208 Comments

The strike has been averted until January.

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So much for that little October surprise, eh?

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Ta, Robyn. Solidarity forever.

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The United States Maritime Alliance...it boggles my mind that the fucking bosses are even allowed to unionize against their employees. What the fuck ever happened to antitrust laws?

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Revealed: CEO at heart of US ports strike made crude attacks on Biden and Democrats | Business | The Guardian

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/oct/03/port-strike-usmx-biden-democrats?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

> David Adam of USMX made coarse remarks about president and appeared to endorse rightwing conspiracy theory

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The tech bros backing Vance (to ride on tfg coattails) are the ones that are literally trying to steal their jobs. Why any Union worker would vote Republican (especially after reading Chapter 18 plus some additional pages of Project 2025) is beyond me. Union Strong, Vote 💙

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A major issue here is whether or how automation will eliminate jobs. Because management loves nothing better than firing workers.

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Don't scab for the bosses

Don't listen to their lies

Us poor folks haven't got a chance

Unless we organize

Pete Seeger, Which side are you on?

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Workers can you stand it?

Tell me how you can.

Will you be a lousy scab

Or will you be a man?

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I've seen way too many people who should ostensibly know better sneering at the workers for striking. *Glances at the bulwark*

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BUT WHAT ABOUT MY BANANA?

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How much can it cost, ten dollars?

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I suppose that I should go buy toilet paper, then, refill the holder while I can. I think I’ve got everything else, and unlike whoever it is in my neighborhood who likes to booby trap the sidewalks oldschool style, I don’t eat bananas.

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A friend in Orange County California told me the people there are hoarding toilet paper.

How much toilet paper do we import from overseas, anyway? Or is it just a standard reaction to adverse events?

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In the shut down supply chain of four years ago (when we definitely were NOT better off) I discovered that Canada had the most awesome tp called Cashmere. Now imagine tariffs added to all these imported goods...thats the GOP plan...no thanks. Vote 💙

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"This strike is about fairness. Foreign-owned shipping companies have made record profits and executive compensation has grown."

Side bar, there SHOULD be no foreign owned ports

full stop

Who the FUCK sold our ports to foreign interests in the FIRST place? JFC.."National Security breach much?

smh

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Exactly

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Quite literally giving foreign interests the ability to shut down or hamper US shipping...And I know for a fact that some of those ports are owned by the Saudis...And THAT is FUCKED UP

Also too? foreign 'interests ALSO invest in our publicly traded MIC companies

no

Just NO

Gotta get back to being 100% GOVERNMENT owned

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Absolutely Too many conflicts of interest here

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*Man* I wish Biden would just hurry up and pull a "By Any Means Necessary" on these strikers. To be clear, I mean from the title of the Babylon 5 episode (spoilers for a super old tv show) of the same name, in which the leader of B5 was given a carte-blanche to squash a worker revolt on the station by "any means necessary", very explicitly meant to mean "bust some heads", and instead, took the opportunity to stop the strike by forcing management to give them everything they asked for. Would be nice to see that in real life, since, as the supreme court recently determined, presidents are in fact god-kings. (Oh, right, that only applies to Republican presidents, I forgot.)

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Grocery shopping this morning was weird. Almost nothing was on sale. I bought a lot of rice and beans, same as when Covid first hit.

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Has anyone noticed that the current DOJ look into the Kroger merger has got the owner admitting under oath that they jacked up prices well beyond inflation costs?

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I went grocery shopping last night and the hoarding has begun. I was able to get food as that was well stocked, it was the paper goods that was ravaged- the aisle was 90% empty. My daughter works at the same company just in a nearby location and same thing. I'm hoping I have better luck at BJ's or costco this weekend. I can't believe I need to worry about toilet paper again.

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Luckily had just bought a jumbo pack from Sam’s Should be good for a while

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Asked if the strike will hurt America, a cool guy (me) quipped, “Not at all but the refusal of the owners to pay fair wages or decent worker protections might.”

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The never-Trumpers at the Bulwark yesterday were all over this dockworkers strike. They believe it is rethuglican gamesmanship to make Biden/Harris look bad and help PAB. The dockworkers already make six figures, they were offered a 50% increase over 5 years, and turned it down. And they want a guarantee that there won't be more technology installed, which seems like a non-starter, tbh. What other industry can say "no more new technology!" and get away with it? On the world list of the most efficient ports, the US isn't even in the top 50, they said.

Probably I should never listen to rethuglicans when it comes to this kind of stuff. Excessive profits do need to be shared with the workers. On the other hand...

Feel free to convince me otherwise. I am open to valid arguments as to why ports should not be allowed to install technology that will make them more efficient.

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They do not make 6 figures without major OT. I am all for automation but the displaced workers need to be protected.

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The "no automating the ports" shit is ridiculous. If they asked for some insurance program to make whole the employees who would lose their jobs to automation, that's a different story. But our ports should be as efficient as possible or we are going to be in fucksville.

And the timing has me fuming. This is perfectly designed to fuck over Harris. Either this union is trying to elect Trump or they're idiots.

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The timing is because the contract expired. That's it.

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The expiry date of the contract has also been public knowledge for months. Those of us in logistics saw this coming during the summer and did our best to take mitigating action.

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> The dockworkers already make six figures

Citation needed?

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Thank you, you're right. They can make $100k with a lot of overtime, but the regular rate is not that high.

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They found one person making 100k and change so it must be everybody.

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This strike will cause disruption to a number of supply chains in the US. I hope it is resolved quickly.

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