Earlier discussion (different article, but same subject): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10306204
(Other article at http://priceonomics.com/why-arent-americas-shipping-ports-au...)
A Tale of Two Ports: Automation at Oakland vs. Rotterdam
21–30 of 53 posts
Re: A Tale of Two Ports: Automation at Oakland vs. Rotterdam
#22Earlier 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…
My issue with union shops is that getting things done is unnecessarily difficult. Case in point: sitting around for half a day waiting for the unionized cable puller to sling a single cat5 connection between two racks on the same row in a data center. Then the guy doesn't show up until after 1600, so he forces overtime.
Re: A Tale of Two Ports: Automation at Oakland vs. Rotterdam
#23Earlier 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…
You do realize the sentiment behind the second clause of your last sentence contradicts the assertion of the first one?
Re: A Tale of Two Ports: Automation at Oakland vs. Rotterdam
#24TIL the average salary for port workers is $147k.
This is the link in that sentence: http://www.pmanet.org/the-ilwu-workforce
Clicking around on that site shows that it is a non-profit representing the companies that negotiate with the longshoreman's union: http://www.pmanet.org/ceo-message
So it's the bosses' word that the average salary for port workers is 147k, and honestly I don't believe it.
Re: A Tale of Two Ports: Automation at Oakland vs. Rotterdam
#25IIRC, Rotterdam had a massive govt. subsidy for going fully-automated, which kind of helps.
I spent 10 years between 1997 and 2009 (took a break for grad school) working on semi-automated tracking systems for ports up and down the West Coast (and other places), including one in Oakland. The recent surge in interest in intermodal container ports sure brings back memories!
My company developed niche systems for tracking container location within the terminal by instrumenting and tracking any crane/truck/etc. that could move a container. Even though longshoremen were still operating the equipment, it helped to have a real-time (and historical) picture of what happened, because planning systems were now less subject to clerical mistakes.
Here's their (sort of terrible) website: http://www.nowsol.com/
These guys pretty much own the market for the terminal-planning systems we fed: http://navis.com/
Re: A Tale of Two Ports: Automation at Oakland vs. Rotterdam
#26Earlier 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…
Let me just ask you: why, in a market system, shouldn't people get as wages whatever they can demand, using personal negotiating skills, collective negotiating skills, law, whatever?
Management won't leave money on the table, why should the workers?
Re: A Tale of Two Ports: Automation at Oakland vs. Rotterdam
#27Rotterdam 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.
What is the logic behind it? Having an opportunity to select is more entertaining to the driver?
I am in the middle of writing directed pick/put module for a warehouse. I just had a meeting last week on the exact same topic. My software gives the user the most optimal pick list and the warehouse manager wanted me to change it so his team could pick from alternate bins. His justifications:
1. My software doesn't know that there is a cart/ladder/forklift blocking the most optimal bin while the bin next to it is easily accessible.
2. My software cannot tell if QC is in middle of sampling or if Inventory team is in middle of cycle counting that exact bin.
3. My software doesn't factor in changes in real-world that have not yet been inputted into the computer system. So if there is spillage, quantity, or quarantine issues that haven't been scanned into the system yet, my software calculates the optimal bin incorrectly.
It's not that code cannot calculate what optimal means given a set of requirements. It's just that the end-user might be in a better position to decide if it really is optimal or not.
Re: A Tale of Two Ports: Automation at Oakland vs. Rotterdam
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
You do realize the sentiment behind the second clause of your last sentence contradicts the assertion of the first one?
Could you flesh that idea out? It's not clear to me what parts of the sentence you're referring to.
Re: A Tale of Two Ports: Automation at Oakland vs. Rotterdam
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Let me just ask you: why, in a market system, shouldn't people get as wages whatever they can demand , using personal negotiating skills, collective negotiating skills, law, whatever? Management won't leave money on the table, why should the workers?
You had me up to "law". From the econ perspective, the "free market" does not include lobbying for particular laws. To define it as such is mockery of the term.
Assuming completely free property rights and contracts, unions would probably have almost no power. The power of unions stems from the fact that they are protected (e.g. you can't fire someone for joining a union) and the fact that the state ignores violent crime when unions commit it (but as far as I know that's not the issue here, I'm just mentioning for completeness).
I think that a legal system that is skewed towards labor is ok, for various reasons. But when you see wages pushed far beyond market wages, it's fair to ask if the system is too skewed.
So to answer your question, a person should not get whatever they can command by influencing the political system. Yes, both sides will try to do it, but in both cases the response should be to argue against them, and instead argue for impartial laws.
EDIT: the delay before the "reply" link becomes active is there for a reason. I'll respond to any reply that I consider to be based on a thorough reading of my post, and not a knee jerk reaction (for reference, the reply I'm referring to was written 4 minutes after my post).
Re: A Tale of Two Ports: Automation at Oakland vs. Rotterdam
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
Let me just ask you: why, in a market system, shouldn't people get as wages whatever they can demand , using personal negotiating skills, collective negotiating skills, law, whatever? Management won't leave money on the table, why should the workers?
You had me up to "law". From the econ perspective, the "free market" does not include lobbying for particular laws. To define it as such is mockery of the term. Assuming completely free property rights and contracts, unions would probably have almost no power. The power of unions stems from the fact that they are protected (e.g. you can't fire someone for joining a union) and the fact that the state ignores violent c…
Of course the free market includes the rules that govern it. If you don't have rules, you don't have a market, just a rule of anarchic might-makes-right force.
If you're going to say "well, only property laws then," that's still laws! That's still a set of "this is how it should be" encoded into rules that we all have to agree to to take part in it!
It's just been, for so long, assumed that "screw the workers and don't let them fight back" is somehow "more free" that we treat that like a built-in thing, when really, that's just one way of doing it.
As for state-sanctioned, union-committed violent crime, oh please.
EDIT: Since you edited your remarks to include the last paragraph, I'll address that, too.
Why shouldn't people work to influence the political system in their favor? We all live here, we all have a role to play in the design and operation of the laws of our city/state/country. If enough people like strong worker protection laws, well, that's democracy, why shouldn't that stuff get encoded into law?
SECOND EDIT: Yeah, it only takes a minute or two to read what you're saying and respond to it. I saw a "reply" link right away, so if there's some extra delay built in, it didn't apply to me.