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Keep in mind the short-lived dockworkers’ strike which crippled ports on the East and Gulf Coasts in October?
The strike solely lasted three days, however price the American financial system billions in misplaced income. The work stoppage was briefly resolved when the Worldwide Longshoremen’s Affiliation (ILA) agreed to a 61.5% wage improve over the subsequent six years. The ILA and the US Maritime Alliance tabled different points, a very powerful of which is the automation of ports.
The contract extension that was negotiated expires on January 15, 2025 – 5 days earlier than President-elect Trump takes workplace for his second time period.
DOCKWORKERS’ UNION WALKS AWAY NEGOTIATIONS WITH EAST AND GULF COAST EMPLOYERS
Nonetheless, there’s a main glitch, which had been under-reported by company media: the 2 sides stopped all negotiations in mid-November, with the ILA strolling away from the negotiating desk, stating, “USMX introduced language in their proposal for semi-automated equipment to be used at ILA ports, which this union outright rejected. The ILA recognized this as a renewed attempt by USMX to eliminate ILA jobs with automation and broke off talks.”
The president of the ILA, Harold J. Daggett is adamant that no automation enters American ports underneath his management. Mr. Daggett is in opposition to nearly any use of know-how. He’s even in opposition to E-Z move use on the nation’s tollways, lamenting the lack of toll sales space employees’ union jobs as a result of E-Z Passes enable “motorists to zip through like it’s nothing and then get billed in the mail… all those union jobs are gone,” he claimed in a put up to the ILA’s YouTube channel in September.
Maybe Mr. Daggett ought to do some studying. In line with a latest survey by the World Financial institution and S&P World Market Intelligence, United States ports are a number of the least environment friendly on the earth, with the ports of Los Angeles and Lengthy Seashore being ranked as the 2 least environment friendly ports on the earth, dropping to such ports as Dar es Salaam in Tanzania and Pointe-Noire within the Republic of Congo.
Sure, ports in the US are much less environment friendly than ports in third-world nations. No American port was close to the highest 10 best ports on the earth. The offender – the dearth of automation. It takes between one and three days to unload a container ship in the US. By comparability, ports in Japan take 0.36 days to unload a equally sized ship.
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Mr. Daggett is concentrated on the fallacious battle. As a substitute of combating automation, he ought to embrace it. As a substitute of strolling away from the negotiating desk with a purpose to shield antiquated union jobs, he needs to be pushing the USMX to automate quicker, whereas defending jobs.
A easy place of embracing automation however guaranteeing that any union member who loses his or her job to automation might be employed by the USMX with the identical wage and advantages package deal, would keep away from a strike and would assist the US transition its ports to being world-class, transferring us out of the nineteenth century and into the twenty-first century.
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Newly nominated Secretary of Transportation, Sean Duffy, should handle this problem on day one of many Trump administration. Secretary Duffy wants to indicate that he’ll take away the DOT’s concentrate on fairness in roads and bridges and drive efficiencies, returning the US to its rightful place as probably the most superior nation on the earth.
The solutions are usually not laborious, they solely take braveness to implement.
