year with all of those other perks...for clerical work...and that's not enough for them?

They haven't been accepting any new applications for seven years. You don't work for the ports unless you know someone, even on the clerical end.

And the longshoreman are going to honor the strike. It would take a lot of guts to cross that picket line.

[SeafoodGumbo]

Do you know that they still work 2 men for every job( developed during wwII. Both guys show up for work, flip a coin the loser works the 8 hour shift the winner goes home and sleeps ( both collect 8 hours pay)

You gotta be kidding. Right? That's absolutely nuts...

[Realism]

Just close the damn port and send all those containers back where they came from, problem(s) solved.

[Toddsterpatriot]

Just close the damn port and send all those containers back where they came from, problem(s) solved.

Pay higher prices, for the children! Brilliant!

[Walkingfeather]

Not kidding.

[Realism]

Pay higher prices, for the children! Brilliant!

They'll be fine, you on the other hand I'm not so sure about, is it that you have some personal interest in these dumping grounds?

[Toddsterpatriot]

is it that you have some personal interest in these dumping grounds?

I've mentioned before that I prefer lower prices so I can save money for my children's college fund. Personal enough for you?

[sam_paine]

WELL...It’s a DARN GOOD THING for our national security that we don’t have a bunch of non-union dirty Dubai Port Workers shutting us down!!!

Arabs or Chinese choking the economy, that’s bad.

Homegrown union thugs holding America hostage, why that’s just fiiiiine!

Gads.

[sam_paine]

Just close the damn port and send all those containers back where they came from, problem(s) solved.

Just fire the un-American union traitors and sell the port to people who will operate it like a business, like Dubai Ports World or those dirty Chinese. Problem solved.

[norton]

I don't know about two workers/one shift/two paychecks..

But I do know that a perspective contractor for work on my house described to me the vast upgrades and renovations he was doing for the owner of many (not several - many) rentals in the South Bay.
When I reflected some awe at the investment and income those properties represented - he replied only with:
"He's a retired longshoreman"

No further explanation necessary.