[DAVES]

Originally Posted by dewilson58

The latest strike is a great example of the lack of value.

Yes they wanted wages but they want job security thru the lack of automation.
That's nuts.
Of all these striking ports, "represented" by the union........none of them are in the Top 50 efficient ports in the world.
What's that light in the tunnel??

Pretty sad the USA labor is not a leader, it's not even close.
The cost of labor protectionism.

The vast majority of people don't want or need union representation.

Don't understand people in unions.

Speaking from personal choices. I was self employed. Self employed means when you complain about or to the boss some see you are talking to yourself. When, they SCREAM how little they make and tax write offs that a business takes, they do NOT mention UNTAXED benefits.

I started over three times over 40 years. Union, you do your 20 years and retire to the villages with a pension and benefits. I am still taxed to pay for it.

[dewilson58]

Originally Posted by DAVES

Speaking from personal choices. I was self employed. Self employed means when you complain about or to the boss some see you are talking to yourself. When, they SCREAM how little they make and tax write offs that a business takes, they do NOT mention UNTAXED benefits.

Very difficult to sneak out early.

[Cuervo]

I grew up in a poor Irish neighborhood in Queens with Harold, he was a friend of mine and a standup guy. As a New Yorker you learn to deal with the cards that are dealt to you.

Now I know there are many people on this site who hate unions, but what these people don’t realizes is that unions not only help their members, but also help nonunion members. When a union worker gets a raise, the non-union shop also gives a raise to their workers, either to keep the union out or to retain their workers. I represented my union for the last 5 years of my career and our union had a 3-year apprenticeship that was a must before you could take a job on your own. This was not only to make sure you were proficient but ensured the safety with people you were dealing with.

Automation is unstoppable and there is a good side and a not so good side. The goal of automation is to replace people and the very people who are champions of automations might find themselves unemployed one day. For those who are retired you are not spared, you see the smaller the workforce the less contributions into social security, inevitably forcing a reduction in benefits. I don’t have a solution, but someone better come up with one soon, AI is knocking at the door.

[Switter]

I would be considered pretty strongly conservative by most people but I do support collective bargaining. I consider it an expression of the first amendment. There are a lot of "ifs" around that though that I couldn't possibly get into on this forum.

[ithos]

I guess extortion is acceptable if you want to get paid much more than your skills are worth.

Remarks by Harold Daggett:

"If they don’t come to the table with real proposals, we’ll shut the ports down."

"We will never allow automation to take away our jobs. I’ll fight it to the death."

“First week, it will be all over the news — boom, boom, boom. Second week, guys who sell cars can’t sell cars because the cars ain’t coming in off the ships. They get laid off. Third week, malls start closing down. They can’t get the goods from China. They can’t sell clothes. They can’t do this. Everything in the United States comes on on a ship. They go out of business. Construction workers get laid off because the materials aren’t coming . The steel i s not coming in. The lumber is not coming in. They lose their jobs. Everybody is hating the Longshoremen now because now they realize how important our jobs are now.”

[DAVES]

Originally Posted by BigDawgInLakeDenham

So you believe it's solely union membership related and not the demographic makeup of the population? Would you expect these populations to be conditioned to actually work for a living after Johnson's Great Society Program??? I'll answer for you..absolutely not. They get paid to stay home and the more babies they make, the more they get paid to stay home. This leads to multiple fathers that don't raise the child which leads to misdirection and a life of crime and a vicious cycle...need I go on?

NOTHING is ONE ISSUE except people trying to support their BIAS. People tend to associate with similar people. The Villages is a clear example of this. I've been in neighborhoods where if, I was wiser I would not have gone. Kids grow up, seeing drug dealers with money fancy cars etc. EDUCATION? You do well in school and you are an outsider. Father knows best family are scarce as unicorn horns. MY PARENTS FAULT. I was taught by example, you work for what you NEED. If, you want something but don't need it,you buy it AFTER your NEED bills are PAID. A strange concept for many.

Answers? There are no simple EASY ones. A good start would be revamping our education system. The teacher's UNION would and does fight that.

[kcwhel]

I have a bad taste in my mouth trying to join the IBEW years ago so I have a dim view of unions. Now the dock workers (glorified equipment operators) who were making a nice $39/hr average with benefits that most do not have will be making $63/hr to push buttons and drive trucks. I doubt that hiring into these positions is done on merit but instead done through a good old boys network. This is bad for all of us who have to pay these overpaid thugs through increased prices on imported goods.

[OrangeBlossomBaby]

Originally Posted by DAVES

Speaking from personal choices. I was self employed. Self employed means when you complain about or to the boss some see you are talking to yourself. When, they SCREAM how little they make and tax write offs that a business takes, they do NOT mention UNTAXED benefits.

I started over three times over 40 years. Union, you do your 20 years and retire to the villages with a pension and benefits. I am still taxed to pay for it.

I never got any tax writeoffs as an employed person, in or out of a union. I was in a few unions. One of them was great. The others sucked. The purpose of unions is important, and should be supported. The implementation, not so much. It depends on the union.

The employee-run union at the phone company back when I first started working there in the 1990's was excellent. They negotiated paid insurance premiums on our choice of plans, including an HMO that was top-notch and affiliated with Yale University Hospital. Coordination of care was flawless between PCPs and specialists. We had something crazy like 11 paid holidays, plus 4 "personal days," 2 weeks paid vacation, bereavement pay, and 14 sick days per year that were stackable up to 28 days. We had our own on-staff nurse and wellness office, so anyone who wasn't feeling well could get a preliminary check right down the hall (I worked in Human Resources, so the nurse was on our floor).

We had a cafeteria that served pretty good food (for cafeterias), and we were just a block away from the edge of Downtown New Haven and could walk during our 45-minute (unpaid) break to just about any kind of grastronomic delight that interested us that day. I often went to Mamoun's Falafel Palace for a hummus plate and cardamom tea, and walked through the Yale Law School corridor on the way back to enjoy the architecture, and would sometimes sit outside the Beineke library to marvel at its translucent marble walls.

We had a pension rather than a 401k. Fully funded and matched up to 5% of our paycheck by the company. Our pay was excellent. My starting pay in 1991 was $10.00/hour. Minimum wage in 1991 was $4.25/hour, for comparison. I was what old-school phone workers called "steno." A departmental secretary who typed up stuff for the entire department, not just one boss.

And then, the CUTW was taken over by CWA, and everything went to crap. They wanted MORE and were adamant about not signing a contract that didn't give us MORE. We already got more than most corporations in the state - our dues were reasonable - but they had to "prove" to the employees that their union were bulldogs, and turned it into an us vs. them mentality. Previously, union negotiations were (mostly) civil. Now, they were combative.

They conceded job satisfaction in exchange for job security which felt more like jail. If a department needed to let someone go, that person could become a 3rd shift operator who now had quotas for upselling to customers calling them to fix problems.

Upward mobility became more difficult, and dues went up. I quit before things got too bad. I blame the union around 70% for the degradation of the employee trust, and 30% on the company's takeover by Whitacre and Southwestern Bell.

And so - unions absolutely have their place. But employee union members need to be pro-active, responsible, and keep themselves informed about what the union is doing to "protect" them. Sometimes they don't need protection and the union needs to just step back. When they are given free reign, they destroy more than they protect.

[justjim]

Originally Posted by dewilson58

The latest strike is a great example of the lack of value.

Yes they wanted wages but they want job security thru the lack of automation.
That's nuts.
Of all these striking ports, "represented" by the union........none of them are in the Top 50 efficient ports in the world.
What's that light in the tunnel??

Pretty sad the USA labor is not a leader, it's not even close.
The cost of labor protectionism.

The vast majority of people don't want or need union representation.

Don't understand people in unions.

Don’t understand people in unions. Your father, grandfather and uncles never were coal miners? Unions were necessary to get safety in many different occupations but especially coal mines. A rising tide raises all boats union and non-union boats.

[DAVES]

Originally Posted by Cuervo

I grew up in a poor Irish neighborhood in Queens with Harold, he was a friend of mine and a standup guy. As a New Yorker you learn to deal with the cards that are dealt to you.

Now I know there are many people on this site who hate unions, but what these people don’t realizes is that unions not only help their members, but also help nonunion members. When a union worker gets a raise, the non-union shop also gives a raise to their workers, either to keep the union out or to retain their workers. I represented my union for the last 5 years of my career and our union had a 3-year apprenticeship that was a must before you could take a job on your own. This was not only to make sure you were proficient but ensured the safety with people you were dealing with.

Automation is unstoppable and there is a good side and a not so good side. The goal of automation is to replace people and the very people who are champions of automations might find themselves unemployed one day. For those who are retired you are not spared, you see the smaller the workforce the less contributions into social security, inevitably forcing a reduction in benefits. I don’t have a solution, but someone better come up with one soon, AI is knocking at the door.

The first problem is we seek perfect answers but there is no such thing. Far as social secuity it is a prime example of mismanagement. Originally when started there were, if, I recall my reading, 12 workers for everyone collecting. WE are actually the problem. A huge mass of people retiring and going through the system. Today there are like two people working for everyone collecting. Social secuity had the numbers. They spent our money to expand benefits for those before us. They had a lot coming in. Now it is our turn. We paid a lot we want ours.
Problem is we had no choice but to buy into the system. Private insurance would have been cheaper. Truly shocking reality. Our national debt. Social secuity holds 40% of it. Imagine financing an obligation with the obligation. It would be illegal for a company to do that. INFLATION is a slight of hand trick. We need more to pay inflated higher prices. We pay those higher prices with after tax money. People do not realize how much less they have even with the number going up.

Far as HATE, I do not hate Unions. I keep my HATE list as empty as possible so can give anyone or anything to make my list my full attention.

[dewilson58]

Originally Posted by justjim

Don’t understand people in unions. Your father, grandfather and uncles never were coal miners? Unions were necessary to get safety in many different occupations but especially coal mines. A rising tide raises all boats union and non-union boats.

AGAIN..............old news...............50 years ago............living on old history.

[Cuervo]

Originally Posted by DAVES

The first problem is we seek perfect answers but there is no such thing. Far as social secuity it is a prime example of mismanagement. Originally when started there were, if, I recall my reading, 12 workers for everyone collecting. WE are actually the problem. A huge mass of people retiring and going through the system. Today there are like two people working for everyone collecting. Social secuity had the numbers. They spent our money to expand benefits for those before us. They had a lot coming in. Now it is our turn. We paid a lot we want ours.
Problem is we had no choice but to buy into the system. Private insurance would have been cheaper. Truly shocking reality. Our national debt. Social secuity holds 40% of it. Imagine financing an obligation with the obligation. It would be illegal for a company to do that. INFLATION is a slight of hand trick. We need more to pay inflated higher prices. We pay those higher prices with after tax money. People do not realize how much less they have even with the number going up.

Far as HATE, I do not hate Unions. I keep my HATE list as empty as possible so can give anyone or anything to make my list my full attention.

Besides mismanagement there is one big issue with FICA which not only covers Social Security, but also Medicare. Instead of there being a percentage of total earned there is a cap of $160,200 in 2023 and $168,600 in 2024. You remove the cap and clamp down on off the book work and you'll see this problem disappear. Off the book work in this country is everywhere.

[Johnsocat]

We appear to have dodged the bullet for the time being. So, what are we going to learn from it?
Instead of focusing on whether unions are good or bad, how about paying attention to the fact that our Nation's daily way of life and our entire economy rely on IMPORTS.
We can no longer survive as a strong, independent Nation on our own. We can no longer produce the things that are vital to keep us functioning.
So, what are we going to do about it?
Maybe this particular union's actions have a provided a greater value than most believe.

Originally Posted by ithos

I guess extortion is acceptable if you want to get paid much more than your skills are worth.

Remarks by Harold Daggett:

"If they don’t come to the table with real proposals, we’ll shut the ports down."

"We will never allow automation to take away our jobs. I’ll fight it to the death."

“First week, it will be all over the news — boom, boom, boom. Second week, guys who sell cars can’t sell cars because the cars ain’t coming in off the ships. They get laid off. Third week, malls start closing down. They can’t get the goods from China. They can’t sell clothes. They can’t do this. Everything in the United States comes on on a ship. They go out of business. Construction workers get laid off because the materials aren’t coming . The steel i s not coming in. The lumber is not coming in. They lose their jobs. Everybody is hating the Longshoremen now because now they realize how important our jobs are now.”

[Cuervo]

There was a mention of unions how shall I say this, having mob influence.
I always say when addressing this topic.
In New York there are 3 ways of doing things and this is not only in New York.
The right way, the wrong way and the N.Y. way.
Assuming you want to put a pool in your back yard.

1. The right way you apply for a permit and wait for it to be approved which could be when hell freezes over, if it's approved at all.
2. The wrong way you put it in without a permit, hope you don't get caught and have to deal with it when you go to sell your house.
3. The N.Y. way, you make some phone calls to friends and an inspector come to your house, check the area and the size pool you want to put in tells you will have a permit within a couple of week and leaves with an envelope of cash you conveniently left on the table.
Anyone who does not believe this is not an everyday in this country needs to wake up.

[justjim]

Population density has a lot to do with what rules and regulations need to be in place. New York is an example and other large Metropolitan areas are other examples. Small towns and very rural areas not so much. We see changes in The Villages as the population has grown.