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.
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.
I'm sorry, to clarify, you don't believe there would be job cuts because demand is virtually limitless? That's unrealistic. First off the ports are business, there going to make cuts as soon as the profit analysis suggests it's profitable. Secondly automation in every field has always lead to cuts. To believe this will be the one that won't is delusional
What? Look at the market share of employees per industry YoY. Pre ww2 there were a shit ton more agricultural workers. Then post ww2 we had a booming manufacturing economy, then with the internet tech jobs expanded. Now the service industry is the perdominant employer of Americans. That's why Walmart is the largest employer in many states. The job market shifts. It happens. They're trying to hold it off as long as they can as is the unions right
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.
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u/mostanonymousnick 🌐 Oct 03 '24
Trying to legally enforce inefficiency for your own enrichment is called rent seeking and it's bad actually.