Just want to share some pictures from 9gag http://9gag.com/gag/ay0ngob
quite impressing 
PMA needs to just sign the agreement. ILWU will get what they want in the long run.
It’s bullshit a union can slow down like that and fuck companies and an entire port. At least if you go on strike they can bring in scabs and even though productivity will be low they won’t have to pay those overpaid and underworked assclowns.
Last time someone did that in my neck of the woods it cost them work they’re yet to recoup decades later. Hope those shipping companies take their business elsewhere; already partially likely once the new canal is done.
I repeat.
PMA needs to just sign the agreement. ILWU will get what they want in the long run.
Is it true that the average salary of union dock workers is $147,000?
[QUOTE=Kraken;154432]Is it true that the average salary of union dock workers is $147,000?[/QUOTE]
I don’t know about that, at least in Virginia. If one is to go by the cars in the parking lot. Where did you get the info, if you don’t mind my asking?
Sounds about right. I got a few buddies ILWU. It took them a while to get in. Sweet contract and almost zero responsibility. All you got to do is show up and do what your told, work 4 hours and get paid for 8, etc. Not a bad gig.
[QUOTE=MFOWelectrician;154436]Sounds about right. I got a few buddies ILWU. It took them a while to get in. Sweet contract and almost zero responsibility. All you got to do is show up and do what your told, work 4 hours and get paid for 8, etc. Not a bad gig.[/QUOTE]
Sigh…always a bridesmaid, never a bride. I never get in on these great gigs. :rolleyes:
I hear you. I used to stand in those long lines trying to get in. Three job positions, thousands applying for it.
[QUOTE=MFOWelectrician;154439]I hear yeah. I used to stand in those long lines trying to get in. Three job positions, thousands applying for it.[/QUOTE]
They must have decent pension and life insurance too. One of my neighbors was a stevedore. Wrapped his car around a tree on the way home and died, wife and kids kept the house and his other vehicles and I’m not sure that she had to work, at least for awhile anyway.
I never did try for one of those jobs. I just figured I had a better crack at winning the Powerball.
[QUOTE=catherder;154433]I don’t know about that, at least in Virginia. If one is to go by the cars in the parking lot. Where did you get the info, if you don’t mind my asking?[/QUOTE]
Was mentioned in a comment on 9gag.
Yes there is a lot of money to be made on the waterfront.
The line handlers at NIT show up in Lincoln’s and Caddys and I would assume they are towards the bottom of the ILA’s pecking order so they must be doing ok. I’m not sure if its true or not but I hear that they get paid $25 per line they touch.
It’s something you’re usually born into. Or connected by favors etc.
One port had a scam uncovered not too long ago…had been going on for years…get your kid a union book when he’s born, so poof, 18 years of seniority when they started working. Good deal for some. Also guys keeping seniority when going to jail for 10+ years, that kind of thing.
Overpaid, underworked.
It’s costing the city of Seattle a bundle there must have been 70+ cops directing truck traffic downtown plus the thousands of trucks idling all day with know where to go…
The longshoremen are one of the few unions left with any power. The power to slowdown or shut down an entire coast. We need new legislation that limits a longshoremen’s union to representing only one port.
The typical Longshoreman should be paid about $40,000 per year. Most of them are just semi-skilled laborers doing jobs that require no education.
If any one wanted to save consumers of marine transportation service money, forget the Jones Act. Start with the longshoremen.
Amen! Hey Johnny McCain, you hear that?
[QUOTE=Kraken;154432]Is it true that the average salary of union dock workers is $147,000?[/QUOTE]
I think different ports have different pay rates…may be wrong though.
Someone who has been in a few years and is a clerk or linehandler could be making around the mid-100ks. An entry level longshoreman getting their forty a week is around 90k or a 100k a yr. Crane operators make the most high 100k low 200k. Also, their insurance plans are surpassed by none.
[QUOTE=Ctony;154485]I think different ports have different pay rates…may be wrong though.
Someone who has been in a few years and is a clerk or linehandler could be making around the mid-100ks. An entry level longshoreman getting their forty a week is around 90k or a 100k a yr. Crane operators make the most high 100k low 200k. Also, their insurance plans are surpassed by none.[/QUOTE]
Their wages are nothing compared to the billions and billions of dollars of goods they move for Chinese billionaires to supply US billionaires like the Walton crowd. Good for them for not joining the race to the bottom.Glad they’re getting some of that foreign trade benefit that “our” leaders keep telling us about. It is not that they make so much it just that everyone else now makes so little. You really think prices would fall if they took a 50% pay cut? Not a chance.
[QUOTE=lm1883;154483]If you think that cutting the longshoremen wages and benefits will some how translate into a wage increase ship side, think again. The argument will be made that they took a cut, so should you. What they make is pennies on a pair of Nikes so good on them for being able to make a living. When Maersk has US flag ships without a subsidy or hires US Mariners for their foreign flag vessels, I’ll think differently, until then ILWU wages are simply part of the trade deficit that we are recovering. Remember, these are foreign ship owners and operators taking your hard earned dollars over seas, and returning nothing to the common American worker. There should be a price for taking advantage in our markets.[/QUOTE]
I disagree. If Longshore costs and delays were not so unrealistically and unreasonably high, we would have a thriving short sea shipping Jones Act coastal trade, most of it by tug and barge.
Shipping by barge is by far the most fuel efficient and cheapest method. However, most of the container freight that should be traveling by barge or coastal ship is now going by truck. Why? Because trucking cuts out the ridiculous longshore costs. Barges cannot compete against trucks for container freight if the barges have to be loaded and unloaded by longshoremen.
The effin’ ILWU has a bastard stepchild of a union for mariners, the IBU. Instead of bringing mariners wages up to the same range of dock workers, the ILWU/IBU has entered into series of sweetheart contracts with employers to suppress mariner wages.
The longshoremen have been eating our lunch for decades. Stop drinking the ILWU cool aid.