From Reuters:
US East Coast port strike looms Tuesday with no talks scheduled
U.S. East and Gulf Coast port workers are set to go on strike at midnight on Monday with no talks currently scheduled to head off a stoppage threatening to halt container traffic from Maine to Texas and cost the economy as much as $5 billion a day.
The labor contract between the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) union representing 45,000 port workers and the United States Maritime Alliance (USMX) employer group expires late Monday, with negotiations at an impasse over pay.
A port strike will go ahead starting Tuesday at 12:01 a.m. ET, the ILA said on Sunday. The USMX “refuses to address a half-century of wage subjugation,” the union said in a statement on Sunday.
If union members do walk off the job, it would be the first coast-wide ILA strike since 1977, affecting ports that handle about half of the nation’s ocean shipping.
No negotiations are taking place and none are planned before the Monday deadline, a person familiar with the matter said on condition of anonymity as the matter is a sensitive one.
But a strike could stop the flow of everything from food to automobiles at major ports, potentially jeopardizing jobs and stoking inflation weeks ahead of the U.S. presidential election.
Business Roundtable, which represents major U.S. business leaders, said it was “deeply concerned about the potential strike at the East Coast and Gulf Coast ports.”
The group warned a labor stoppage could cost the economy billions of dollars daily, hurting businesses, workers and consumers across the country. “We urge both sides to come to an agreement before Monday night’s deadline.”
A short strike could have a limited economic impact given many companies have imported extra goods ahead of a possible work stoppage or shifted more shipments to West Coast ports. But a strike that continues for weeks could have serious economic impacts.
“These people today don’t know what a strike is,” Harold Daggett, the ILA’s fiery leader, said in a recent video post. “I’ll cripple you. I will cripple you.”
Wha?
1 and 2
Reagan destroyed Unions and the middle class. Trump will too.
“If union members do walk off the job, it would be the first coast-wide ILA strike since 1977, affecting ports that handle about half of the nation’s ocean shipping.”
From the article:
“U.S. presidents can intervene in labor disputes that threaten national security or safety by imposing an 80-day cooling-off period under the federal Taft-Hartley Act, forcing workers back on the job while negotiations continue.”
Is that the plan? Will Joe step up or let this play out?
Can you see this lasting a while if they strike? What happens to all the imports that usually arrive on a daily basis? Where do they go? Do they not even leave international ports?
The East coast brie eaters won’t put up with an outage for long.
$5 an hour raises for six years and a promise not to completely automate their jobs away. Not all that bad considering container volume is expected to double or even triple in the next 20 years or so.
don’t worry, the man in charge is on it
https://x.com/greg_price11/status/1840576548992106698
I read that in Japan, they can unload a cargo ship in 10% of the time that the US can.
Kris Kristofferson, RIP.
I guess anyone not a boomer has no idea who he is. Anyway, the dude wrote a lot of songs… actually poetry, ala Bob Dylan with instinct and passion that Taylor Swift unfortunately doesn’t have and never will.
BRT,
Geezus, the man looks like he’s 95 in that video.
Speaking of Kris, love the cover of Highwayman he did with Cash, Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson. IMHO – this version is one of the top 10 country songs of all time, I’m sure I’ll get flack for that. But come on, the lineup? Feel like this one marked the transition point between old and new country – circa 1985-ish.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFkcAH-m9W0
Nod to Grim for giving a nod to Kris. Glad to see you youngins know who he is.
I’ve been toying with the idea of a mountain house sort of speak. I mean, this is a mountain house!
https://www.trulia.com/home/244-ralph-engle-rd-schoharie-ny-12157-440871862
10%? A ship with 10,000 containers cannot be unloaded quickly no matter how many worker bees you have. The newest cranes can lift four 20-foot or two 40-foot containers at the same time. Since they raised the Bayonne Bridge to 215 feet they can now accommodate the largest container ships holding 15,000 containers.
They say it’s 1-3 days to unload a ship. The rest of the time is usually the long backup of trucks waiting to be loaded.
I listen to a lot of country – it’s the default radio station in the Tesla.
I listen to a lot of country – it’s the default radio station in the Tesla.
It’s been woven into the routine the last couple of years. I watched Lainey Wilson on New Year’s Eve and was blown away. Actually, Hardy blew me away as well. They all did. I can’t remember all the bands that played in those Nashville bars that night but they were awesome! The musicians were incredible!
My family likes to take cruises. One of my favorite parts of cruising is watching the huge container ships get loaded/unloaded. I am actually surprised the entire process is not automated. Though, the big issue is what Juice said. The transportation infrastructure in and out of ports has not kept up with the increases in the size of containerships. Automating the loading/unloading of the ships might save a little in labor, but the faster turnaround won’t help if the trucks can’t get in and out of the facilities. Something I saw for the first time when I was leaving Halifax was that to save time, the cranes unloading the ships were stacking the containers on the ground and then a giant forklift was picking them up and loading them onto trucks. Normally, the crane put the containers right onto the trucks, which slows the process down. I am stunned that they don’t mix up the deliveries among the thousands of containers at varying lengths.
Over the years I’ve visited a number of major container terminals and container terminal operators around the world. Dubai, India, Hong Kong, China, Philippines, Germany, Brazil.
All of them are more efficient and can do more container operations per hour than any of the major US ports. Somehow in those other countries, even the corrupt ones, they don’t let the unions maintain a chokehold on the rest of their economy. I guess other countries somehow pay off the unions to go along with reasonable efficiency for a price. Usually while the government may own the port, they let private terminal operators run the container terminals, and typically let them come up with a grand plan for efficiency, expansion, etc. Even in Germany I saw a container terminal operator that even 10 years ago was very highly automated. Fewer people mean fewer chances for injury and higher operations per hour.
Certain US unions are just sacred cows. The government made railroads install 25 year old train control technology and make it illegal to take more people off each train.
The World bank does a ranking of container terminals around the world, and the US’ biggest ports are pretty far behind most of the world. NY/NJ ports are near the bottom of both the world and within North America, while LA/Long Beach are pretty much worst in class for anywhere, almost like being captured by pirates every time you go into their harbor. The only thing California seems to care about with their terrible container ports is making it “green”. They don’t care that they have the world’s biggest dysfunctional ports, year after year. NJ/NY Port Authority isn’t quite as bad, but it’s far from good.
https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/099060324114539683/pdf/P17583313892300871be641a5ea7b90e0e6.pdf
Hehe
At least a dozen employees at the Department of Veterans Affairs improperly accessed the medical records of vice-presidential nominees JD Vance and Tim Walz this summer, VA investigators found, in a violation of federal health privacy laws that is under criminal investigation.
VA officials notified the Vance and Walz campaigns about the breaches after discovering the unauthorized viewing by employees at the agency’s massive health-care arm, the Veterans Health Administration, according to people familiar with the investigation who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the ongoing investigation.
VA Inspector General Michael Missal’s office has shared evidence with federal prosecutors on the actions of several employees in the health system, including a physician and a contractor who spent extended time looking at the candidates’ medical files, according to law enforcement officials, raising investigators’ concerns about their motives.
Like the others, the physician and contractor used their VA computers to get into the records, mostly from their government offices.
Speaking of containers…. Just-in-time (JIT) inventory it is back to pre-pandemic levels, meaning we could run out of toilet paper again.
Fast : Kris K was an incredible song writer, his Sunday Morning Coming Down (sung by Johnny Cash) is an absolute classic. Before becoming a country star he was an English teacher, and I believe had the opposite to teach English at Westpoint but turned down to pursue music.
Country music started to change in the late 80”s than a backlash to that change in the 90s with George Strait, Toby Keith, and Alan Jackson. They still sell out stadiums.
Don’t forget Kris was the Rubber Duck in Convoy. Lucky dude got to have Ali McGraw as his girlfriend.
There be people in them there shipping containers.
Every time you look at a port, try and pick the ones with humans inside.
Juice, couldn’t verify, just what I read. They said most things were heavily automated wherever they could be.
Kamala has a plan. Hehe
GM to begin laying off about 1,700 workers at Kansas plant, WARN notice shows
All of the American ports are using Chinese cranes that are spying on America. They listen in and know which songs workers like on Spotify.
So now, like TikTok, America is going to spend billions to change all of the cranes thanks to this.
Hehe.
Frank Sabotka found one of those containers once.
3b,
Kris was also a helicopter pilot in the service, reaching the rank of Captain.
Just wait till some angry Gen Z puts a line of code in one of these automated port cranes and the thing starts tossing cargo containers around the place.
Will make a great Reddit Public Freakout video.
Amazing. You won’t see this often. Time stamped for you.
https://youtu.be/GwxFS2bc28k?t=369
Shaggy. Hehe.
British clergyman, 69, dies during night of drug-fueled sex with Belgian priest, 60, who is then arrested after cops find ecstasy in his Antwerp rectory
I always questioned the etymology of “rectory.”
KK, in addition, Rhodes scholar, Army Captain, helicopter pilot, Ranger school grad
Juice: How do you promise not to automate jobs?
1987: Pretty impressive for a red neck country boy.
RIP Kris. Willy’s still touring, driving around the country on his bus “Honeysuckle Rose”. Frankie Valli still going strong at 90 as I worked for him last Friday. He hung at the theatre all day visiting with his Jersey friends and relatives. He’s not very good at lip synching though.
I thought the sex was the ecstasy in is rectory.
Hehe.
Pass the basket, we need more money for our entertainment.
f the church.
Frankie Valli.
I worked for him too. In Parsippany.
Douche with a capital D.
British Clergyman, 69, died doing what he loved the most.
Gay sex.
Cell service down around the country:
https://9to5mac.com/2024/09/30/verizon-is-down-outage/
looks like Zuckerberg took after Bezos and now is going with roids/hgh regiment. Look at his shoulders/jawline.
https://x.com/StockMKTNewz/status/1840749647691694363
BRT: And he has new hair too. I understand he is also no longer a vegetarian, he is back to eating meat.
Ho Ho Kus has been ranked as NJ s wealthiest town.
Ho Ho Kus has been ranked as NJ s wealthiest town.
They have unicorns there. I also saw a Cumella/Schmaltz lawn sign on Powderhorn Road. You know… the elites demonstrating their status and all.
Geezus, parts of the South are just devastated! Western North Carolina looks like the apocalypse!