Posts tagged automation
Trump backs dockworkers in fight against automation. The move risks higher prices, experts say
December 14, 2024 // The U.S. Maritime Alliance, or USMX, the organization representing shipping firms in negotiations, said on Thursday that such automation would improve efficiency and increase capacity. Those enhancements would benefit U.S. companies and consumers that depend on goods from abroad, the group added. “We need modern technology that is proven to improve worker safety, boost port efficiency, increase port capacity, and strengthen our supply chains,” USMX said in a statement.
Today’s hospitality union battle is over wages. The next one might be about tech.
December 5, 2024 // The following year, the Culinary Union added language around technology adoption to its contract. In its contracts negotiated in 2023, the union “protected and expanded” that clause, Bethany Khan, a union spokesperson, told Hotel Dive. For members of the Culinary Union, their technology-related worries go beyond robot replacements — encompassing everything from workflow-optimizing apps to artificial intelligence. And while the union’s contract language offers protections around how technology is used at hotels, it does not prevent companies from deploying new technologies in the first place.
The UAW’s strike on General Motors might haunt workers
December 4, 2024 // The United Auto Workers at General Motors received a 33% pay raise as a result of last year’s strike, but GM announced another round of layoffs on Nov. 15. GM laid off 1,000 employees worldwide, including 507 workers at its Warren, Michigan, location. The news comes after GM’s tech center in Warren lost 634 jobs in August, and the company cut 1,314 jobs from its Orion plant in December, two months after the strike ended.
U.S. port, union talks break down again over automation, with two months to go before potential strike
November 13, 2024 // USMX says the use of semi-automated cranes, already at many ports, is critical to future supply chain demands. The International Longshoremen's Association, which is not publicly commenting, has said in the recent past that the union wants new contract language to clearly state that "no automation means no automation."
COMMENTARY: US Postal Workers Are Fighting Massive Service Cuts
November 11, 2024 // Thousands of US Postal Service jobs are at stake under Postmaster General Louis DeJoy’s modernization plan, which would close 200 mail processing plants and funnel all mail to 60 mega-plants. Postal workers are organizing to stop the plan.
Top 10 trucking policies likely to be affected by Trump’s return
November 7, 2024 // Resetting standards for truck emissions and independent contracting expected to be on the agenda
The next president may face a ‘January Surprise’: Port strikes
October 31, 2024 // Pay isn’t the issue. There’s a whopping 62 percent pay increase for the ILA already on the table. The issue is that the union wants no further automation of the ports. That’s not reasonable. US ports are already far behind the international standard for automation. CEI has proposed a way to avoid these potential crises in the future: put the ports under the authority of the Railway Labor Act (RLA), as opposed to the National Labor Relations Act’s (NLRA), the law that currently covers them. The RLA gives the president and Congress the power to step in and force a contract. That type of intervention isn’t ideal, but the threat of it will likely force both the union and management to reach a deal quicker. Congress would have to amend the RLA to make that happen and it isn’t likely to get around to it in time to prevent another walkout by the ILA before January.
US shippers avoid East Coast ports on risk of second strike
October 31, 2024 // "Anything we expect that we need in the back half of January, we're effectively diverting to the West Coast," said Chris Peterson, CEO of Graco high chair and Crock-Pot cooker maker Newell Brands, referring to the period after the new contract negotiating deadline. Peterson said the company switched a "couple of hundred containers" of critical materials to the opposite coast to get ahead of what he expects will be a second strike lasting, at most, two weeks.
Opinion: What Buc-ee’s Can Teach Us About the Port Strike
October 12, 2024 // They care most about sheer numbers, from which both union dues and political power—and thus the leaders’ incredibly high salaries—are derived. So, they’ll fight like hell to keep the people they have, even as doing so contradicts not only the economics—and real-world lessons like Buc-ee’s—but also our current labor market reality, in which workers, not jobs, are increasingly scarce. In that world, it makes oodles of sense to embrace automation and other productivity enhancements, whether at the ports or anywhere else, and any other benefits are just the barbecue sauce on top. In the union’s world, however, the system’s working perfectly, and the government-protected sauce already flows.
Port Strike Halts: Now What? Commentary
October 9, 2024 // Even a new contract agreement, if it does not fundamentally address American port uncompetitiveness, would prove to be only a six-year punt. Legislation has been introduced to move port workers from the main National Labor Relations Act governance structure that applies to most private-sector workers to the Railway Labor Act, which governs the railroad and airline industries. This change would give Congress and the administration more power to impose a negotiated settlement and prevent strikes, but the idea has been batted around for nearly a decade.