I read in this gcaptain article & other media outlets that this is the 1st strike in 60 years for the ILA but the below New Times article said they went on strike in early January 2017, at least ny/nj harbor. What is worse, according to the NYC Waterfront Commission many interviewed picket walkers had no clue why they were on strike or what the union was demanding. Other outlets also claim Daggett can call a strike anytime he wants without membership voting. With inflation so high, eggs $3 a dozen sometimes, rising rent costs & Christmas around the corner, longshoremen will be more hated than the tax man or dirty cops soon. ILA should wrap this up as soon as possible because if it drags out people will start demanding the ports get fully automated to prevent an economically crippling event from happening again on the whim of a suspected mobster that most have nothing in common with.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/06/nyregion/new-york-harbor-on-the-waterfront.html
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Very well said. Hard to get a machine to care about being called a scab.
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It’s also hard for a working class family that is already struggling to have much sympathy for a longshoreman who is already very well paid, especially when they find out that longshoreman already turned down a 50% raise.
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Word in the Port of NY and NJ is this is about to wrap. Expecting to be crazy busy tomorrow. Fingers crossed
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Kudos to you for not using that article to slam Buttigieg.
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But here’s the hard truth: The militancy showcased by the ILA is exactly what is needed to restore a fairer, more balanced economy—the kind that created the middle class in the postwar decades and allowed your grandparents to access reliable healthcare, take vacations, and enjoy disposable incomes. Those who complain that today’s left has come to privilege boutique identity politics over bread-and-butter concerns should cheer the longshoremen. There is nothing “woke” about their exercise of economic power to win material gains for themselves and their industrial brethren.
Link is from Marginal Revolution.
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