California Global: Dockworkers, represented by the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU), said on Friday that the port crisis is not their fault and that heightened measures, such as the National Guard being deployed to some ports, will not help alleviate the situation.
The Globe traveled across Los Angeles County on Friday and talked with several current and former dock workers about the current situation. While each had different experiences and felt differently about the crisis, all maintained that dock workers had nothing to do with the crisis.
“This isn’t a case of us saying to you ‘Well of course it’s not our fault.’ The reality is that we’ve been working no more or less harder than usual when ships started backing up,” said James, a dock worker of 16 years. “In practical terms, there’s not too many ways to speed up the process. We use container cranes to offload a ship, and those things tend to not really act with speed. You try and push it and that could end up causing damage. You can miss the trucks or trains. On the ground, you need to make sure the containers are unhooked and safely down. If we rush it, someone, somewhere will be hurt.”
Another dockworker also spoke up about this.
“Going faster is not an option, but being more efficient is,” said Russell, a former dockworker now working as a long-haul trucker, to the Globe on Friday. “We’re finally getting backing to modernize the process and remove roadblocks like weight limits to help clear off ships faster. Dock workers and truckers alike have been asking this for years. The whole process can suddenly stop if, say, and trucker with a bobtail (truck with no trailer) pulls around to get loaded or something like that. It throws everyone off their flow. Or if trucks can only take so much weight. It just ruins the efficiency.” MORE HERE
Maybe the dock workers aren’t at fault, but their union sure is. And if the dock workers voted democrat, then yeah,!they are to blame.
I don’t know anything about anything, but I find it “interesting” that the west coast container crisis is primarily happening in Newsome’s state. I do not trust that he’s in there somewhere.
“While each had different experiences and felt differently about the crisis, all maintained that dock workers had nothing to do with the crisis.”
lol nuttin’ ta do widdit.
There’s a ‘Mother of the Year’ award to be bestowed on Mayor Pete by Congress, for his dedication to society, I recon.
I do not believe a fuckin thin a Teamster says. Period.
They should have been 3 shift 7 days a week BUT the Democraps want creating desperation & panic to pass their Trillions of Spending.
Unions were not responsible for most of the US manufacturers having their goods manufactured in China, Mexico, Vietnam, Turkey, Pakistan, India and Sri Lanka either. All those goods are stuck on Ships now.
We need to stop buying cheap foreign made crap and start building our own crap. Politicians and labor unions have sold us out to third world shitholes.
And our kids walk around with their faces glued to their damn phones while foreign kids are learning how to manufacture those phones!
Kalifornia, in their infinite warped wisdom, only allow certain types of newer (fewer) truck rigs to take cargo from their ports to the state line. Then they’re loaded onto ‘normal’ semi rigs to head for their final destination.
Thank Kalifornia for the self-assisted suicide.
1. The docks in question are among the most inefficient according to those who rank such things, and labor is not the reason.
2. The EPA/state of Calif. have banned trucks older than 3 years from the roads (emissions) thus reducing the number of trucks available to haul freight from the docks by at least 50%.
3. Some goods that were ordered weeks or months ago are not in demand now and the urgency to transport them to warehouses has dissipated–so they sit.
These problems might still exist if I were still in office, but the democrats, as usual, have made everything worse.
This is happening because if the previous administration, problems like this fester in the system, brew & gain momentum over time. Many issues caused this, denying the virus, brewing hate, blame game. I see republicans sitting in their corner pointing fingers & not doing a god dam thing to help come up with a viable solution to any problems. If they for a moment think this non-acton will help them in the up coming election they will be sadly mistaken.