Year and a half old article, but interesting, with interesting comments.
Year and a half old article, but interesting, with interesting comments.
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Best,
Your link is broken.
JERSEY CITY — Some 27,000 longs****men worked the region’s docks before the use of bus-sized, steel containers revolutionized the shipping trade in the mid 1960s.
The number of local longs****man has since dwindled to about 3,500.
Now, shipping’s latest technological revolution is coming to the region, with plans for an automated terminal on the Jersey City-Bayonne border that will not require a human hand for part of the process of stacking the bus-sized shipping containers, which come from China and elsewhere bearing everything from toothpaste to Christmas lights.
Global Container Terminals plans to create the region’s first automated port at its existing location on the Port Jersey peninsula. It is part of a $312 million expansion that Global agreed to under a deal announced in June 2010 by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
And to no one’s surprise, it’s not going over well with the International Longs****men’s Association, the powerful union that represents Global employees and other dockworkers.
About 150 members from area ILA Locals conducted a rally Friday outside Global’s offices to protest what they feel is a serious threat to their long-term job and benefits security.
"We want to let everyone know that we’re here to protect our jobs and our members," said Stephen Knott, general vice president of the ILA.
"We helped build these companies. We went along with containerization. Now that they want automation. We want to make sure that we’re as much a part of it as possible and that any new jobs created are ILA jobs. That’s very, very important to us."
The term "automated-port" is somewhat of misnomer, in that all ship-to-s**** cranes are still operated by a human being, said Joe Harris, a spokesman for the Virginia Port Authority. It runs the nation’s only automated port, a facility built by the parent of the Maersk shipping line that opened in Portsmouth, Va., in 2007.
The automated portion involves a separate crane involved in the transfer of containers between truck chassis and stacks of containers, though even a significant portion of that is still controlled by a human being from a remote location, Harris said.
All the same, the combination of automated and manual crane operation results in a much faster transfer, Harris said. For example, the Portsmouth terminal operates at a rate of 45 container-moves per hour, compared with an nationwide average of 35 to 38 moves.
"It’s a highly efficient terminal," Harris said.
Industry officials said the Jersey City terminal would be similarly automated.
But automation is anathema to the ILA, and there was no mention of automating the expanded terminal in Jersey City when the expansion was announced by the Port Authority 18 months ago.
In the announcement, the Port Authority said it would purchase Global’s 98-acre site and lease i back to Global, which is based in Vancouver, Canada. The agency also said it would provide up to $150 million in financing for the expansion.
Global declined to comment at the time. And Friday, James Devine, the executive in charge of the company’s Jersey City facility, did not return a call seeking comment.
But on Nov. 23, Devine sent a letter to longs****men’s’ union president, Harold Daggett, confirming plans to automate the terminal.
"This letter is being sent to you because the planned expansion will include the introduction of new technology throughout the expanded Global terminal," the letter stated. "As we explained when we met in July with you and representatives from ILA Locals, the expanded terminal will incorporate a state-of-the-art terminal-operating system with enhanced container equipment as well as new cranes."
Dennis Daggett, president of the ILA’s Atlantic Coast District , said it was his opinion that Global has "an agenda to displace jobs."
"We’re concerned because we weren’t part of discussions between the Port Authority and Global Terminals," he said. "We have good, family-sustaining jobs that we fought for and maintained for generations and today those are hard things to come by."
There was no indication of the automation project’s timeframe either in the Port Authority’s 2010 announcement of the expansion project or the company’s letter to the union.
But word of the automation plans comes as the ILA and the shipping industry prepare to begin negotiations on a new master contract covering longs****men and their employers, including Global, from Maine to Texas.
At Friday’s rally, protest signs accused the Port Authority of helping to kill port jobs by financing Global’s plan.
"We’re totally opposed to the automated terminal," said ILA spokesman Jim McNamara. "Gov. Christie should be made aware that the Port Authority is making deals that would eliminate jobs."
A Port Authority spokesman, Steve Coleman, declined to comment on the allegation, insisting the matter was between Global and the ILA.
Experts said automation is more popular among ports in Asia and Europe, particularly Rotterdam, the huge Dutch shipping hub.
"This is a relatively new phenomena for the U.S.," said Aaron Ellis, a spokesman for the Association of Port Authorities in Alexandria, Va.
Page Siplon, executive director of the George Center of Innovation for Logistics, said automation allows terminals to stack containers in more dense configurations, a capability consistent with the goal of expanding capacity at the Jersey City terminal without also expanding the footprint.
"Density is an important piece of the equation," Siplon said.
Even with the increase in efficiency, Siplon said private terminal operators may be reluctant to automate due to the high capital costs involved, a situation apparently addressed by the Port Authority’s willingness to help finance the Global project.
And as in Global’s case, U.S. terminals face strong opposition to automation from the longs****men’s union. "There’s also labor issues involved."
But Virgil Maldonado, President of ILA Local 1588 in Bayonne, said he has seen men lose jobs to the supposed efficiencies of machine before and the future concerns him.
"We know we have to adapt and we want to be more effective, also," he said. "But we don’t want to lose our salaries and our livelihood over it.
"We’ve lost enough with E-Z Pass and self-checkouts at every shopping center you go to. That’s a physical person that lost a job. That’s a physical person that can’t pay bills. You have no blue-collar jobs anymore. What we have, we need to fight for and keep."
Staff writer Bob Considine contributed to this<big>
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Two plead guilty for their role in Longs****men's Association extortion case
• Three indicted in N.J. in ongoing ports probe
• More than 120 members of organized crime families are arrested in massive sweep
• With first mob hearings in decades, N.J. Waterfront Commission hopes send tough message
• N.J. Waterfront Commission holds first hearing on mob influence at docks
The comments were so good. The union isn't getting a lot of sympathy.
Best,
Good article, the Longsh*oremen's union was against containerized freight that cut back on their laborers as far back as the sixties. I have little but contempt for the west coast bunch. During the
Viet Nam war they stopped shipments of ammo and other supplies that became critical. DoD had to fly in some and ship from the east coast and gulf.
Best you just told a dammm lie. The union is for it they just want details as to how many jobs will be lost so they can plan for the jobs loss. They just want info. That's all you ever present is a lying tongue.
Once again you show what an ill informed dumbazz you are...
Union Corruption Update described at length this past September how the ILA, which represents around 65,000 employees at East Coast, Great Lakes, Gulf of Mexico and other cargo ports in the U.S. and Canada, is mired in inefficiency and cronyism. Union leadership has a lot to do with these problems, having negotiated them into a succession of contracts. Common union practices now include paying three dockworkers to operate a one-person crane and paying a dockworker up to 24 and even 27 hours for performing a standard eight-hour shift. As for corruption, the Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor has concluded following public hearings in late 2010 that the union had at least nine relatives of late Genovese crime family boss Vincent "the Chin" Gigante on its payroll. These and other workers, noted the commission, often hold "no show" jobs and are "overwhelmingly connected to organized crime figures or union leadership."
The end result of such arrangements is that ILA workers receive levels of compensation that are unusually high even by union standards. The average Longs****men annual wage and benefit package is now $124,138, with salary/wage comprising roughly $100,000 of that. The latter figure is roughly double what unionized full-time U.S. workers as a whole receive. At the Port of New York and New Jersey, nearly three dozen members at its various terminals make at least $368,000 a year in wages and benefits; one in three workers make at least $208,000. The waterfront commission found that shipping companies in some cases have had to pay salaries exceeding $400,000 for jobs that "require little or no work."
Inflated as they are, these sums don't include what are known as "container royalties." These are lump sum payments from shipping firms to union members on the basis of cargo weight. Some people might call them forced bonuses. The union insists they are necessary compensation for job losses resulting from the introduction of automated cargo weighing. Yet this "temporary" measure, instituted more than 50 years ago, still remains intact. And in 2011, it provided ILA members with a combined extra $232 million. That worked out to about $15,500 per worker. James Capo, CEO of the industry side of the negotiations, the U.S. Maritime Alliance (USMX), argues the practice is a wasteful, outdated relic that pads operating costs and ultimately the price of finished goods. But ILA President Harold Daggett during negotiations made clear that keeping the system was non-negotiable. Additionally, he threatened to block any loaded truck from leaving a port if a given container exceeded its highway weight limit. "If they (management) want to play games, we'll play games," said Daggett.
In ensuring continuation of cargo container royalties, the union appears to have the upper hand. Yet in the long-run, the ILA may be fighting a losing battle. Automated containerization has been a worldwide trend for decades. And this has made the shipping industry less labor-intensive. The number of dockworkers at the Port of New York and New Jersey, for example, has declined from about 35,000 to 3,500 during the last 50 years. Inflating labor costs would put U.S. shipping in a less competitive position than other nations. In Hong Kong, the world's third-busiest container port in 2011, the loading and unloading of cargo at privately-owned terminals is at least as mechanized as here. By raising per-worker compensation costs along East Coast and Gulf Coast ports to often exorbitant levels, the International Longs****men's Association is doing right by its members - those who are left. But it's also costing the rest of the nation.
http://nlpc.org/stories/2013/0...ve-pact-avert-strike
What part of "automation" does your "pea brain" NOT understand???
Best you just told a dammm lie. The union is for it they just want details as to how many jobs will be lost so they can plan for the jobs loss. They just want info. That's all you ever present is a lying tongue.
Once again you show what an ill informed dumbazz you are...
Union Corruption Update described at length this past September how the ILA, which represents around 65,000 employees at East Coast, Great Lakes, Gulf of Mexico and other cargo ports in the U.S. and Canada, is mired in inefficiency and cronyism. Union leadership has a lot to do with these problems, having negotiated them into a succession of contracts. Common union practices now include paying three dockworkers to operate a one-person crane and paying a dockworker up to 24 and even 27 hours for performing a standard eight-hour shift. As for corruption, the Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor has concluded following public hearings in late 2010 that the union had at least nine relatives of late Genovese crime family boss Vincent "the Chin" Gigante on its payroll. These and other workers, noted the commission, often hold "no show" jobs and are "overwhelmingly connected to organized crime figures or union leadership."
The end result of such arrangements is that ILA workers receive levels of compensation that are unusually high even by union standards. The average Longs****men annual wage and benefit package is now $124,138, with salary/wage comprising roughly $100,000 of that. The latter figure is roughly double what unionized full-time U.S. workers as a whole receive. At the Port of New York and New Jersey, nearly three dozen members at its various terminals make at least $368,000 a year in wages and benefits; one in three workers make at least $208,000. The waterfront commission found that shipping companies in some cases have had to pay salaries exceeding $400,000 for jobs that "require little or no work."
Inflated as they are, these sums don't include what are known as "container royalties." These are lump sum payments from shipping firms to union members on the basis of cargo weight. Some people might call them forced bonuses. The union insists they are necessary compensation for job losses resulting from the introduction of automated cargo weighing. Yet this "temporary" measure, instituted more than 50 years ago, still remains intact. And in 2011, it provided ILA members with a combined extra $232 million. That worked out to about $15,500 per worker. James Capo, CEO of the industry side of the negotiations, the U.S. Maritime Alliance (USMX), argues the practice is a wasteful, outdated relic that pads operating costs and ultimately the price of finished goods. But ILA President Harold Daggett during negotiations made clear that keeping the system was non-negotiable. Additionally, he threatened to block any loaded truck from leaving a port if a given container exceeded its highway weight limit. "If they (management) want to play games, we'll play games," said Daggett.
In ensuring continuation of cargo container royalties, the union appears to have the upper hand. Yet in the long-run, the ILA may be fighting a losing battle. Automated containerization has been a worldwide trend for decades. And this has made the shipping industry less labor-intensive. The number of dockworkers at the Port of New York and New Jersey, for example, has declined from about 35,000 to 3,500 during the last 50 years. Inflating labor costs would put U.S. shipping in a less competitive position than other nations. In Hong Kong, the world's third-busiest container port in 2011, the loading and unloading of cargo at privately-owned terminals is at least as mechanized as here. By raising per-worker compensation costs along East Coast and Gulf Coast ports to often exorbitant levels, the International Longs****men's Association is doing right by its members - those who are left. But it's also costing the rest of the nation.
http://nlpc.org/stories/2013/0...ve-pact-avert-strike
What part of "automation" does your "pea brain" NOT understand???
Tap...tap...tap?
Quaildung? You there???
Chirp...???