Longshoremen destroying America

[Team Sergeant]

Ahh corrupt unions. This is how anyone in America can make $250,000 a year as a high school dropout, just get a longshoremen union card........

Americans they are not, commies are more like it.







$1,200-a-Day Union Workers Force Shut-Down of 29 West Coast Ports
by Chriss W. Street7 Feb 2015Newport Beach, CA

The Pacific Maritime Association (PMA) announced that loading and unloading operations at all 29 West Coast ports would temporarily be suspended this weekend in response to union slowdowns that brought freight movements at the ports to a near standstill.

PMA members stated that they cannot afford the almost $1,200 per day cost to employ International Longshore and Warehouse Union members to do little work.

After Breitbart broke the story on Thursday that union members of the ILWU planned to “walk out within the week,” the PMA employer group announced they can no longer continue to pay workers the premium pay for diminished productivity.

With ILWU members continuing to withhold the needed crane operators and slow crane movements, shippers and their customers estimated they were losing $1 billion a day. But a complete shut-down is expected to raise the U.S. economic pain to $2 billion a day.

“After three months of union slowdowns, it makes no sense to pay extra for less work,” said PMA spokesman Wade Gates, “especially if there is no end in sight to the union’s actions which needlessly brought West Coast ports to the brink of gridlock.”

PMA CEO James McKenna said productivity had dropped between 30% and 50% in recent months, crippling whole strings of vessels, in some cases. He complained that the union’s strategy is jeopardizing American jobs and threatening the long term viability of businesses large and small. It’s like “they’re getting paid to grind us into the ground.”

The union denied the claims and said the congestion crisis was “employer-caused.”

Cont:

http://www.breitbart.com/california/...t-coast-ports/

[Flagg]

Tell me about it.

We're importing 8 figures worth of American made stuff a year that employs a LOT of people(and goes some teeny tiny way of helping make America more awesome).

And for the last 6 months I've never seen it so bad in terms of poor delivery times.

It is causing us significant and repeated problems.

We are just a drop in the bucket, for every dollar's worth of US manufactured goods we sell is good for America.

And every dollar delayed(and now often cancelled) is conversely bad for America.

Those longshoreman unions are causing more direct damage to the US than IS right now.

[Dean Jarvis]

Originally Posted by Team Sergeant

After Breitbart broke the story on Thursday that union members of the ILWU planned to “walk out within the week,” the PMA employer group announced they can no longer continue to pay workers the premium pay for diminished productivity."http://www.breitbart.com/california/...t-coast-ports/

So this is breaking news! We have been dealing with this since July of 2014 and it really swung into action back in September when the Longshoremen went on a slowdown that has continued to ramp up until total gridlock at the ports. Many companies I work with had their Christmas items anchored off Long Beach all the way up to Tacoma/Seattle.

In all these months I've only seen 3 stories about it on the news. Maybe Barry's friends in the MSM giving the unions cover. And should it be on the radar Barry would be pressured to force the union back to work and the unions don't want that.

This is very serious with no end in sight. This F****ng Barry is hurting a lot of small businesses and consumers. WTF

[Flagg]

Originally Posted by Dean Jarvis

So this is breaking news! We have been dealing with this since July of 2014 and it really swung into action back in September when the Longshoremen went on a slowdown that has continued to ramp up until total gridlock at the ports. Many companies I work with had their Christmas items anchored off Long Beach all the way up to Tacoma/Seattle.

In all these months I've only seen 3 stories about it on the news. Maybe Barry's friends in the MSM giving the unions cover. And should it be on the radar Barry would be pressured to force the union back to work and the unions don't want that.

This is very serious with no end in sight. This F****ng Barry is hurting a lot of small businesses and consumers. WTF

On the export side(which could be argued as being more important as it's exports that largely pays for all the awesomeness) we've been feeling it bite HARD since September.

There's at least one American household name brand manufacturer(the one I work with) that does a LOT of exporting which has largely abandoned West Coast distribution(outside of expensive high value low cube air freight).

Costs have exploded and delivery times to Asia Pacific suck…but at least we are seeing product trickling in.

It's been so bad that consumables that MUST be kept in stock, are on back order.

-----

But a good point is being raised.

The amount of media attention on this(tiny) doesn't come anywhere near matching the genuine size of the problem.

I certainly wouldn't want to live anyplace where people are convinced to work with a bayonet pointed at them. But the freedom to name and shame goes along with the freedom to strike I would think.

I wonder if this mess could draw any parallels to the Reagan-era traffic controller's strike?

[Dean Jarvis]

Here's a few more benefits these High School dropouts get.

PMA details ILWU contract offer in attempt to avert lockout
Bill Mongelluzzo, Senior Editor | Feb 04, 2015 6:40PM EST
Pacific Maritime Association CEO James McKenna on Wednesday released details of the employers’ contract offer to U.S. West Coast longshoremen, a comprehensive offer the PMA hopes will head off the need for a lockout or strike by the International Longshore and Warehouse Union during negotiations that appear to be at an impasse.
The surprising PMA offer includes an agreement by employers to continue paying 100 percent of dockworkers’ medical costs, including the Cadillac tax under ObamaCare. The employers’ proposal would increase annual pension payments to $88,800 a year, in a contract employers propose will run for five years.
McKenna has undoubtedly surprised a number of industry observers by revealing that employers have agreed to pay 100 percent of the Cadillac tax in the Affordable Health Care Act. He told the JOC Group’s Trans-Pacific Maritime Conference in March 2014 that the provision will come at a cost of $150 million a year, and that the ILWU didn’t want to pay it and employers couldn’t afford to pay it. The tax is scheduled to take effect on Jan. 1, 2018.