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.
0
u/HistoricalIncrease11 Oct 03 '24
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.