- An interesting thing about labor disputes like this is they're presented as quasi-political stories, where people eagerly argue "for" or "against" the union or corp as though they were political parties or philosophical camps or something.
But as with most economics, it doesn't really matter what you think is fair, or who has the best justification. These are simply economic forces testing each other, and whichever is strongest will prevail.
People in the US are so accustomed to working class people being universally disempowered that we find it perverse and "upside down" that some workers could actually have the economic force to make demands and have them met. Meanwhile employers routinely make arbitrary demands and have them met. It doesn't even occur to anyone to argue about them, because it's recognized that employers simply have the power to demand whatever they want from their employees, and that this is natural and reasonable.
- They rejected a 5$/h per year increase for 6 years (77% salary improvement over the period). Given what I know of Canadian Port workers they are often paid more than 100k$/y and they put their children on lists to get jobs. The incentives to automate as much as possible is clearly there for business owners even outside of strikes.
They also dont get much love from the public. The known ties with organized crime might have something to do with it and the general impression (right or wrong) that they are never happy despite having very good conditions/salaries.
- Can someone make the case for why we should support the port workers in this situation? My intuition is that while they are probably competent at what they do, there are likely many people who would be eagerly and immediately replace each of them if offered the opportunity to do the same work for the same wage. And increased automation and efficiency at the ports seems like it would have significant benefit for rest of the nation.
- very odd that this short news article does not mention "automation" of existing human roles at all. Yet this is central to the contested negotiations
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/sep/26/port-worker-...
- Going on strike to keep your job from being replaced by automation does not seem like a winning strategy. Not only does your job not need to exist, you actually want more money for doing something no one needs you to do?
If you want a payment for doing nothing of value, that's something government handles, not a private employer.
There's SO MUCH demand for labor right now, let's not have people do jobs that computers can do.
by blackeyeblitzar
0 subcomment
- A single union spans all these ports? This shouldn’t be allowed - we need antitrust laws to break up unions and promote a healthy amount of competition. Biden could prevent this strike by invoking his legal powers given this is critical infrastructure, but I doubt he will do that given it’s an election year.
Hacker News