The union of 45,000 dockworkers from the east coast port strike and an association of employers discussed the terms of the new contract during the week but did not advance far in the debate about the use of automation, the two parties stated on Wednesday.
That gap has to be closed before January 15 to avert a second port stoppage that threatens the seamless movement of merchandise as everyone begins looking at disruptions from Trump’s proposed protectionist policies such as shutting out products from China, Mexico and other nations.
ILA’s leaders are all opponents of automation claiming that it will invariably lead to the disappearance of jobs.
Employers support automation and semi-automation stressing that these objectives foster the competitiveness of the American ports and can expand the cargo flows on which jobs depend.
However, the Joe Biden’s administration is scared of the formation of another strike next year, a senior official revealed.
The union declined to comment on the situation to NPR but did respond in a statement posted to Facebook that has since been deleted, but a screenshot was captured within the shipping industry.
As the ILA said in its statement: ‘Despite this continued insistence on automation and semi-automation language by the employer side in the ensuing Master Contract negotiations, the ILA remains steadfast in not to relinquish any ILA jobs.
The ILA called off its three-day walkout on the Oct. 3 after successfully receiving a 62% raise in wages over six years with the United States Maritime Alliance (USMX) employers group with prodigious intervention from the White House and other Biden officials.
While the strike was the first broad-scale strike at his East and Gulf Coast ports for nearly 50 years, it stopped movement of about 50 per cent of the ocean shipping for a time.
USMX and the union sat down for two days of negotiations this week to address the new six-year deal ahead of the new January 15th deadline.
‘While we had a positive outcome on many fronts, we were unable to make substantial progress on our discussions that pertained to a wide range of technology matters,’ said the USMX.
The employer group categorically stated: ‘‘It’s not searching for technology that would overturn jobs.’’
It said the union is “locking itself into an agreement that would set our industry backTwenty years of using technology at some of our ports and prevent us from building the supply chain solutions the nation will need over the next few years.”
Once area of controversy is self-driving cranes that take containers from stacks at docks and move them to trailers. Union workers in remote locations lower the containers onto the chassis to ensure that they are correctly positioned partially, according to a source who has been in the negotiations.
That form of semi-automatic has enabled terminals to expand their capacity on the number of containers they are able to manage, and sustain jobs, according to that source.
The preliminary agreement reached in October would increase average union wages to $63 in an hour from $39 an hour over the term of the contract. That is provided other issues are sorted out, but it does highlights the whole point of why people come up with ideas in the first place.
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