Unions are the friends of the little guy right? Well not really

Unions are the friends of the little guy right? Well not really

“A small band of strikers has effectively shut down the nation's busiest shipping complex...cargo ships are being diverted to other ports.”

By Coach Collins on December 2nd, 2012

By Derrick Hollenbeck, staff writer

As if California and America have not been damaged enough by greedy unions who don’t give a damn about the rest of us, a small union in the Port of Los Angeles has ground the economy of Southern California to a halt.

A strike by a union of about 800 members has effectively closed the port which is the busiest import/export hub in the country. As a result the Port of Los Angeles is suffering a loss of $ 1 BILLION DOLLARS A DAY! The strike has spread to “600,000 truckers, dockworkers, trading companies and others depend for their livelihoods.”

The impact of the strike by the International Long shore and Warehouse Union as described by an economist is ominous. He said, “The longer it goes, the more the impacts increase. Retailers will have stock outages, lost sales for products not delivered. There will be shutdowns in factories, in manufacturing when they run out of parts.”

As usual the issue separating the union and management is the union’s insistence upon continuing its extortionist policy of “featherbedding” by which temporary thieves come to the docks, don’t do any work and still get paid for being “on the job.”

Since there has not been a contract between the parties for 21 ½ years, it is very clear that the rank and file members are happy with conditions on the Los Angeles docks, so why the problem? These “featherbedding” jobs are not being filled by them. They have jobs that they like and want to keep. The push for extortion is being made to recoup some of the money the union laid out to purchase Barack Obama.

As is the case with most “blue collar” unions, the International Long shore and Warehouse Union, gave millions of dollars to Democrats (99% to 1% to Republicans) and they don’t have enough actual workers to extort to get back their outlay anytime soon. They need to force management to play make believe with them – they want management to make believe “featherbedding” ‘workers’ actually exist so the union can collect union dues from these phantoms.

It is an excellent bet we will see more of this type of union attack on America in the coming months. They will want to extort as much money as they can from the companies they are killing, before they collapse.

Source:

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-ports-labor-20121130,0,2659465,full.story

http://www.coachisright.com/unions-are-the-friends-of-the-little-guy-right-well-not-really/

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Small union is causing big problems for ports

Ronald D. White, Los Angeles Times

November 30, 2012

The small band of strikers that has effectively shut down the nation's busiest shipping complex forced two huge cargo ships to head for other ports Thursday and kept at least three others away, hobbling an economic powerhouse in Southern California.

The disruption is costing an estimated $1 billion a day at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, on which some 600,000 truckers, dockworkers, trading companies and others depend for their livelihoods.

"The longer it goes, the more the impacts increase," said Paul Bingham, an economist with infrastructure consulting firm CDM Smith. "Retailers will have stock outages, lost sales for products not delivered. There will be shutdowns in factories, in manufacturing when they run out of parts."

Despite the union's size — about 800 members of a unit of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union — it has managed to flex big muscles. Unlike almost anywhere else in the nation, union loyalty is strong at the country's ports. Neither the longshoremen nor the truckers are crossing the tiny union's picket lines.

The strike started at the L.A. port's largest terminal Tuesday and spread Wednesday to 10 of the two ports' 14 cargo terminals. These resemble seaside parking lots where long metal containers are loaded and unloaded with the help of giant cranes.