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Dockworkers are ridiculously overpaid

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TACKLE JUNKIE

By TACKLE JUNKIE
in The Town Tavern

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danflytr

danflytr

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Its almost impossible in the west to become one of them because they seem to be Grandfathered into the position. I tried to be a dock worker in Oakland and work from the Longshoremans union. Good luck getting into this game it is the worst case of neptism I ever seen except for the city workers in this town which is totally done by color of name(I wouldn't say by skin) :shock What else do one suppose to think when you leave you resume and walk out of the building leaving your notebook behind just rounding the corner realizing then turn back to get your notebook finding your resume in the trash can next to the receptonist you handed it to :mad:

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bassackward

bassackward

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Its almost impossible in the west to become one of them because they seem to be Grandfathered into the position. I tried to be a dock worker in Oakland and work from the Longshoremans union. Good luck getting into this game it is the worst case of neptism I ever seen except for the city workers in this town which is totally done by color of name(I wouldn't say by skin) :shock What else do one suppose to think when you leave you resume and walk out of the building leaving your notebook behind just rounding the corner realizing then turn back to get your notebook finding your resume in the trash can next to the receptonist you handed it to :mad:

 

Maybe she saw you couldn't even keep track of your own notebook? :D

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TACKLE JUNKIE

TACKLE JUNKIE

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Quote:

Originally Posted by ScottO View Post

Wow, 18 bucks an hour avg, they are definitely overpaid. But striking is so last century.



 



You may want to research the subject a little more.



 



Longshoremen, Making $100K 

Per Year, Won't Reduce Demands

HumanEventsOnline.com

10-19-2




 

After being forced back to work temporarily by a federal judge, the 10,500-member International Longshoremen and Warehouse Union (ILWU) obstinately refuses to resolve a contract dispute that so far has cost the U.S. economy nearly $10 billion.

 

The impact of the labor shutdown on West Coast ports has reverberated economy-wide, affecting everything from retail goods to military supplies. The value of trade through West Coast ports last year was $300 billion, roughly equivalent to 7% of the U.S. Gross Domestic Product. Another shutdown could plunge the economy back into recession.

 

After waiting weeks to intervene out of fear of alienating unions just before the midterm elections, President Bush, at the pleading of the business community, invoked the Taft-Hartley Act. As required by the act, Bush first determined that the labor dispute threatened "national health and safety," and then the Justice Department persuaded a federal judge in San Francisco to grant an injunction, which ended the "work stoppage."

 

The injunction initiated Taft-Hartley,s so-called 80-day "cooling off period." As of now, the ports are functioning again, longshoremen have returned to their jobs, and negotiations, overseen by federal mediators, between the ILWU and the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA), which controls and operates the ports, are ongoing. But once the 80-day period expires, Taft-Hartley provides no recourse to end the dispute.

 

The prospects for a resolution look dim, partly because Taft-Hartley, while providing some breathing room, does not provide a mechanism for reaching a final settlement of such disputes.

 

Big Benefits

 

But even more crucially, the ILWU insists that its inflexible demands be honored, refusing offers most union and non-union members would heartily accept.

 

The dispute is rooted in the PMA,s long-standing plans to modernize West Coast ports. The PMA controls and operates those ports, which are dotted along the Pacific Coast from Los Angeles to Seattle. For years, principally because of opposition from the ILWU, these ports, unlike ports around the world, have not been upgraded to meet the demands of global commerce.

 

The ILWU opposes modernization out of fear that union jobs will be replaced by new technology.

 

Such technology, according to the PMA, is badly needed, but hardly revolutionary. "In some cases, longshore workers still use chalk to identify and track cargo at a time in this Age of Technology when local grocery stores and video rental outlets use barcodes and scanners," said the PMA,s Tom Edwards.

 

"We have ILWU clerks re-typing information when that information can be reprocessed with the press of a button. We,re not talking hi-tech here," he said. "But we need this technology to meet new demands, and stay competitive."

 

Edwards said the ILWU,s opposition is baseless, since the PMA agreed not to sacrifice a single union job to technological development. "PMA has guaranteed job protection for every registered worker who may be impacted by technology," he said. "Not one member of the ILWU will lose his or her job because of this technology."

 

Another point of contention is how longshoremen should be compensated. Longshoremen are among the most highly paid union workers in the country. Currently, the average annual salary for a full-time longshore worker is $106, 833. Nonetheless, the ILWU insists the PMA boost those salaries by a whopping 57% over three years. Not surprisingly, the PMA has refused.

 

The PMA responded by offering a 17% increase, which would hike the average salaries for longshoremen and marine clerks to $114,500 and $137,500 respectively.

 

The ILWU, however, is stubbornly refusing to accept anything less than its final proposal. Union officials argue that they have compromised enough. In their view, they graciously abandoned their original bargaining position of a 70% increase over three years.

 

In trying to break the stalemate, the PMA threw in big benefit increases. The cost of ILWU benefits last year was $42,000 per worker. According to the Department of Labor statistics, full-time U.S. workers earn, on average, about $35,000 in benefits. The PMA,s offer would increase the ILWU benefit package to $59,000 annually.

 

Thus far, the ILWU has shown no sign of urgency to reach consensus. Contract talks began on May 13. During the following 10 weeks, the ILWU agreed to meet only 28 times for a total of 53.5 hours. Despite the PMA,s repeated requests to meet more frequently, and for longer periods, the ILWU refused, and even said it was unwilling to work weekends.

All it takes for evil to flourish is for good men to do nothing.

 

*MAGA not MIGA*

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PeterO

PeterO

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TJ - that article is from 10 years ago, October of 2002. Here's one about the current situation from the website unionsfacts:

 

LONGSHOREMEN STRIKE MAY COME TO THE EAST AND GULF COASTS

No one likes being late to the party. The International Longshore and Warehouse Union’s (ILWU) recent strike at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach may have ended earlier this month, but their East and Gulf Coast brethren from the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) apparently want their slice of the strike pie, too. The ILA’s 200-member wage committee recently voted to authorize a strike if their current bargaining negotiations fail to produce a union-friendly contract by December 29.

 

The strike could affect more than 14,500 ILA members. The geographical range of these workers includes American ports from Maine to Texas—a much larger range than ILWU’s California strike, which only affected two ports, albeit two of the largest in the country.

 

Economically, this strike could be devastating. One risk management firm is reporting that the strike would mean “inventory depletion, rerouting, hoarding, and price speculation ripple through supply chains of global companies.” Trade associations and business federations have also chimed in, noting that millions of American jobs will be adversely affected by a strike.

 

The contract negotiations have broken down over the question of a cap on “container royalties.” These fees were introduced in the 1960s to cushion union jobs threatened by automation and technological advances. Since then, the royalties have become a de facto form of compensation—regardless of whether a worker’s job is threatened by technology. Today, they average $15,500 per ILA worker per year and cost the East Coast and Gulf port industry over $211 million last year alone.

 

Port management wants to cap these fees, which have skyrocketed by as much as 500 percent at some locations in the last fourteen years. Considering that ILA members average a $120,000 annual salary, before overtime and benefits, it’s hard to believe that longshoremen desperately need the royalty rate to rise any further.

 

The ILA sees things differently. They want these fees to keep growing—and the faster the better. Self-interest may be at play here: the union gets ten percent of each royalty, which led to $21 million additional revenue in 2011.

 

It remains to be seen whether the 14,500 ILA members actually want this strike, or whether they’re being forced into it by the 200 members of their wage board—who comprise a mere 1.3 percent of total ILA membership. But one thing is certain: Without a secret ballot vote on strikes, these workers aren’t able to freely disagree with the union bosses who are pushing them off the docks and leaving them adrift at sea.

Why limit happy to an hour :shrug:

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