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Originally Posted by Hancle704
How much do West Coast longshoremen earn?
ILWU workers receive a compensation package that is “among the most lucrative among all blue-collar workers in the United States,” according to the PMA. Full-time workers earn an average of $142,000 annually in wages, along with a non-wage benefits package costing more than $82,000 per active worker per year. Pay ranges depend on the job, with regular longshoremen earning less than clerks and both of them earning less than foremen. According to the 2013 Pacific Maritime Association Annual Report, most of the 9,985 “Class A” longshoremen working that year, which comprised those who worked 2,000 or more total hours, earned roughly $137,000 per year, though many earned less and a few of the highest paid longshoremen, those who worked an average of more than 50 hours per week, earned over $200,000. Most clerks earned roughly $147,000, while the highest-paid earned well over $200,000 per year. Walking bosses, or foremen, are the highest-paid ILWU workers, many of them earning well over $200,000 and some more than $300,000. Nearly 13,600 ILWU workers are employed at West Coast ports. In 2013, the total payroll for the nearly 13,600 ILWU members was roughly $1.4 billion.
At the JOC’s TPM conference in March, PMA President James McKenna indicated that negotiators may decide to postpone the issue of who — dockworkers or employers — must pay for an estimated $150 million per year Obamacare tax on the union’s premium health care plan under which employers pay 100 percent of premiums in the ILWU health and dental care plan for members and their families, and union members pay just a $1 co-pay per prescription for medicine. Such “Cadillac” plans are subject to tax under Obamacare. Employers have indicated that a cost-sharing formula can be worked out, while the ILWU, in its traditional “no-give-back” strategy, does not want to pay any taxes on its health care plan. Since the tax takes effect in 2018, some have the idea that by then Congress will change Obamacare to eliminate the tax. If not, the union and employers can revive the issue then as part of a separate negotiation.
Source: US West Coast Labor Negotiations: Frequently Asked Questions | JOC.com
After reading this, it is fair to ask a few questions
What kind of education is needed to do these jobs?
How much do these salaries and benefits wind up adding to the prices the rest of us pay for goods brought into the west coast?
What kind of deal does the union have with politicians in exchange for their support?
Why do some say that big corporations are the greedy villains? |
According to the International Longshoreman Association, which included 14,500 union members in 2013, longshoremen earn $20 per hour at entry-level, as of April 2013. The ILA states that after obtaining six years of experience, longshoremen in the union are paid $35 per hour, as of April 2013.
Read more :
What Is the Average Salary of a Longshoreman? | eHow
They can become longshoremen with a high school education. My son is a merchant marine with a college degree. He worked as an able bodied seaman before landing his first job as a deck officer on an outsourced naval supply ship. He will tell you how difficult that able bodied job was physically, and how much harder the longshoreman's job is. It is telling that there are only 14,000 of them. You would have no goods if it weren't for the people who do this back-breaking work.
I haven't heard anyone on this forum label AlL big corporations as greedy. Just the ones that truly are, and these statements were backed up with facts.