Posted on 02/08/2015 12:57:56 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
The Pacific Maritime Association (PMA) announced that loading and unloading operations at all 29 West Coast ports would temporarily be suspended this weekend in response to union slowdowns that brought freight movements at the ports to a near standstill.
PMA members stated that they cannot afford the almost $1,200 per day cost to employ International Longshore and Warehouse Union members to do little work.
After Breitbart broke the story on Thursday that union members of the ILWU planned to “walk out within the week,” the PMA employer group announced they can no longer continue to pay workers the premium pay for diminished productivity.
With ILWU members continuing to withhold the needed crane operators and slow crane movements, shippers and their customers estimated they were losing $1 billion a day. But a complete shut-down is expected to raise the U.S. economic pain to $2 billion a day....
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
Nobody buying in the domestic market. The market for things like Caterpillar and John Deere heavy equipment in the US is pretty saturated already, but there are plenty of places on other continents that want to buy them.
Well, unless they can’t get them. In which case they will buy Japanese, British and Chinese heavy equipment instead, which means that Cat and Deere will get less orders and have to lay off more employees.
Well with Hitachi and other foreign equipment being blocked out the domestic market would look pretty good for Caterpillar.
“We need to be a country running a huge trade imbalance with an enemy country...”
Glad to know that these union hacks are just correcting our trade policies.
It would... in about 8 years at the earliest. Heavy equipment lasts a long time. What’s Cat supposed to do in the meantime? And remember, they’re trying to deliver on orders that already exist - what does that do to their reputation in the industry when they can’t deliver?
Oh, they believed in Free Trade...across State borders.
We have a free trade area...it's called America.
And foreign trade? They were OK with that...as long as they paid the import duty...which was the way to fund the Very Small federal government.
You may have to take her to a hippy commune, and buy her a woven rattan basket.
Actually that's how the "trade policies" were sold. Think of the Good Jobs in the transportation and logistics sectors! We'll all drive trucks and offload boxes, that's the ticket!
Bunk. The foreign and globalist companies are just trying to roll up the last bit of opposition to turning the U.S. into just another Chinese sweat shop.
Hey Spike...free trade is not about economics or supply chain management or any of that crap.
It’s about politics.
It’s about creating interdependencies in international relations that supposedly reduce tensions, and benefit internattional elites - The Storied Globalists.
And that’s all. The US would run just fine without it...like we did for over 2 centuries.
Foreign companies can still come here and build things. They just have to employ our people. Think Honda in Ohio and Toyota in Kentucky.
But it ain’t about optimal economics. Its about politics.
What do you think about legalized violence by trade unions?
http://www.cato.org/publications/policy-analysis/freedom-union-violence
Stop playing the “anti-commie” card, I don’t buy it, not coming from a person who is pro-ILWU.
1200.00 a day for grunt work is obscene. I work a trade for myself and I can make 1200.00 a day BUT I don’t keep anything near that (overhead not) AND I had to invest 25,000.00 to hang out my shingle and then sit and wait for someone to want to give me some of their own hard earned money.
Supposed to be: (Overhead, not even counting taxes).
What do you think of Chinese Communist violence? OK now that they stock your favorite store?
Let us know when you stop buying Communist goods, then we can chat about your credentials to point fingers.
I remember watching the newest version of War of the Worlds starring Tom Cruz.
His Character was a Union Crane Operator at the Port and they made it look like he wasn’t making enough Money to live in a decent Home.
He was just some poor Blue Collar nobody working for the Man. He even turned down an extra shift in the Movie which I assume would have paid Minimum Wage plus Overtime according to the Script Writers. LOL
Unions are a cancer on our economy. For all those wailing about "jobs going overseas", you can blame it on the unions over here.
But our companies can’t export manufactured goods to willing buyers (since with the Obam-economy nobody here is buying them) because their goods languish on the docks as lazy union workers sit on their asses and do nothing.
Cummins just got a huge order from Nissan for diesel engines not just for the trucks Nissan is building in TN but to put in trucks in Japan. Nissan is now having to reconsider that buy because Cummins engines are now sitting on docks on the West Coast slowly rusting.
The article refers to the $1200/day it COSTS to employ, not the $1200/day the workers MAKE. Probably half of that $1200/day is all their benefits, health-life insurance, holidays, retirement, plus FICA contributions, etc. A nice living nonetheless.
Rattan i believe does not grow here and is imported as well
Have you thought about the fact that those containers, while bringing in product from all around the world also leave those ports with products that many Americans depend upon for their livelihood.
Trade goes in both directions.
Incidentally, these slowdowns have hurt the fruit shippers in the Northwest who export millions of boxes of apples and pears to all parts of the world.
Private sector union participation rate is 7% and falling.
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