Scruffy progressive protesters locked themselves together across railroad tracks, blocked traffic, and shouted profanities at police on Tuesday in a coordinated “West Coast Port Shutdown.” Truckers lost wages. Shippers lost business. This is what the Occupy Wall Street movement calls “victory.”
Aging Big Labor bosses toasted one another from the sidelines as they declared the “rebirth of the labor movement.” What’s really going on? It’s a decrepit union’s old-school power grab wrapped in self-deluded social-media do-goodism.
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Peace-loving agitators wielding guitars and iPhones may earnestly believe they stood up to corruption and stood up for workers this week. A socialist website promoted the port shutdown as an expression of “solidarity” for the workers’ “struggle.” One Oakland, Calif., agitator decried “exploitation by capitalism” as the shiftless busily divided their work blockages into what they called — chortle — “shifts.”
In reality, it’s the young Occupiers who are being exploited as human shields for the economy-strangling agenda of the violence-prone International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU). These ignorant punks are putting the “front” in “waterfront.”
Few remember now that the Left’s three-month-long “Day of Rage” festivities kicked off in September at the port of Longview, Wash. — a far cry from Goldman Sachs and the rest of New York’s financial district. Unionized longshoremen stormed the port there and took a half-dozen guards hostage. They damaged railroad cars, dumped grain, smashed windows, cut rail brake lines, and blocked a train for hours while the ILWU and AFL-CIO cheered them on.
The violence followed a similar outburst in July, when longshoremen tore down a chain-link fence on EGT’s private property and blocked railroad tracks to prevent a grain delivery — a clear violation of the 1946 Hobbs Act, which makes it a crime to employ robbery or extortion to impede interstate commerce.
Despite breaking federal law, violating a judicial restraining order, and committing systematically planned sabotage and trespassing, most of the union thugs got away with wrist slaps. The ILWU received a $250,000 fine to cover damages from the vandalism — a fine that will be paid with rank-and-file workers’ hard-earned dues money.
So, what’s their beef? No, it’s not about the “right” of unions to “organize.” It’s not about the welfare of the “99 percent.” It’s about one union losing its seven-decade-old grip on West Coast port operations. It’s about six-figure-salaried union suits at the ILWU, established by bloody radical Marxist Harry Bridges, throwing a lawless tantrum against economic efficiency and technological progress.
The ILWU is trying to break the will of EGT Development, a multinational agribusiness that recently built a $200 million grain terminal in Longview. It’s a state-of-the-art facility with unprecedented automation features that will speed unloading, increase shipping capacity, and bring in tens of millions of dollars in lease and tax payments alone to the region.
They should use RICO to bust unions that behave like this. They are obviously criminal enterprises if they're actively promoting violence, sabotage, etc.
Heh. If it was rightfully yours, then I think you should have paid for it and own it.
Wow, what a sense of entitlement there...
The union has a right to operate the control console?? I thought the company that owned it had the right to designate who actually operates it, or am I missing something???
I think the occupation movement has hit upon a weakpoint, judging by the whining going on in this article. Regular people are no longer willing to sit back and take it. And we certainly aren't hobbled by the bad advice given by people who want the movement to fail. The 1% seem to think that the rest of us are weak and have to just take it. Nope. Time for the 1% to just take it. We'll be the ones dishing it out. If we all can't get a piece of the national success, then there will be no succes to speak of.
Really can't argue with you because it didn't appear you read the article. Your argument seems to be "I want what I want when I want it." The occupies did have the same opportunity as others but they decided to major in Comparative Something-or-other and now they don't like it that their " skills" aren't marketable. Much like Boeing in south Carolina, all the unions really care about is that they have the control. They don't care that they bring inefficiency and ultimately fewer jobs as long as they are the ones that decide who get the jobs and where. If you think this is about the "worker" then you missed that day in class when they discussed the miseries of communism.
You're just another one of a special interest group, trying to give yourself legitimacy by claiming to be one of the "99%". Like unionists saying they represent all "workers". Can't take you seriously.
"If we all can't get a piece of the national success, then there will be no succes to speak of."
Thanks for providing this gem. It basically sums up what the producers in the country have been saying about the Occumob all along, but you make it sound so much better. If you're not given what you want, you'll see to it that there's nothing to get. Everybody wins! Brilliant.
These west coast unions are only digging their own graves. As they sit around arguing over dumb econonic things that were settled decades ago, the Panana Canal is expanding.
When that is complete, ports in the southeast US will want the business of unloading the larger ships. They will be far more affordable and with far less red tape and union nonsense. Many ships will bypass the west coast, go through the canal and unload in Texas or Alabama. Since a large part of what is unloaded is for the eastern part of the US it makes sense to bypass the west coast if you can.
Some ports on the west coast aren't going to be around much longer, they have economic problem already, just wait until they lose half of what they have now. They may think they have a monopoly on shipping but they really don't.
Think this won't happen? The major railroads are already planning on the shift of cargo from the west to the south. Railroads are spending millions in the Chicago area alone as they plan for more trains coming from the south.
If the ILWU wants to secure something that is "rightfully" theirs, they should just take their union dues and open up a port of their own. It should be a lot of fun when they start negotiating labor contracts with themselves.
Great comments! Even Mr. Gilhoolley, who sounds like a pick from Soros/Meany central casting (with apologies to George Meany, who was smarter than that). Regular people holding the nation's successful people hostage. I love it, it *is* brilliant, as a caricature. Makes me proud to be Irish.
