We demand that ports stop using automation, ships without sails and containers of any kind

Part

Dock workers are on strike! 36 ports that handle 60 percent of U.S. container traffic are affected. This is the first labor dispute at East Coast ports since 1977. My union, the International Longshoremen’s Association, will not work until our demands are met. Shipping companies have offered a 50 percent pay increase, but think they can buy us out by substantially increasing our premium already generous rewardthen they can think again. The strike will continue until we get a fair deal, including ending automation, ending the use of non-wooden ships and banning the use of any container.

America is dependent on shipping. $588 billion Last year, a worth of goods came through the affected ports, including virtually every product you could name: food, clothing, cars… everything! Hence my threat “crippled” the American economy is weighing heavily. And that’s also why shipping companies need to preserve jobs by banning automation, not to mention other fad technologies that have displaced workers in the post-Victorian era.

Let’s start with automation. It is true that many American ports are among the least efficient in the worldbut that’s because a port like Oakland (#397) doesn’t have the built-in advantages of a global hub like Luanda, Angola (#389) or Port Sudan (#388). The ILA will not be dragged into the mid-20th century against our will. Some foreign ports are already automated and use dangerous, untested technology such as computers, barcodes and video cameras. In Mobile, Alabama the port tried to install something called an “automatic gate” – what the hell is that?!?!? We will never allow greedy corporations to deny anyone the dignity of making a living by standing next to a fence all day. If we don’t do anything, it won’t just be the jobs that stand next to the gate all day that will disappear; jobs like a man-who-sometimes-carries-an-orange-flag, a man-standing-next-to-a-man-loading-things, and a man-leaning-on-one Also it-the listening-to-sports-radio-with-a-forklift-all-day is under threat.

Why should pro-labor measures be limited to the port? It’s time to face the fact that modern, diesel-powered ships are destroying jobs. Dock workers would benefit if shipping returned to the wood-built, wind-powered ships that have served humanity well for thousands of years. That’s true for two reasons: First, today’s steel and diesel giants slide into the port with virtually no help from the port. In contrast, a three-masted schooner laden with spices from the East would require at least twenty sturdy men to pull her ashore. Second, modern ships carry large amounts of cargo with sparse crews, reducing the demand for hard-working guys from port cities wearing cable-knit sweaters and clenching corncob pipes in their teeth. Sailors and dock workers share many things: a love of the sea, a penchant for feeding peanuts to monkeys that sit on our shoulders, and a stew of venereal diseases contracted by dock whores. What’s good for sailors is also good for longshoremen, so we need to pull out of the post-Monitor/Merrimack hell that has befallen us for the past 160 years.

Shipping containers have made global trade dramatically more efficient, so that too must end. In the Strike of 1977we made the mistake of adopting the use of large, metal containers that allow ships to be easily loaded and unloaded, so we need to reverse that change. But we can’t stop there: All containers of any kind containing goods must be banned – that means no crates, no boxes, no barrels and no gunny bags…Nothing. The ILA envisions a future where wooden sailing ships arrive with goods simply rolling around on their decks. ILA members then board the ship, pick up what they can and transport the cargo arm by arm. This will create jobs! I will smile from ear to ear when the first brig with a load of barley on its deck pulls into port, because I know—as I watch my men carry away the loose grain handful at a time—that the future of the American workforce has arrived.

If we win this battle – correction: when we are winning this battle – I will continue to look for new ways to protect the interests of my members. For example: trucks make shipping easy – maybe we should go back to horse-drawn carts. You need two union men to hold your horses and another to shovel manure while ILA members dump armloads of unpackaged goods into your wagon. And now that I think about it, the wheel does a lot of the work as you ride away…maybe we should replace the wheels with runners so ILA guys will be needed to pour animal fat on the ground in front of the sled – it worked for the ancient Egyptians! And why do we let horses take our jobs? Instead of six horses, perhaps a hundred union men could attach themselves to long ropes attached to the cargo. Yes, that is the future of work: dozens of sweaty, grunting men slowly pull a means of transport from the pre-Bronze Age through the landscape. Just think how many jobs will be created!

President Biden has said he won’t force us back to work. I applaud his decision to reaffirm union solidarity because we are causing supply chain disruptions that will bring back inflation just before the elections – that’s real commitment! Vice President Harris and former president Trump have also expressed their support, so there appears to be a broad consensus that the ILA will not be forced to accept technological changes just because they make goods cheaper, facilitate trade and increase productivity. The future of global trade will be decided in the coming weeks. And I will do everything in my power to ensure that that future closely resembles the distant past.

For the lawyers and ILA affiliated mafia members: this is a bit. So you can’t sue me or kill me and throw my body in a drainage ditch off the Jersey Turnpike, because satire is protected speech.