US port workers and operators reach deal to end East Coast strike immediately | Tentative deal includes a 62% wage hike over six years
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I'm not sure how I feel about the no automation clause.
Unless the govt wants to start UBI or otherwise guarantee a job with livable wages I feel fine about it.
Me neither but honestly widespread automation should come with a UBI system. Otherwise people will starve.
Does that have any impact on you or are you just worried about profits?
Yes, I work in supply chain. Being a dock worker is a tough grueling job, wouldn't we want to automate that as much as possible? Besides cost, automated ports are both safer and more efficient. I think the ideal scenario would be to grant some sort of retraining.
We would if there were just equivalent, just as well paying jobs elsewhere. However until we topple the system that makes us work to make the rich richer just to survive we have no choice.
Automation will only be used to make the job tougher and more grueling.
A job that used to take three people now has to be done by one, but at a much faster pace and now there's a deadly robot that you have to work with.
You work in supply chain. Let me guess. Desk job?
Automated ports do not work that way, where employees interact directly with a robot. Instead employees stay at a desk and minimal employees are on the ground. Like I had mentioned, automated ports are safer.
I know that automated Amazon sorting facilities kill workers, the conveyance systems especially are extremely dangerous. People get sucked in to belts, bashed over the head by moving machinery and product, etc.
In the real world there are always workers forced to risk their lives with these machines.
Automation isn't inherently bad, but it is bad when it's implemented as a way to increase worker exploitation. That's how it always works in real life, rather than promotional videos.
Not everyone gets to be at a desk.
Again I am talking about automated ports not Amazon sorting facilities, please look into how automated ports work, in fully automated ports there are less workers working directly with machinery than in a standard port. You'll need to provide sources that automated ports are not safer or more efficient. The transportation and movement occupation has the highest number of fatal injuries in my state, not only can it be fatal but it also takes a toll physically as well, we should be helping these workers and automation can help do that.
I gave you an example of automation not making workers safer in Amazon sorting facilities to demonstrate the worry that port workers have - they don't want to be treated like Amazon employees! That's it. I'm not saying that all automation is bad, only that it can be and you shouldn't assume it's automatically good.
