Port strike and automation

[Gospel]

Labor’s share of national income—that is, the amount of GDP paid out in wages, salaries, and benefits—has been declining in developed and, to a lesser extent, emerging economies since the 1980s. This has raised concerns about slowing income growth, inequality, and loss of the consumer purchasing power that is needed to fuel demand in the economy. The decline has been much discussed and the rising power of companies vis-à-vis workers—whether from new technology, globalization, the hollowing out of labor unions, or market consolidation—has shaped much of that discussion.

A new look at the declining labor share of income in the United States

Oft-cited factors like globalization, technology, and others may not be painting the full picture in the waning labor share of income.

www.mckinsey.com

Utterly imbecilic garbage. It declined becasue of decline in number of people involved in that becasue of automation.

Barbos, the issue is that we live in a world run by humans, and that’s where the problem lies. Income increasingly flows to capital as companies invest in machines, technology, or intellectual property rather than hiring workers. As businesses automate and rely on software or patents, they cut labor costs, with profits going to shareholders and investors instead of employees. As companies become more profitable, a growing share of wealth goes to capital owners rather than the workforce, further deepening wealth inequality in America.

While governments might try to intervene, any regulation or policy they implement to address this will likely lead to higher costs being passed on to the everyday consumer, making it difficult to effectively tackle the issue without creating new burdens. In this case, Biden could force the workers to return to work while negotiations take place but that would nuke Kamala Harris in the poles. Thus his current approach to encourage a fair offer from the USMX.

People are bound to complain when they struggle to make ends meet while a smaller segment of society accumulates more wealth than they could ever use. Not sure about what's going on in your country but the shipping firms over here are doing pretty damn good regarding profits. They aren't hurting at all. At some point, the bubble is going to burst, and honestly, I won’t mind being poor when the pitchforks and torches start making their way through our streets. We all should be happy it's a strike and not an assault.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The thing is a strike isn't about withholding their labor.

Yes, it is. That's the complete and accurate definition of a strike.

No. Withholding your labor would be quitting and going to work for somebody else.

Unions are about denying any labor to a business. Monopoly power. It's wrong when done by business, it's wrong when done by labor.

 

[barbos]

Barbos, the issue is that we live in a world run by humans, and that’s where the problem lies. Income increasingly flows to capital as companies invest in machines, technology, or intellectual property rather than hiring workers.

Honestly, I don't know how exactly these imbeciles in the quoted article define "labor" and "GDP". I know that GDP is constantly redefined to include things which don't belong there. So if you include into GDP something which is not labor then the reduction of labor fraction of GDP is a mathematical certainty.
Having said that, this is completely unrelated to the topic of extortion by the unions.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

And even with the protections unions get it often crosses the line into extortion. I'm thinking of a case some years back, a newspaper. I forget who was striking, but they tried to sabotage the electricity to stop the printing of the paper--the saboteur died.

That isn't a strike or extortion... that is sabotage! Just because someone does something in some case doesn't mean it becomes some magical broad brush for other striking forces.

Of course it's sabotage. The point was that the union considered it proper behavior and that the company was at fault.

These people want to continue to work, some of it highly technical and some of it, very critical for our economy. They want to be able to be paid. They want to be able to do it for as long as they want.

But they're refusing to.

I am confused as to why you can't understand that labor would want to remain labor and their interests might not exactly match up with those of big business.

Of course they don't match up. I'm just saying monopoly power is wrong, whether by union or by business.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I agree professors should be paid more.

Incorrect. Professors should be paid more and these unions assholes less than they are now.

Incorrect. All of the lower classes should be paid more. The top 1 percent are sucking up the majority of the wealth generated in this country and the rest of us are getting scraps. Ther 400 richest families pay a lower tax rate than the middle class, by design.

Incorrect. A lot of that "wealth" is stock--which represents the expected current value of all future corporate earnings. It's not something you can actually spend.

And, yes, they pay a lower tax rate. Two factors:
1) They topped out social security--that's a big piece of the tax difference and the flip side is their social security payment won't go up, either.
2) Capital gains are taxed at a lower rate--or are they?? Take the average market return and figure what the true gain is considering inflation. Note that the top long term capital gain rate in constant dollars is pretty darn close to the top income tax rate in current dollars.

36% of jobs were union jobs in the late 50s, early 60s. Now it 6%. The decline of good union jobs matches the decline of the middle and lower classes incomes in relation to the richest. The right, besides enacting state anti union laws such as Right To Work (for less) have convinced many that they don't need unions. They can just pull themselves up by their bootstraps and be rich just like Musk, Bezos, Buffett, et al. Self made (bullshit) billionaires.

Good union jobs were mostly destroyed by non-union competition.

This is one thing I agree with the MAGAts on. The country has turned away from the little guy. They think billionaire Trump is the cure for the wealth inequality that has taken over the nation and stagnated the growth of the middle class. They think the guy that screwed so many workers and vendors in New York that no one there will work for him anymore. They're delusional.

The country has not, although Putin would like you to think so.

 

[laughing dog]

The thing is a strike isn't about withholding their labor.

Yes, it is. That's the complete and accurate definition of a strike.

No. Withholding your labor would be quitting and going to work for somebody else.

Withholding means refusing to give something. Refusing to work us a classic example if withholding.

Unions are about denying any labor to a business. Monopoly power. It's wrong when done by business, it's wrong when done by labor.

Wrong. Unions are about getting the best deal for their members and protecting them. Strikes are a last ditch tool.

 

[barbos]

People are bound to complain when they struggle to make ends meet

The guys who are paid $150K a year are struggling to make ends meet?

 

[ZiprHead]

The thing is a strike isn't about withholding their labor.

Yes, it is. That's the complete and accurate definition of a strike.

No. Withholding your labor would be quitting and going to work for somebody else.

Unions are about denying any labor to a business. Monopoly power. It's wrong when done by business, it's wrong when done by labor.

Management has alway been free to hire scabs

 

[barbos]

The country has not, although Putin would like you to think so.

Putin is not running, even though he would probably beat both idiots.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Labor share of GDP is 69%, so capital gets 31% share. If everyone got a 45% pay raise then capital share would be 0.

If there was no capital then labor would get something like $500/year (the approximate amount produced per capita in counties with almost no capital investment).

What is the appropriate share for capital given that the current level makes labor something like 150 times more productive, and labor gets something like 100x higher wages compared to not having access to that capital?

GDP doesn't fully measure wealth. My concern is not productivity, it's wealth distribution. Productivity has risen greatly yet wages have stagnated for the lower and middle classes.

Lower class certainly has. That always happens as societies develop--the market values skills over warm bodies. The spread between high skill and low skill is much wider than it was in the past and thus low skill is farther from the average. And the answer is not to simply pay them more--the result of that approach is more unemployment.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

It is simply not possible for that labor's share of GDP in the US since the 1980s because of people are being replaced by automation because THERE ARE MORE PEOPLE WORKING.

What you are missing is that more is being done.

Some numbers for illustration only: We had 100 workers and machines equivalent of another 100. Now we have 150 and machines that are equivalent to 300. More workers, lower percent of productivity due to the workers.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Barbos, the issue is that we live in a world run by humans, and that’s where the problem lies. Income increasingly flows to capital as companies invest in machines, technology, or intellectual property rather than hiring workers.

Honestly, I don't know how exactly these imbeciles in the quoted article define "labor" and "GDP". I know that GDP is constantly redefined to include things which don't belong there. So if you include into GDP something which is not labor then the reduction of labor fraction of GDP is a mathematical certainty.
Having said that, this is completely unrelated to the topic of extortion by the unions.

What is being counted that shouldn't be?

Note that not all of GDP is put to useful use. 100% efficiency almost never happens.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The thing is a strike isn't about withholding their labor.

Yes, it is. That's the complete and accurate definition of a strike.

No. Withholding your labor would be quitting and going to work for somebody else.

Unions are about denying any labor to a business. Monopoly power. It's wrong when done by business, it's wrong when done by labor.

Management has alway been free to hire scabs

There are cases where they are explicitly prohibited from doing so by law. And when a union controls a whole market where are you going to find them?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The country has not, although Putin would like you to think so.

Putin is not running, even though he would probably beat both idiots.

I didn't say Putin was running. I'm saying he's trying to cause friction in all the free societies of the world. Russia has been doing it for decades, the internet has made it far easier.

 

[barbos]

I didn't say Putin was running. I'm saying he's trying to cause friction in all the free societies of the world

Yes, by being competent and right.

Russia has been doing it for decades, the internet has made it far easier.

Yeah, RussiaGate and Hunter notebook.

 

[barbos]

What is being counted that shouldn't be?

Don't know, you tell me. As far as i am concerned 100% of GDP is labor of some kind, always. Hence the article is BS.

 

[steve_bank]

Back in the 70s an uncle who started out as a construction laborer said before unions if you did not want to work for 80 cents an hour somebody behind you would work for 75 cents.

To understand unions you have to go back to the history of labor in the USA. Ford has his own armed force to suppress organized labor, there were killing. O)r Bloddy Haren Ciunty, thecoal moners.

My uncle also said it used to be to move up as bricklayer in the union and pay you had to be able to lay a minimum number of bricks accurately a day. Then unions said they would only do a certain amount of work per day.

My father was a carpet and tile installer in a unpin. He could not borrow a tool from, adother union.

In the 80s I worked for Kollmorgen in NH, the main company was in Massachusetts and was unionized. I went down to Massachusetts with a couple of guys to run a machining exertion on a CNC. We were allowed to set up the machine, but a union guy had to push the start button.

If I went to the parts room if what I got could not fit in my pocket a union guy had to carry it.

Company pensions and lifetime medical support became unsustainable for big auto. Now Borng union wants to go back to a company pensions open and get rid of a 401k.

The 40 ho9ur week and over time, vacations, sick days and the usual befits largely came from unions activism. Companies offered nefits to keep unions out.

It is always a dynamic, labor and management go back and forth trying to optimize Here in Seattle Boeing announced a 17,000 person layoff due to financial problems exacerbated by the strike. The union wnats a 40% boost over htree or for years. Bioeing says the pension demand is a non strtaer.

There is talk of bankruptcy.

IMO unions have gone too far. Some Starbucks stores unionized demnding the benefits and wages of reguar jobs. Prices go up, sales go down, less people are hired.

 

[bilby]

Withholding your labor would be quitting and going to work for somebody else.

Sure. A stevedore who quit in such circumstances can easily walk into a job at the other port in his hometown.

Assuming that there are at least two. There are very few such towns left anywhere in the world.

And further assuming that having quit, anyone would be prepared to hire him at all.

It's no coincidence that the strongest unions are in industries where employers have local monopolies.

 

[bilby]

when a union controls a whole market where are you going to find them?

[scabs]

Well, if the workers all chose to join (and remain in) the union, rather than to take scab jobs, I guess you need as an employer to think hard about why that is, and what inspires such loyalty to the union rather than to the employer.

 

[laughing dog]

It is simply not possible for that labor's share of GDP in the US since the 1980s because of people are being replaced by automation because THERE ARE MORE PEOPLE WORKING.

What you are missing is that more is being done.

Some numbers for illustration only: We had 100 workers and machines equivalent of another 100. Now we have 150 and machines that are equivalent to 300. More workers, lower percent of productivity due to the workers.

I pointed out a fact that contradicts barbos’s written claim. Labor’s share of GDP did not decline because fewer people are working because there are more people working. Productivity is irrelevant to that reality based observation.