......I am posting the below union side of the story in which a union member is interviewed by the local media. In this interview, the union rep thoughtfully and eloquently explains the union version of the situation. (Hat tip Daily Caller)
Oh, did I forget to give that viewer warning about graphic language? Sorry.
http://dailycaller.com/2011/09/09/longshoreman-assaults-media-%e2%80%98get-the-fuck-out-of-this-parking-lot-right-now%e2%80%99/
Stay in school, kids.
Part of linked story reads, "Longshoremen are among the best-paid blue collar workers in the country, partly because of union-negotiated contracts. Longshoremen with 10 years’ of experience earn roughly $30 per hour, according to payscale.com, a website that tracks typical salaries across various U.S. careers.
ReplyDeleteWages for East Coat longshoremen are moderate because of competition among ports. But nearly all West Coast dock-workers are part of the ILWU, which uses its monopoly to boost wages for its members.
In 2007, average annual full-time wages for 15,000 workers at 29 West Coast ports topped $136,000, according to the Pacific Maritime Association, which negotiates and administers contracts between ports and the ILWU. Longshoremen earned an average of more than $125,000, clerks more than $145,000 and foremen more than $200,000.
Workers also get benefits packages worth $50,000 per year, according to the association’s 2007 report."
That's a minimum of $175,000 on average for the skill set that must be unique to longshoremen. If they are paid more than their economic value ...what value they contribute... then they have to go bust up some things to put things back in order.
Hmm... " which uses its monopoly to boost wages for its members...." I used to think only greedy capitalists used monopolies.
I also used to think trespass laws applied everywhere but it seems that these longshoremen think they only apply to their parking lot. Even if that was a view of this one longshoreman, I still didn't see any of his brethren correct him. I didn't hear any union official apologizing or even trying to minimize what their members did.
Guess what percentage of union donations go to Democratic candidates? 98%? 95%? It is something close to that so the beat goes on. It is clear how the leftists would like the country run. Gary supplied a video of it.
BTW, there is no comparable video of any Tea Party event. They clean up after their rallies. The closest they come to violence is by carrying placards the left doesn't like. They sing the national anthem and say the pledge of allegiance (with a reference to God). This makes the liberals loath them and call them racists and terrorists.
Take your choice, America.
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I don't care who the person is, that type of language is totally unacceptable.
ReplyDeleteI can see that his mother either charged by the hour or the sexual act.
Miggie,
ReplyDelete...plus all they can steal.
Nope, definitely not part of the P.R. department. Just a regular Joe.
ReplyDeleteReminds me of Mike Royko's description of the difference between Chicago police officers' manner of speech before and after Richard J. Daley hired Orlando W. Wilson as police chief.
Where a Chicago cop would say "We got a beef and we went in and pinched him, and he took a poke at my partner so I put him down with my billy," Wilson would teach the men to say "The officers responded to a citizen's complaint and upon arriving at the scene observed that the subject was in the process of committing a crime. The officers placed him under arrest, whereupon he offered resistance and was subdued with necessary force." Daley's determination to hire Wilson was strengthened.
Oh, yeah, Chicago cops, did -- still do in some parts of town -- use the language heard in this video. They were quite free with it in 1968, although I'm sure they talk different in Findalis's presence. I bet some guys in the DEA use this language too, present company excepted.
Longshore workers should be paid $30 an hour. With a 40 hour week and 52 weeks a year, that yields an annual income of $62,400, comfortable, but by current standards, hardly wealthy. This just goes to show how ludicrous it is to expect hard working Americans to raise a family on $7.25 an hour. As a single individual, with no dependents, I can live quite well on $13 an hour. The minimum should already be $11 or $12.
When my great grandfather was organizing for the United Mine Workers of America - not a pacifist outfit by any means, and always having to face down company hired gun thugs - he was a Republican. But the Republican Party forfeited its once-substantial union vote, as it forfeited its once-substantial African American vote, by catering exclusively to the worst enemies of each.
Siarlys,
ReplyDeleteYou still haven't told me if you condemn what those longies did or do you support it.?
PS Siarlys,
ReplyDeleteIn your analysis of the longies' wage scale you forgot about all the stuff they steal off the docks.
Gary, I don't know why you keep asking if I'm going to condemn an action I have had every opportunity to condemn, and have not done so. Why should I?
ReplyDeleteAs for the stuff longshoremen steal, it does not get calculated into wage scales, because honest longshoremen should be able to make their $62,400 a year WITHOUT resorting to theft. That remark was really unworthy of a sometime law enforcement officer. Come to think of it, one good reason for paying cops reasonably well is, if penny pinching city councils resort to paying them a pittance to balance the budget, they turn to graft to supplement their inadequate income. That reasoning could be applied to longshoremen too.
What, you say some steal anyway? I dare say they do. That is true of any occupation, and any level of society. Let's cut everyone's pay on the ground that they can make it up with good honest graft.
You are addressing those remarks to someone who never took a dime that didn't belong to him.
ReplyDeletebelieve it or not.
I believe it Gary. You've never given any indication that would have taken bribes or stolen even what was available in plain sight when nobody was looking. I don't even think you know who was on the take at DEA, when, or what they took. But we all know it happens.
ReplyDeleteWrong again, Siarlys.
ReplyDeleteIn my career, I knew some corrupt agents who went to prison. It was DEA Internal Security that put them there.
Oh, you did know some of them. I'm trying to give you credit Gary, not score brownie points. I would guess you were not aware of what they were up to until Internal Security moved in. You weren't complicit. Would that be a fair statement?
ReplyDeleteYou are mostly correct. A couple shocked me. A couple were people I thought should not have been federal agents, but I didn't know that they were involved in corruption.
ReplyDelete