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I can't wait for more automation to hit US ports. I'm all for decent wages, but dockworkers get paid so much they end up behaving a lot like oilfield workers. Dockworkers are a prime example of what gives unions a bad name.
Do you think nobody should be making six-figure salaries? Or just that unionized workers shouldn't?
This article tells you basically nothing if you're not already convinced that more automation is always better, or that while "technological disruption... almost inevitably leads to displacement of some segments of the workforce. In the long run, however, technology ends up creating better jobs and expanded opportunities across broad spectrums of the economy." The calculation that "proves" Rotterdam is more efficient…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you think nobody should be making six-figure salaries? Or just that unionized workers shouldn't?
The idea of blue-collar workers getting well-paid is very upsetting to some white-collar workers. They feel their social status threatened by people they deem beneath them.
Unions are a monopoly, and when prices (in this case, of labor) are high due to a monopoly, we must ask whether the government should allow, forbid, or encourage this monopoly. When wages are very low, I think most people are not opposed to unions forcing wages above market rates (I am, but that's another issue). But when wages are high, or driven far above what people think market wages would be, people question the moral basis for protecting workers from competition.
So the issue isn't that blue collar workers are "beneath" white collar workers, but that (at least to an industry outsider) it's not clear what special skills these workers have that would command high market wages.
Rotterdam also has unions to deal with. A colleague of mine, who worked on the software for the final stage (some 15 years back) moving containers onto trucks, told a story where, after union negotiations, they implemented a system where forklift truck drivers could choose between three different containers to pick next instead of giving them just one instruction, for the single, most optimal, one.
TraPac and Middle Harbor in the Port of Los Angeles are automating. Oakland isn't considered big enough to need it.[1] for an overview of automation in Los Angeles ports, see [2]. The Port of Los Angeles isn't a port operator; it's a landlord. Thirteen private companies have their own terminals, docks and equipment, and two of them are automating now. To automate a terminal, you have to take it out of service and bui…
* from what I can tell
How is there an article about the costs of using containers without automated infrastructure on Hacker News and nobody's made a Docker/Kubernetes joke yet?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The idea of blue-collar workers getting well-paid is very upsetting to some white-collar workers. They feel their social status threatened by people they deem beneath them.
I don't think that's the primary issue people have with high wage union labor, and your comment shows an unwillingness to engage constructively with political opponents. Unions are a monopoly, and when prices (in this case, of labor) are high due to a monopoly, we must ask whether the government should allow, forbid, or encourage this monopoly. When wages are very low, I think most people are not opposed to unions fo…
This BLDGBLOG post from earlier in the year details to automation on the on the East coast.
http://bldgblog.blogspot.ie/2015/04/infrastructure-as-proces...
TIL the average salary for port workers is $147k.