It looks as though those pesky labor unions are at it again!
Possibly becoming the third labor union walkout on US shipping ports this month, the International Longshoremen's Association (ILA) is threatening to strike if an agreement can not be reached by the end of the week. Currently working on a 90 day contract extension, the ILA and employers are at a stalemate over ‘royalty fees’. In an effort to gain back some control over their business, employers wish to place a ‘cap’ on these fees to aid in the company’s ability to remain competitive. A strike by the ILA would affect more than 14,000 workers and some 14 ports along the Eastern Seaboard creating a major disruption in the nation’s retail market and agricultural exports, a disruption the ILA will certainly exploit.
What are these ‘royalty fees’? They are nothing more than a ‘bonus’ paid to ILA dockworkers on top of their negotiated contract union wage. The amount of these ‘royalty fees’ are based on the weight of the containers the dockworkers move. Stemming from the fact that shippers use weight as one of components in determining its shipping cost to customers, union logic concludes that if the shipper profits by weight then so should its members. However, the union fails to acknowledge that work being performed by its members is impervious to weight while the shipper must recover the cost to purchase and maintain transport equipment, fuel costs and various transportation taxes and fees imposed by state and federal law. The concept of these ‘royalty fees’ is another example of the backwards union logic used to manipulate its members and its miss use of power to get into the pockets of those who employ there members.
At the same time, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) and employers have also reached a stalemate over a number of proposed rule changes in the existing labor contract. The proposed rule changes would remove a significant number of employee ‘perks’ that simply are unfair to the employer, such as paying workers while conducting union business at the work place for example. As their argument, the ILWU cites that the companies are attempting to impose changes to contract terms that have been in place for over 80 years while also claiming the reason for these changes is simply to break the union. I guess it has never occurred to the ILWU that business practices have progressed over the past 80 years.
And earlier this month approximately 800 striking Clerical Workers Union (OCU) members, supported by an additional 10,000 longshoremen, cripple both the Port of Los Angeles and Port of Long Beach after failing to reach an agreement with shipping line employers. The striking OCU member, who reportedly receive a wage and benefits package which amounts to roughly $90 per hour, were demanding language in the new labor contract that would ‘guarantee’ there jobs would never be outsourced. The OCU has made claims that shipping line employers have been outsourcing OCU jobs lost through attrition, a claim the shipping lines deny. At an economic loss of an estimated $1 billion per day, the striking OCU left approximately 20 ships stranded at anchor, some being re-routed to other ports in order to keep retail goods moving.
An agreement, which heavily favored the OCU and its members, was finally reached putting an end to an eight day strike. In addition to a wage and pension increase, of which the union claims neither was a point of contention, the new contract includes a ‘no outsourcing’ and a ‘no layoff’ clause which now prohibits the employers from taking advantage of modern computer systems and technology that would streamline and better manage many of the work activities of its OCU employees, virtually forcing employers into progress stagnation. Losing this technological edge on their competitors, the shipping lines now have to seek out corners to cut that will provide an equivalent cost savings in order to remain competitive.
We’ve come a long way baby
A sad testament to an ideology that, so many years ago, saved and consequently fortified the workforce of our nation, the number of union greed horror stories that are plaguing our nation grows larger by the day.
With unemployment rates at a record high and an economy still struggling to recover from recession, both public and private sector labor unions have been waging war with employers in an effort to preserve unjustifiable wages and unsustainable pension plans. From coast to coast, hundreds of cities are facing insolvency largely due to underfunded pensions. With the lack of participation from the public sector labor unions, many of these financially strapped cities have fallen into bankruptcy and there will be many more to follow. The private sector faces the same dilemma, those businesses enduring financial hardship are having to make cuts, were ever possible, to offset revenue losses resulting from the nation’s long lasting recession. Those businesses that are bound by a union labor agreement rarely are offered any meaningful assistance from labor unions and their members. Any assistance that is offered, by the labor union, are almost certain to include a caveat for significant concessions, at a later date.
The recent fall of Hostess is a text book example of union greed trumping common sense which, in the end left roughly 18,000 union members unemployed. Ignoring Hostess’s warning of an immediate liquidation of assets if production was interrupted during the bank managed restructuring, a small group of union bakers walked off the job. As warned, Hostess requested that the bank authorize its immediate liquidation of its assets in order to prevent any further debt from being accumulated. The request was granted and the rest is history.
The Twinkie will most certainly return, as well at least a portion of those 18,000 jobs however, the likelihood of those jobs being union are slim at best. And for those former Hostess union employees, the new makers of Hostess products may not be so eager to hire those very employees that were responsible for the closure of Hostess in the first place.
At the expense of our children
In what might be the most grotesque display of unions ‘doing the wrong thing’ are those public union representatives that stand behind school administrators who have fallen subject to a states ‘Parent Trigger Law’. The Parent Trigger Law has been adopted by several states and allows parents to protect their children’s education from low performing public schools through a legal mechanism that transfers the failed administration into the hands of a charter school administration. The California Parent Trigger Law has been triggered on not one but two occasions targeting two separate grossly underperforming public schools. On both occasions the respective Teachers Unions blocked the action through false accusation, harassment and direct persuasion of several affected parents. With little ability to put up a fight against the powerful Teachers Union, on both instances the actions against its union members were quickly dismantled, leaving the parents powerless and the children to remain in those underperforming school environments.
And it gets worse, as many of those very same Teacher Unions that have place its members above the education of the children, have also protected and defended the jobs of several of its members who have committed egregious acts against defenseless students leaving one to wonder if any of these Teachers Unions posses a moral compass.
The Union agenda
Once standing in protection of fair wages, benefits and work environment, for its members, Labor Unions have now become little more than a group of well dressed thugs that care for little more than increasing union membership and maximizing its membership’s wages from which they draw their salary.
Today’s labor unions choose to ignore advances in technology and changes in the business environment as this knowledge is counterproductive to their mission of increase both labor force and wages. Another tendency of today’s unions is to unfairly convey the needs of the company and the challenges it faces, to its members. Their goal now is to create the perception, to its members, that the company cares more of its bottom line then providing fare wage and benefits to its employee. If the union is successful in its false portrayal, of the company, it will have the support of its members to use as leverage during contract negotiations exploiting the threat of a labor walkout to push employer concessions right to the edge of unprofitability.
No comments:
Post a Comment