Posted on 09/29/2024 11:25:09 PM PDT by blueplum
As thousands of dockworkers are preparing to strike should a deal not be reached by the end of Monday, one business leader is questioning the union’s demand for a total ban on automation.
International Longshoremen's Association (ILA) on Sunday said its 85,000 members, along with "tens of thousands of dockworkers and maritime workers around the world," will hit the picket lines Tuesday "and strike at all Atlantic and Gulf Coast ports from Maine to Texas."
The union is demanding higher wages and a total ban on the automation at ports regarding cranes, gates and moving containers in the loading and unloading of freight.
Benchmark Capital's Bill Gurley reacted on social media to the union’s demands, writing that the federal government should step in if....
(Excerpt) Read more at foxbusiness.com ...
Longshoremen container truckers need to bid for an assignment. At the Ports of LA and Long Beach those drivers are being replaced by autonomous vehicles
3 operators, 32 cranes
The basics of port automation: Need to know
Port automation refers to the use of advanced technologies and robotics to automate various aspects of port operations. These technologies include robotic container handlers, automated cranes, and intelligent conveyor systems. By replacing manual labour with automated systems, ports can significantly increase their efficiency and reduce the risk of accidents.
One of the key components of port automation is the use of automated guided vehicles (AGVs) to transport containers within the port. These AGVs are equipped with sensors and navigation systems that allow them to navigate the port without human intervention.
see also FR articles: How a US Port Strike Could Affect You and The ILA’s Expected Port Strike: One Union Against All Others That Impacts Every Sector of the Economy
Mr. K. Ludd was not available for comment.
The ports should just bite the bullet now and push ahead with full automation. That will pay for itself very quickly.
“On The Waterfront”
BTTT
Another sign that a higher power is producing a Perfect Storm for Trump?
Are we seeing Divine Intervention here again? Did He prod you to hold the insanely stupid, hard and fast notion, that the owners, the people who ultimately pay your salary, are going to agree NOT to have any automation on the loading docks?
If that is true, then there will certainly be a strike, and probably a long one, long enough to raise prices again, and get American mad enough to vote for Trump in droves.
It seems like wherever you turn there’s a sign, that He wants Trump to be His messenger.
Trump turns his head to avoid a bullet, sure, that one would seem obvious, but I’m seeing subtle things. In fact, maybe this whole 2020 election fiasco was His staged event also. COVID? Maybe that too.
No doubt, Trump not completing his second term resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands worldwide and from unnecessary wars, but were these deaths needless? Was the death and destruction the only for Him to wake us up?
Trump exposed the truth about the liberals and the left in this country. The corrupt media too.
Americans young and old were oblivious to the cultural revolution taking place before our eyes. Losing the 2020 gave him 4 more years to make it now more clear than ever, that we are in a war we must win.
Trump exposed the media, showing that they’re not a “free press” that looks out for us, but the mouthpiece of the DNC. He’s making them irrelevant and a dinosaur.
The byproduct is a blossoming sub-culture of podcasters and YouTubers, that questions why I need any subscription TV in the first place. Everyone has their favorites.
The best, for me, are the many black underground “journalists” like Devory Darkins, Chat With Me Linda B, A Righteous Perspective, Melanie King and many others, more seasoned like Jason Whitlock, Hodge Twins, 2-Strong and The Officer Tatum, who remind us that it still comes down to what is “right and wrong” and not our skin color.
Funny how these black “thinkers and talkers” see it more clearly than anyone.
Megyn Kelly is back, Tucker is flying and Candace is pursuing Harris’s true background that might take her campaign down overnight. I look forward to Harris Faulkner.
Is He orchestrating this? Is He up there, with a mischievous grin, producing every Kamala Harris “word salad” and Biden stumble? Is He the one who makes the evil ladies of The View, say the evil thing they do?
I can go on and on here, but I’m beginning to see Him behind just about everything happening.
Is He taking us from where we left off, the day JFK was killed, to a true awakening?
I believe so. I believe we may see the good that God-fearing humans can do and the prosperity it brings worldwide, when good prevails over evil at any level.
This particular issue of automation that will replace good paying blue-collar workers is not going away, as workers feel more and desperate to hold onto their jobs, I predict some level of violence and sabotage by workers getting replaced by automation.
It’s a tough situation, just saying FU to the workers and replace them is going to get met with major resistance.
We talked about this yesterday on FR, a strike on eastern seaboard ports just before and election could very easily become a major campaign issue.
Biden has sold himself as being the best friend of Unions and is refusing to intervene to resolve this potential strike, the last thing the Democrats want to do is force an unsatisfactory settlement on the unions just days before the election, Biden is too far gone to really care, and Kamala has no idea what to do.
If the strike takes place and lasts more than a week or two, look for shortages to appear on American shelves and layoffs at companies that export thru striking ports, while prices of good in short supply to rise.
I don’t blame them for wanting to protect their jobs.
Agree. This is a just one example of what is a very, very big issue. IMHO we are going to have to deeply rethink how we move forward economically. Obviously if we have less and less jobs to offer in society at the same time that population is stable or increasing, there will be rising unemployment. Employment is not just a matter of finances. It's also a matter of human purpose and self-worth. Everyone needs avenues to define themselves, contribute to the world, and have opportunities to better their quality of life.
Personally I don't know what the best answers are.
Railroads have started refusing to take on freight since they are afraid it will not be off-loaded and they will be stuck with it. The supply chain is going to break down very quickly. Stock up next week as much as you can.
Right now, automation for the most part is replacing blue collar workers, when things like AI hit white collar workers in a big way, things may get sorted out.
I was reading an article yesterday about AI replacing Currency Traders, currency trading goes on 24/7 around the world and is a multi-trillion-dollar market.
Traders and Analysts make nice 6-figure salaries, when these people start getting replaced, I think things could change.
What are the unions going to do when the companies say, “Goodbye, we don’t need you”? Going on strike wouldn’t be much of a threat.
There may be scattered violence, but it will quickly be apparent that that’s just venting, that it won’t get the jobs back.
I’ll predict ships reroute to Mexican ports, for three months, and US ports go the way of the dinosaur.
They simply want to keep working like it was 1954.
Longshoremen and dock workers have been around hundreds of years. Ever wonder why they call them a gang when working a ship? In early days of NY, stevedores would actually hire a neighborhood gang to work a ship. The gang leader would decide who would work what jobs. Different gangs would compete as to who would get the work. That was some nasty business back then. So, what would you do if someone threatened your industry that would take away your ability to feed and take care of your family? You would fight back too and in this case they see the unions as the only way to do so.You think the teamsters union is tuff, they ain’t nothing like the longshoremens union.
Why use cranes altogether, then. Why not have the whole workforce yo-heave-ho-ing with pullies and winches. Why even have them. Why even use gang planks, or wheels. You’ll employ more longshoremen, they’ll have more work-related injuries, and it’ll take forever to unload cargo.
If I were an employer, I’d replace the lot of them with robots.
Ditch-digger Union demands spoons.
What they can do, if they try hard enough, is to force the US to fall behind whichever countries are willing and able to automate without much internal strife. If things go badly, the US could even see a leftist-Luddite revolution — but, after the revolution, the workers displaced by automation still won't get their jobs back.
Just to be clear, I'm sympathetic to their plight. But trying to hold onto the old ways won't work.
Would have been nice if divine intervention helped us in 2020.
I didn’t know God got involved in port strikes :)
God gave us free will to live and choose and decide and do right or wrong.
God doesn’t need to do semi sneaky behind the scenes things to get his desired outcome.
Sometimes a silly strike is just a silly strike.
hitler saw divine intervention a lot too.
He had lots of enemies and a bomb explosion survival.
And it certainly could have been argued (WRONGLY) that some entity was protecting him. Unless it was evil.
Or he was just lucky.
For a little while.
And one would think that the poor guy who died at the assassination attempt and had children would have been saved too.
God expects us to do what is right...too many EPECT God to take care of their problems instead of being proactive
In 1967 Matson Lines of California/Hawaii worked out an arrangement with unions that it would pay a fee for each container loaded on its new inter-modal ships. The unions bought the plan, and the camel’s nose was in the tent.
1. The most successful applications of automation in a port environment aren’t aimed at reducing labor costs, but at increasing the throughput of the operation by replacing human functions that can be done faster or more precisely by computers and machines.
2. Handling cargo more efficiently inside a port doesn’t help the overall supply chain if there are bottlenecks elsewhere. Right now, the biggest bottleneck in container imports is the movement of cargo through the port gate to the customer’s location … and that drayage truck operation will not be automated anytime soon.
3. The Port of Singapore is one of the rare cases where automation has been fully embraced — even by their labor union. Blue-collar workers are so rare there that most of the ILA-type jobs were filled with immigrants anyway. So the port authority and their longshoreman’s union adopted automation in a way that those jobs were replaced by computers and machines, and the typical port employee now works a high-tech job that requires advances skills.
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