Shipping lines locking out West Coast longshoremen

Honolulu Advertiser ^ | http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2002/Sep/27/br/br01p.html | Advertiser Staff and News Services

[Vidalia]

The association representing dozens of major shipping lines said today they are locking out longshore workers at all Pacific ports until Sunday morning as part of what it called a

[Vidalia]

Got plenty of terlit paper and rice.

Went back for more 00Buck in case it gets real bad...

[BulletBrasDotNet]

Well, this makes a lot of sense. We're in an economic slow down, people are out of work, and these people decide to stay home. A lot of people, about 25,000,000 would like to be working. What's up with these people? Well, then again, the situation is in California...

[FreePaul]

Maybe we can see employment for Vincente Fox's invasion force. Shouldn't be a problem in finding them for West coast jobs. Only a little longer swim to Hawaii.

[Winston Smith]

That is a wonderful thought. If they hire people who need jobs immediatly, it would cool the union off a lot quicker.

[dark_lord]

The union today disputed claims by the association that there had been a work slowdown, claiming instead that dockworkers have been subjected to a dangerous increase in workload for several months.
"There is no slowdown. There never was. We are simply making sure we follow the safety regulations because we have had a rash of deaths and injuries. We have had five deaths in the last six months. People are getting pretty upset about it" said Steve Stallone, a spokesman for the International Longshore and Warehouse Union.
Stallone said the Pacific Maritime Association created "hysteria" about a strike that prompted businesses to ship more cargo in an effort to stock up in the event of a disruption in work.
"We are currently moving more cargo on West Coast ports than ever before," Stallone said. "People are rushing their stuff through. There is so much cargo going through the docks that they're congested. It has been hard to move things around."

The law of unintended consequences.

I wonder, though. Shouldn't all of this "extra" shipping be increasing work in the transportation industry? Is it occuring because inventories are down? How much of this is the standard bulking up of inventory for retailers for Christmas?

[Vidalia]

" The union today disputed claims by the association that there had been a work slowdown, claiming instead that dockworkers have been subjected to a dangerous increase in workload for several months. " This statement is such a load of crap, for the shipping volume is down, and when necessary, these guys could safely do a double time.

But the public who will do without haven't a clue, for common sense and economics are no longer taught in high school.

Seen Leno's show lately?

The "Jaywalking" segment should be renamed "American Idiot Graduates From Clueless Schools"...

[greydog]

This statement is such a load of crap, for the shipping volume is down, and when necessary, these guys could safely do a double time.

I've worked as a supervisor, as a manager, and now in the labor field (UAW union member - and I know that upper union reps spew as much garbage as Tom dashhole). But when you state that "these guys could safely do a double time." you obviously haven't done alot of work with objects that can squish you like a bug. I have, and have seen people die in accidents, in most part because they were not aware of thier surroundings, which in turn for the most part was because they were tired.

I don't know if you have worked any "12s", let alone "16s", but at the end of a 12 when you walk out of a job and see the faces of people walking in and then 12 hours later see the same faces walking out, they have the "1000 yard stare".

[Vidalia]

What 12, 14 or 16 hr. shifts are you talking about in the UAW?

That hasn't' been in any contract for a decade or two except for the extravagant double or triple pay for simply punching in.

What the guys do in the Auto realm is lackadaisical compared to the work the dockers do.

We are talking stevedores, real men, not auto workers...

"... faces of people walking in and then 12 hours later see the same faces walking out, they have the "1000 yard stare...". "

Since when does the UAW work in the coal mines, and that literary sentence comes from what work of what author?

The author's name is on the tip of many readers' tongues....

For those who think the union will give them absolute job security, so be it, but they are handicapped by that mentality.

[Richard K]

Thanks for adding some sanity and reality. You know, there are people at the phone company who work "12ers" and "16ers" and even longer.

And now they're getting layed off by SBC - another 11,000.

In my opinion, Bush needs to provide more leadership. If Bush were Eisenhower or even Clinton, he'd have some kind of negotiations or arbitration already started with the DOL leading the way.

But there's no plan in this government not for the dock strike - and not for the 11,000 phone company workers.

Nor is there leadership in this government to keep America up with the rest of the world in technology.

Bush should provide leadership in technology. He needs to stop procrastinating. He needs to stop speaking out of two sides of his mouth. On one side he agrees with John Chambers and company that "oh by the way, we ought to do something about broadband."

On the other side, he does ZERO about it. And there are things he could do - like the things that the Japanese government is doing. And the British.

And the Chinese. And a lot of other countries - but not us.

When Bush took office, more Americans had broadband than Koreans. Now there are less Americans with broadband.

Not only that, the kind of broadband we use is lame. About ZERO Americans have true high speed Internet such as FTTH or 802.11 and faster broadband. Thus almost ZERO Americans can buy or use fast Internet applications. Shang Hai will soon run faster than Wall Street.

One major problem we have with broadband is the same as with the labor strike - lack of government leadership.

It's OK that Bush doesn't know how to settle a dock strike. But he should have people prepared to work on it who doggone *DO* know how to settle a strike and he should let them do their job.

But, instead of settlement, we get Bush fanning the flames, Bush pumping up the anti-union rhetoric, Bush trying to make political hay out of it.

You know what his problem is? Two of them: First Bush has never done a personal inventory of his beliefs about government. Bush has probably never even read Woodrow Wilson's books about Congress. And second, Bush has never really grown up. Bush is everything his dad told him about how the world works - minus everything big oil tells him about how they want it to work - minus all the money they've stolen from ordinary American citizens.

And you and I know that Dad is right a lot. But the way Dad says things are may not always be the way they work.

And you must have figured out by now that government only works when you lead. I think George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and practically every other good president and a lot of even sort of OK presidents would agree with that.

Even Bush put out a lot of words about it like "being a uniter not a divider."

So it isn't so much an issue for me how bad you think Tom Daschle is or what you call him.

It does matter to me what Bush says though.

Bush probably shouldn't be saying the same kind of things you say.

John Erlichmann once said that as a public servant you need to "burn with a blue flame for the Bill of Rights." When I heard that it was an awakening for me - for one thing that there are good, true Americans on "both sides of the aisle"

And for another that we are only Republicans or Democrats because first we are Americans.

If Bush is a leader and a uniter, he should burn with a blue flame for leading this country.

For one thing - and just one - he should have plans for technology to keep America strong. I mean what is the point of having "smart bombs" if 5 years from now our bombs are "stupid bombs" compared to what some other country has?

And what is the point of building software if Bush considers it is OK to let American technology worker starve for jobs while some other country takes control, take the lead - to let other countries get ahead of Sun, Oracle, IBM, Microsoft, CISCO, Intel.

At the rate of Bush's "leadership" we will soon have to surrender and lay down our arms in the world technology theatre. If that happenned in automobiles I bet you'd care. If I were in your shoes it would make me sick. I'm in mine - and as far as computers and software goes - it does make me sick in fact.

But for computers and software and broadband - maybe that doesn't really matter to you.

Do you actually care who builds the computers and the software your ISP uses? The software your bank uses?

The software your gas station uses?

Or do you just sort of think you "use it to log in?"

But if Bush continues to just criticize the patriotisim of every day Americans, be they labor unionists, civil servants, telecom workers, software and hardware engineers, Fedex carriers, or Senators then he is very very wrong.

If he thinks what he is doing is leadership he's very wrong.

And if he thinks a labor strike can be "won" or "lost" like some football game, he is very wrong. He is especially wrong for this country in this time of need.

- If he can't bring leadership to the economy or labor disputes,
- If he insists on blaming organized civil servants and says they're not patriotic,
- If he says the same thing about Congress,

If all those things then I guess all that "uniter not a divider" stuff was just so much rhetoric then.

Wasn't it.

Any way, thanks for the note.

Regards,


Richard K