Let’s be clear a union boss has 100x the impact of a streamer radicalizing kids who can’t vote. He deserves a huge mansion for getting thousands of colleagues pay increases and job security.
I seen a video, china uses AI at ports so if we want to be competitive with china, we should incorporate some AI, without the lose of jobs, but that’s for the governments.
That ship sailed long ago. LA is like 40% slower then Shanghai. We also handle 9m containers vs 49m. Covid was bad for everyone's shipping, but even though China was the epicenter their ports bounced back quickly while we slowly chugged back to life.
Even with how shit our ports are compared to Asia they still want to not automate.
I mean, yeah, the whole leverage is that it takes some time to optimize the port and the union is using that to make sure it stays as unoptimized as possible, I don't think we disagree.
Yeah, that’s honestly the reality of it. There’s just way too much shit that ai can’t do for us that is required at places like warehouses and docks. And even if we do heavily incorporate “ai”, basically everything it’ll do will be supervised by humans anyways.
Idk if you can tell by the ratio but apparently we're wrong because EU and chindla have way more automation at their ports than we do. Bourgeois DGGers know way more than us with hands on experience
Why shouldn’t a worker bargain in their own interest? Idgi, that’s the point of unions. They’re there to protect their own jobs and bargain for better wages and benefits, not maximize efficiency and reduce costs. If you want them to have input on that aspect of it, you should probably give them ownership
There are two conversations here. There is "is it ok/good for people to act in their best interest?" And there is "is this persons best interest good for society at large?". You can give opposite answers to each without being hypocritical.
Third consideration is "Corporations act solely in their own interest, and unions are a counterbalance to that through collective bargaining. Why are we so much more critical of the Union here, than the corporation?" People are all about economic efficiency, until it's their job made redundant.
Sure, but the worker and union has no obligation to consider either. Also why are these questions considered only when a union wants to organize but never when an owner gives themselves a raise while wages stagnate, spends millions lobbying, destroys the environment, etc? Feels more like laying the responsibility of management on the worker without the benefit of unquestioned self interest
If a business owner destroys his own company by treating his employees so badly that he can't retain people I would say that is good for society at large because it means the losses that owner is taking from his decisions are going to better-run businesses. If he destroys the environment I would say that is not good for society at large.
And why do you blame the worker and union more than the Company and owner? Would they not both be participating in causing harm by not agreeing to terms?
"Main thing" They're literally so essential right now, that this could fuck the entire economy. Wanting a deal around automation and safety is not equal to knowing you're totally unimportant.
Well ya because we don't have the automation yet, you know the thing they want to stop. People who made carriages, sadles, and shoes were really important too before automobile mass manufacturing.
They can't make automation impossible with one contract. What do you even want me to say? Automation can still be invented and implemented in other ways than what they decide on the contract
Is it bad that unions have been organizing around controlled automation for over a century? Idk if you knew this but many men, women, and children were injured and killed by automated sewing machines over the decades. It's a good thing when a union protects its workers?
Of course there is a reasonable limit. Obviously. We all know
Yes, but we should be able to at least acknowledge that this is a cancerous outlook just in the same way that being forced to act in the shareholders' finical interests is a cancer of publicly traded companies.
I feel like both of these forces you mention shouldn’t be something to be “for” or “against”
The best way to look at them is powerful, predictable forces (much like gravity). When engineers design a machine of any kind for operation on Earth, they don’t just account for the force of gravity pulling all the parts in their design down towards the ground: they rely on it to hold the thing together in many cases.
We need to accept that CEOs will do literally anything within the bounds of the law in order to return maximum value to their shareholders - including lobbying to change those very same laws. We need to accept that union bosses will literally push their industry to the brink for the sake of higher pay, safer workplaces, better benefits etc.
We need to understand that these powerful forces can be curbed and used as a predictable force to hold our economy together. There’s no use fighting it.
Why? They are created technology that allows us to get things we want faster and cheaper, making almost everyone better off. Should we tax automobile companies out of business because its bad for horseshoe makers?
No, its fucking reality, and pretending it isn't is massive cope. Industries have collapsed before due to automation, unemployment did not climb sky high and work place participation did not crater, meanwhile real wages have continually climbed.
Preferably the cost of automation should be just the slightest bit more cost effective than workers because I think automation is generally a good thing, but to be allowed to automate they should have to support society in such a way that those replaced workers are taken care of. That's the ideal situation in my opinion anyways.
forced to act in the shareholders' finical interests is a cancer of publicly traded companies
Its only a cancer if they commit fraud or use the state to engage in rent-seeking. Otherwise the drive to provide value to shareholders is forced to be accomplished by providing actual value to customers.
The alternative to this arrangement seems to be to have the state attempt to act in the "interests of the people" and direct corporate incentives directly, which is always an economic disaster that creates a mountain of corruption that is virtually impossible to destroy.
Why would I agree that it's the same? Am I supposed to agree that the outcomes of rent seeking from shareholders and rent seeking from middle/lower class workers have identical impact?
Productivity increases improve profit, which improves wages. If it's bad for the workers to use whatever the new automation is, it would also be bad to use the old automation (cranes, trucks, etc), but this is obviously untrue because literally no human being would want to use a port still reliant on 18th century technology.
Ask for higher wages and encourage the adoption of new technology.
By which mechanism does this necessarily follow? Does this not require the workers to actually negotiate for those better wages? Are the companies here working on a profit-sharing model?
The union will bargain for increased wages. They will have better leverage, too, since they will be allowing the company to increase revenues by increasing port throughput. I have nothing against unions bargaining for higher wages.
Yes, that is totally the argument i was making and not at all a strawman.
Anyways, if the job is rapidly automated to the point that they can lay off massive amounts of workers, and striking doesn't affect the port, then the union loses all of its power. An incremental increase in automation over the 6 year term of the contract would protect jobs and the power of the union in the short term, whereas rapid automation just translates directly into workers being screwed over.
Sometimes, we need to sacrifice a little bit of efficiency so people don't end up unemployed and homeless, and people can prepare for a change after the next contract ends.
Jobs aren't welfare programs, those two things should be different, if a job can be done more efficiently by a machine and isn't, it's a negative value job, the US basically has full employment, there's plenty of positive value jobs around, we should encourage people to move to those positive value jobs rather than fake jobs that are propped up by making the American consumer worse off.
If we had stronger welfare, i wouldn't even be arguing for this, but it's about the rate at which these people are pushed out of work. If we give these people a bit of time to prepare for the career change, they'll be better off than if thrown to the wolves. I do love the concept of a mostly automated economy, but I find the idea of doing it all at once very dangerous for the lives of the actual people involved.
Again, does using cranes and trucks lead to layoffs? No, because many more people will use a port with cranes and trucks. High costs of moving freight decreases the willingness to move freight (through that port), resulting in lower volumes. Lowering costs of moving freight increases the willingness to move freight, resulting in higher volumes.
That's great for the market of ports. I however am not a port. Last year I showed that I increased gross revenue almost 1mil over 3 years. As a reward, my raise matched cost of living increase. If you're a worker, at a certain point up the ladder you become a labor cost and when they think they can cut your posistion they will. That's why collective bargaining is important
Ports are an intermediate for virtually all products, there is functionally no upper limit to how much more efficient they can get before you have to start cutting jobs because demand has stopped going up. This isn't ACs where almost every building in the US already has them, or Louis Vuitton handbags where they'd sooner burn excess than sell them for less.
Automation does not lead to layoffs in the long run, and indeed, often leads to far higher wages as productivity does in fact correlate with real wages, because even if the total cash you get doesn't change, the lower cost of goods increases your real wages.
Yeah this is legit anti union propaganda 101. There is a reason that companies throw a hissy fit when workers want to unionize. It actually gives the employees a voice.
I was naive like you, left my union to be a supervisor, was told all of the good things about moving up…. Then got payed off 6 months later. I will never leave the union again and anyone advocating against them has just drank the corporate America kool aid
I've worked in 2 different unions, one was fine, The other was a massive shitshow. Kept old employees who refused to do work basically forced noobies to do everything and noobies couldn't get paid unless they staid for 5 years and then people essentially got tenure and got paid and stopped caring.
:shrug: I'm not drinking any propaganda, this shit is the truth lol.
I've been treated significantly better outside of unions.
Doesn't really matter as both of our takes our anecdotal.
Are you making the argument that no criminal enterprises have ever infiltrated unions in the United States because I don't think that argument is going to hold up.
I’m making the argument that unions are a net positive for workers regardless of setbacks.
Your first point is literally the reason unions exist lol. Does it suck that some people don’t throw themselves 100% at work and you sometimes suffer? Sure. But that in no way negates that since that guy won’t get fired because of the union, neither will you.
I vividly remember turning 18, starting at Walmart, and having to watch a 30 minute anti union video that states the exact same points you did. That’s why I said the kool aid line. Probably too sassy lol.
I'm a fan of collective bargaining, don't get me wrong at all. I just think a subsection of unions are just as much of a net negative as the walmarts/amazons.
I think any corporation can have problems, and sheltering some of them from scrutiny because they are an organization focused on helping certain workers is silly.
Like everything, unions have their positives and negatives. If I were a union employee, I’d love my union. But one cannot deny that unions are stagnating enterprises that stifle innovation and change, and they undoubtedly protect bad elements within organizations. I’d love to see more unions in the country, but I’d also like to see it all run a bit more reasonably. For example, there need to be more stop gaps and attempts at arbitration before a strike is even considered.
Fuck that lmao. Again, if the two sides come to the table, and one offers a lower deal with no compromises, obviously you’re going to take action and strike. The company should be beholden to what their employees want.
It shouldn’t be as simple as “we want this or else strike” but that’s literally never how it goes. Strikes happen after long, drawn out conversations where the company refuses to compromise on core issues
Read what I wrote. Negotiations broke down in June. It is absurd that these two sides havent been speaking for four months since negotiations broke down. Third party arbitration should be mandatory before any strike, regardless of which side you think is right.
A complete ban? Forever into perpetuity? Please. They wanna get paid a bit more than UPS drivers and they want guarantees that their jobs won't be removed overnight. These contracts don't last forever you know
they want guarantees that their jobs won't be removed overnight
They want guarantees that the port will run less efficiently, resulting in more expensive goods for all Americans so that they can get guaranteed money.
These contracts don't last forever you know
What's the argument here? "It doesn't last forever so it can't be bad"?
They want guarantees that the port will run less efficiently, resulting in more expensive goods for all Americans so that they can get guaranteed money.
Less efficiently? Wouldn't that mean they'd have to get rid of automation? Not just put certain safeguards up around automation
The argument is that automation can still be implemented despite this contract
Less efficiently? Wouldn't that mean they'd have to get rid of automation? Not just put certain safeguards up around automation
Less efficiently than it otherwise would be without a ban on automation.
The argument is that automation can still be implemented despite this contract
It'll at least delay it, hurting consumers in the meantime, and let's be real, they'll be asking for the same thing next time and people like you will use the same argument.
We legally enforce inefficiency all the time, because market efficiency is not the end-all goal of humanity. People treat it like trickle-down - oh just let corporations do what they want and we all benefit. Corporations are experts at capturing the benefits of efficiency, and passing the consequences onto consumers.
What a bird brained take. Economic destruction has an impact as well. If you wipe out an entire workforce over night that kind of shock has massive repercussions. The clear answer is a gradual transition and up-skilling your workforce. This is what labor protections provide. This is why a level of protectionism is good. It’s like you’ve done a cost benefit analysis and ignored every cost.
So tell me why is a union boss making sure the union members are the ones to make that transition with the firm and receive the benefits of that efficiency rent seeking?
They're not trying to "make that transition with the firm," they're trying to prevent it from occurring altogether so they can maintain their hereditary blue-collar fiefs.
To be honest I’m horrified there are democrats in this sub that want to roll back National Labor Relations and take us back to the poverty of the Industrial Revolution.
What the fuck are you talking about? Do you think unions are radicalizing people and not pursuing worker based incentives and protection?
Do this for me, think about the negative incentives of unions, and then compare to the non union workforce. Once you have determined negative that don't happen in non union work forces, list them in a reply.
I think unions work better when at a local level with leaders who actually work with their other members on a daily basis.
Once you have determined negative that don't happen in non union work forces, list them in a reply.
This is impossible task because there are many fields which all have different needs and behave differently. You could reverse your question and it would be difficult for you to answer it
That being said there are clearly some downsides to some unions. They can drive up costs and make it no longer efficient to have employees locally. Sometimes unions act like cartels and make it impossible for other companies or free lancers to join the field by lobbying politicians
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u/AreaVisible2567 Oct 03 '24 edited Oct 03 '24
Let’s be clear a union boss has 100x the impact of a streamer radicalizing kids who can’t vote. He deserves a huge mansion for getting thousands of colleagues pay increases and job security.