Sittin' on the dock of the bay...

This isn’t exactly a flame, but I’ve got a sneaking suspicion it could devolve into one pretty quickly; thus, it’s in The Pit.

I’ll admit up front I’m not a big fan of Unions in general, but I can admit they often serve a valid purpose. Recently, I’ve been hearing a lot about the dock worker’s slowdown in CA, the havoc it’s playing with shipping, and the government’s response to it.

Being a lifelong land-locked midwest bumpkin, I’ve only the vaguest idea what these guys do for a living. And the better part of the info I have comes from openly biased sources, so I turn to TSD in hopes of some perspective. My question is in two parts:
[ul]
[li] Are their wages really as high as the oft-quoted $100,000/year figure? If so, what percentage of them make anywhere near that much? What’s their pay scale like?[/li]
[li] What, exactly, are these guys are complaining about? Is the pay the whole problem, or is something other issue being glossed over?[/li][/ul]
Despite my generally conservative bent, I just have a hard time accepting that all (or even a majority) of these dock workers make six-figure paychecks for loading ships and are unsatisfied with that.

How about it, anyone? Thoughts? Info? Pointers to outside sources? TIA…

I believe part of their gripe was that upcoming technological improvements in equipment would reduce the number of jobs needed.

Wow, welcome to the 19th century.

“something other issue???!?!”

The sad part is, I even previewed before submitting. :smack:

Another issue was the fact that the dock workers were routinely expected to work two and three shifts in a row. When they refused to do this any more, saying it was unsafe, the management decided to construe that as a “slowdown”, hence the lockout.

lieu- the actual issue was whether the jobs created by the new technology would be union.

Yes they are paid well. Some of those jobs are very dangerous (that’s why they couldn’t hire replacemnt workers). In fact

from this site http://www.themilitant.com/2002/6640/664001.html

We kicked this around over in GQ for awhile: Longshoremen strike…why not hire new ones? they make 114k/year!!   The $100+ K figure apparently ignores the seasonal nature of the work. As light strand and Ferrous have pointed out, there were several non-monetray issues behind the lockout. The GQ thread gives more detail, and links.

see:

http://www.ilwu.org/SolidarityDay_frame1.htm

for the stevedore’s view