Posted on 07/30/2004 11:01:49 PM PDT by lewislynn
By ALEX VEIGA, AP Business Writer
LOS ANGELES (AP) - Shipping companies and union leaders agreed Thursday to add 3,000 new dockworkers to the Los Angeles port complex, the nation's largest, in a bid to stem a growing backlog of cargo traffic.
The agreement comes after weeks of negotiations between the International Longshore & Warehouse Union and the Pacific Maritime Association, which represents shipping companies. The talks ultimately yielded a plan both sides hope will help alleviate delays at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach caused by a boom in cargo shipping from China.
"Given the record-setting volumes moving through the ports ... these workers will meet a critical need and enable us to keep the economy rolling," PMA President Jim McKenna said in a statement.
The plan calls for promoting 1,000 current so-called casual workers, who are typically hired by the day as needed, to a higher-skilled jobs status that brings them one step closer to becoming fully registered Longshoremen. The union will also begin taking applications to fill some 3,000 additional casual worker slots.
The application process likely won't begin before the second week of August, said David Arian, president of the ILWU Longshore Local 13.
Dockworkers handle the loading and unloading of cargo containers from ships, railways and tractor-trailers. Fully registered Longshoremen can earn six-figure incomes and benefits after several years, so the jobs are highly coveted.
The union is anticipating thousands of applicants, so it is planning to use a drawing system to select the 3,000 casual worker candidates.
After the new hires are brought in, it will take three to four months to get them fully trained, Arian said.
As of Thursday afternoon, there were nine ships at the outer anchorage awaiting access to the ports, according to the Marine Exchange, which monitors ship movements. Normally, between three and four ships are forced to wait entry per day, but the average since the beginning of the month has been between 14 and 15.
Posted on 07/29/04 18:14:00
http://www.modbee.com/24hour/business/story/1530926p-9058117c.html
zing.
Excellent!
(Will some of these guys be inspecting containers?)
Where's Willie? We gotta get the negative to this. Oh, they're going to be off-loading all of those evil imports. Yeah, that's the ticket!
Some of them earn six figures..more power too them.
Did you know that (by union contract) Longshoremen are guaranteed a five day paycheck. If they don't work five days, they get paid anyway.
Just like being a senator from Massachussetts.
This is excellent news.
And that most make well over $100k a year?
I'm Average Billy Longshoreman. I want to earn $40 per hour to screw a friggin bolt to a cargo ship. I ain't gonna go to school and edumacate myself. I got union and union says I deserve $40 an hour to do d**k s**t.
Good for them. I'm glad to hear at least some americans are intercepting the money before it goes to Red China.
Stop buying shit from China and put them outta work.
A man has but his back by which to labor, his mind by which to ease his back's daily burden; tomorrow's price is but a broken back away.
willie will tell you that it is because all those imports are killing US jobs. since many people in those dock jobs earn over 70K and some over 100K these are pretty good jobs. better than 15.00 an hour making brooms and t-shirts.
That's what the liberal media headlines are want to print, when the Red Chinese invade.
Since it's been so advertised on the news services how unguarded our ports and containers are, I hope they're going to extra-screen the applicants. It would be easy for alQuaida to look Mexican, get hired, and bring all the stuff in they want.
I like the products I get from China--better quality, more detail, and cheaper. And because there's a large underground Christian population, I hope my buying is helping some of them.
I think the only backlog is the hundreds of thousands of empty cargo containers awaiting shipment back to China.
Nevertheless, it is the textile workers (and broomakers) whose value-added skills actually create our nations wealth. Through their efforts, raw materials (cotton, wool, wood, straw, synthetics) are transformed into the tangible products that improve our standard of living.
Dock workers, OTOH, are merely overpaid coolie labor engaged in wealth transference.
They merely transfer bulk cargo from ship-to-shore-to-truck or rail. They have produced no tangible product to improve our lives. They have produced nothing to trade in exchange for the cargo they unload.
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