Seems like a pretty decent hike in pay 😐

I think I saw they wanted 77%   🤷🏼‍♂️

I read 70% but that was a long haul trucking group on Facebook. Never know what the truth is there

That's what I've been reading too.

Fuck a bunch of unions.

Playing their damn games going into this time of year, on top of the inflation that's already hurting countless families.

Not to mention the predicted shortages that the people slammed by this recent storm will be in desperate need of. 

Fuck unions.

Heartless bitches.

From what I understand is that 77% is an initial number to start the bargaining on the 6 year contract. So say for easy math if they agreed to a 60% pay increase that would be a 10% raise each year, which makes it seem a lot less drastic. 

I'm not exactly sure what happened but I heard the previous contract had language in that prevented the ports/shipping companies to not bring in automation. That was agreed to on both sides but the ports/shipping companies have broken the previous contract by allowing automation of some sort. I don't have any clue as to what/how much. Just what I have heard. 

In what educated profession is 10% YOY for 6 years not drastic? In what Laborer profession is 10% YOY also not drastic? 

No matter how you look at it, it's bad optics.

Bad timing.

And soon to leave a bad taste in the mouths of consumers. 

Far too many families finances are stretched to the breaking point.

This bullshit isn't going to do anything but hurt them even more. 

Especially when they hear about the wage increase they're asking, while their spending power plummets every week. 

"prevented the ports/shipping companies to not bring in automation."

Does preventing them to NOT bring in automation mean they HAVE to bring in automation?

I guess I need to know what their current wage is before I judge them for wanting a 77 percent increase.

It's not an educated profession, it's a blue collar/working stiff profession. An annual 10% raise is hefty but it's not far off inflation. Shit ain't cheap. 

39/55$ per hour east/west coast which is roughly 83/115k annually, before OT from what I’ve read. East coast at 83k is the one on strike. 

I’m aware of what type of profession it is. For the record I have no issues with blue collar work and it’s certainly crossed my mind to become an equipment operator or carpenter. 
Yeah stuff is expensive and inflation is real. All these major labor increases are met with cost of goods increases to maintain margin. Buying power then shrinks right back to where it was, middle class that was isolated from the huge wage increase shrinks, rinse repeat. 
 

Striking should be illegal across the board. Collective bargaining can occur without strikes and strikes are far too disruptive to the economy and consumers.

Yep.

Trucking co.s don’t make dick pulling containers out of the ports. Unless they steal the container and sell the goods which happened a million times.  It’s a port there all lazy bums. Ship operators too idiots can’t keep dropping bridges. Did everyone forget about that already. I would drop there pay 90% to equal the pay of all the freight of what little there is.  Scumbags did this for yrs drop anchor 90 miles out and wait weeks to push oil prices up, crude tankers of course.  Big oil paid them to sit. Don’t even need the ships oil . When west Texas has enough to power the world 10,000 yrs. 

Unions are way past their expiration date…it’s not the early 1900’s anymore where the mine/plant/factory owner was the only employer in town, and owned all the stores, and all the houses….

It’s a free country, if you don’t like how your employer treats you…find another job…but to hold the entire economy hostage over your dispute is ridiculous.  

Agree to disagree? Not attacking, just offering a rebuttal. 

Have you seen what the Amazon employees make vs Bezos with his mega yacht and mega toy yacht that follows around the other one?

50 years ago you could make a living, support a family, own a house and retire on a blue collar job. That’s really hard to do now. Plus, people blame the union guys for wanting better pay while the CEOs, CFOs, etc make millions plus bonuses. 
It’s too wide of a gap between the workers and the management. 

Unions might not be the answer for the middle class but what is? I’m not preaching unions, especially when they strike, open to better answers. 

Bezos took all the risk, he built the company he should-guilt free-make as much money as he can.  And nobody should shame him for that.

If his employees want to make more money than he pays, find another job, or increase their skillset so they are qualified for higher paying jobs within the company.

I fully support ANY business owners right to make as much money as they can from their business, including paying their employees as little as possible…I also support ANY employees right to earn as much as they possibly can, even to the point of switching jobs if necessary.

If a company is paying their executives and owner too much money and their employees to little, when they start losing employees (who quit for higher paying jobs) and can’t hire new ones (because they get offered jobs with higher pay elsewhere) guess what they’ll do?  They’ll start raising wages.  The market will naturally determine pay rates, there is no need for unions.

The answer for the middle class is personal responsibility and making themselves more valuable so they can earn more money.

While I agree with you about business owners making as much money as possible because they own the risk, I  disagree with them paying their employees as little as possible. It’s their right but I personally don’t believe it’s a moral practice. I also believe the employee owes the company some loyalty when they are treated and paid well. It’s a two way street. 
I’m all for working hard and proving your worth. You have to strive to be better in all facets of your life. However, I do feel the deck is stacked in the favor of corporations and that is making the middle class shrink. 
The inflation rates are through the roof. Life is difficult for everyone. Some of it is on the corporations, some is on the government, some is on people trying to live above their means. But, you should be able to have a decent job and afford to have a decent life. Look at the cost of living in the east coast port cities. None of those cities are inexpensive places. How much should a highly trained crane operator be making? Shouldn’t that be a decent career where one can support families? I’m not saying an entry level fast food worker should expect to support themselves on minimum wage with one job but someone in a career field should be able to do it. 

I only used Amazon as an example to show the extremes. The labor laws are written by politicians that have lobbyists in their back pockets(maybe the other way around) paid for by the corporations. It’s a crooked system that’s in favor of the big wallets. I feel it should be even, without favoring either side. I feel the personal responsibility lies on all parties in the equation. You make some solid points. I feel like we are probably two sides of the sam coin. I’m not anti-business but I’m also not anti-worker. 

Become a carpenter. 

🤣😂🤣

Just like that.

I've been on numerous jobsites (high rise buildings in particular) where there had to be a union presence. 

A certain percentage of union journeymen, and at least one steward. 

The most progress disrupting, lazy bunch of arrogant bitches on the sites.

Wouldn't lift a finger for hours.

Stood around watching everyone else work.

Would deliberately get involved in a portion of the job so that they could play the, "it's not my job" bullshit, and slow the entire place down to a crawl.

Constantly calling a stop, claiming saftey violations.

When it was some stupid crap like an airhose across where they had to walk.

In some cases, non union cars were vandalized after the weekly visit by the steward,  trying to get you to join.

Same in a large cabinet shop I worked in, for a very short time, things being built in a right to work state, being sent to park Avenue N.Y.C. had to have a union stamp on each piece.

Therefore, a union member in each dept. and steward on site.

Same story.

Basically a non working employee, and a steward whose job was to come around once a week trying to get you to join.

Back then the scale was already what they were making.

So everyone just shined the guy on.

The rest of the week he just walked around hanging out with his union bros in each dept.

My GF tells the same type of stories during her 12yrs working at the Y12 lab in Oakridge. 

I guarantee you that these dock workers would be lost on any jobsite out there, without the unions holding their hands.

I was in 3 unions at the same time at Michels pipeline called michels corp now.  1st one was rail plowing 7 ft deep 2 in gas lines renamed innerduct, fiber optic cable is pulled threw it. Boston to n side of nyc. The ibew came out and said you hv to join our union. The mostly Vietnam foreman’s threaten them. The ibew went out that night and power sawed hydraulic hoses , smashed windows on 2,000 pieces of equipment & trks. Then we went to 24 hrs 2 shifts literally in the dark of night we signed union cards.  A large mob of them went down the line to the small pods of crews. A huge mob guy said to me , you gonna sign the card kid ? I just nodded my head not to sound like a pussy.  Dinged the union card on a hood of a car.  After my 12 shift ended at 7am January in Boston the weather sucks too.  I called my girlfriend from the motel , baby I,m in the ibew . Where gonna b rich, all happy.  Union dues came out of our check my wages did not change 11.00 or 11.30 an hr. I called the operators and laborers union hall in 94 in Wi.  And said there not paying our union wages in Phily . I was told don’t be a trouble maker.  This co has 18 divisions now or more. Including building high rises. They build more than any contractor in the world.  Now Non visa illegals join the unions, including carpenters. But they can’t read a set of blueprints.  I had 2 phone court hearings with a judge of iL. Labor dept.  1 co hired a attorney for the /nd time. The judge raised his voice to shut me up.  Chicago is tagged as a slave city.  I,m taking them to Tribal court on a Reservation.  And prove Chicago is a Slave city.  F ing idiot judge fumbled my last name 1/2 a dozen times. I screw up and say that’s close enough it’s Native American. IL. Is extremely racist towards Indians. 

I work in live event production and can attest to the same crap when dealing with union labor. Bunch of lazy “men”, who slow things down to get more hours and avoid actually working. I don’t understand how you go home at night and aren’t ashamed of yourself as an adult after doing nothing productive all day and purposely making things go slower. I know there’s some stand up men and women in unions, but most are lazy and want to get paid for doing nothing but having social hour. Whatever happened to taking pride in your work? Work hard, learn more, advance your career. I’m okay with seeing the unions die. 

I work skilled trades in a union. We had an emergency repair last night that required 3 of us to stay 4 hours over to fix. The first question I asked is who am I working with . The other 2 guys are also not afraid to work and get a job done quickly to get production rolling again so I said yes. The interesting part is all 3 of us are big motocross guys. 

I appreciate your civility on this, actually.  And I'm perfectly content to agree to disagree on this...though I enjoy the conversation. 

Can I ask if you've ever owned a business? 

I mentioned that I fully support any business owner to pay their employees as little as possible.   I didn't say I think its necessarily the best practice for all companies...I intentionally pay my employees above my competitors because I value my employees and I want them to stay working for me. Some will say "you make too much money, you should pay your employees more"...well...sorry, not going to happen.  I won't pay my employees a penny more than I think I need to to keep the quality of employees that I want...IF my business fails, I'm the one that loses everything, and my employees go find another job...

I've found that I get out of my employees what I give them...if I treat them well, they treat me well...but I won't bring "morals" into it...I have expensive onboarding and training costs, so I want my employees to stay around for a long time once I hire them.  I have a friend who owns a business with unskilled labor...onboarding and training cost isn't a concern to him...so he pays his employees as little as possible and expects the employee turn over, which he gets.  I won't say he's being immoral for operating his business this way...its his business, he assumed the risk, he built it, he can do whatever he wants.  And his employees are free to not work there and find other employment any time they want.  He's not being immoral by paying as little as possible and his employees aren't being immoral by leaving as soon as they find a higher paying job...  

Cost of living drives wages.  A company based in an area with a high cost of living, has to pay their employees more money than a similar business in an area with a lower cost of living.  If a company doesn't pay their employees enough to live in the area they are based, then they won't have any employees.  Again, the market dictates wages...we don't need a union driving them, and we certainly don't need the government involved and mandating pay rates or anything similar.    

What I do find immoral is someone expecting more for doing nothing different.  For an employee to not change anything and just expect more money from their employer, or the government to mandate they get paid more...I can't handle the lack of personal responsibility in that mentality.  

I don’t own a business. I’m actually on the other side of this discussion. But, I work in a field that has low turnover(typically retirement only) that’s pretty difficult to get into. We have high expectations of the employees and the bad ones get weeded out pretty early.  The union is non-strikeable by contract on both sides. Like everything, there are sometimes turds in the punchbowl but we tend to not have them. The slackers get hammered pretty hard and realize they probably don’t fit in the organization. 

I have a little bit of property and the kiddos are mostly out of the house so the upkeep falls on me. Hard work keeps things moving. Dirty hands=clean money.  That tends to be the prevailing attitude for everyone at work also. We have strong leadership and strong people working for them. 

Based on the only the examples given by Joey, Pro and Bromley I would be pretty anti-union as well. Please understand, I’m not advocating getting something for nothing. I do not believe having a contract should entitle workers to be lazy. I see the good part of unions and employees where they work together to achieve common goals, not fight each other and have the work product be secondary or worse. 

I’m with you with your first paragraph. You get what you pay for. I don’t feel entry-level, unskilled laborers should have collective bargaining. I’ve worked for companies that are pretty bad. The hard labor and long hours aren’t recognized. And as you’ve stated, I had the choice to move on, which I did. It makes it frustrating while you’re in it though. The expectation was to work 18+ hour days, lie on DOT logs, deal with the owners POS son running crews while showing up 3 hours late, hungover and completely unable to do the work because he didn’t understand the job never mind the amount of booze he drank nightly, etc. Just leaving and working at another place isn’t always as easy as “If you don’t like it, there’s the door.” People have families tied into health insurance and there are times when new health insurance does not start for new employees on day one.

Sometimes(most of the time), nuances get lost on message boards. Based on what you stated about your company, you sound like a great employer. High expectations but training and pay that keeps quality people. That’s not always the case.  As I said earlier, personal responsibility is multi-sided. I agree with you the employees should have it. The companies should also have it.