There is no need to make a case. They have the right to strike. In general though one should support workers when they seek higher wages since the pay has increased at a much lower rate than productivity the last 40 years or so. Enough wealth has been extracted from labor. It’s time to give labor its due.
I just looked up FRED data on productivity and total compensation (including benefits) and they look roughly in line. Actually, compensation seems to have gone up faster.
To be honest, this comment reads like a political campaign statement, and I’d like less of this on Hacker News.
To be honest, this comment reads like a political campaign statement, and I’d like less of this on Hacker News.
To be honest this comment reads like a statement from someone who can’t dispassionately discuss something. The validity of what I wrote is independent of the motivation for writing it.
This next paper is funny. Notices the decoupling and tries to hand wave it away without explaining why there was no decoupling before the 80s. At any rate note that the graph is from FRED.
The FRED blog discussion makes an interesting point about whether deflators are calculated from import or export prices changes (or both), and the effects it has on the analysis.
Reminder of how difficult it is to make real-terms adjustments to economic measures over multiple decades spans when a country's balance of trade with the world in different sectors is also changing!
Notice though that the FRED blog post does not explain away the discrepancy but merely mitigates it a bit. Note the decoupling still starts in the 70s. The great wealth disparity that exists today started at the same time. I don’t believe this is a coincidence.
"A bit" is imprecise for the adjustment. I'd say more than a bit.
It also suggests that if you dice it up by sector you might get different amounts of decoupling, which makes logical sense given productivity gains aren't equally spread.
Sure. But in general there was no decoupling prior to 1970 and there is now decoupling. There has been wealth extraction from labor. That it is more prominent in some sectors than others is not too relevant in my opinion.
The fact is that the FRED blog post shows there is decoupling starting at 1970 and they give an analysis about this to show isn’t as bad as it seems. But this analysis shows that there is still a decoupling that starts at 1970. I don’t think one can credibly believe that there hasn’t been massive wealth extraction from labor the past 40 years.
The link is absurd. The productivity data is for everyone while the wage data is for a subset of data. If you look at compensation for everyone against productivity it tells a different story
Yes, let’s ignore the million plus workers getting minimum wage. A wage that hasn’t increased in a very long time. It’s not a political talking point; it’s a moral talking point.
If you want to make a minimum wage argument, you have to look at total receipts and benefits.
For better or worse, we have opted for a systems where much of the receipts for low income works flow directly from the government. A minimum wage worker qualifies for free healthcare, food subsidies, and greatly subsidized housing if they can navigate the waitlist.
We should ignore that a million plus people are working for minimum wage. They don’t count. I agree with you.
It’s better to say that the statistics aren’t changed much by increasing the federal minimum wage as it pertains to the productivity/pay gap. But one should acknowledge that for those making minimum wage it is a disgrace that it hasn’t increased for a long time and that it is far too low. Those people do matter. This isn’t just a discussion about statistics. There is a human element to the issue and morality is part of what one ought to consider when thinking about the issue.
EDIT: I edited my comment while you were responding. The discussion in the present thread is not about the dockworkers. It’s about the pay/productivity gap in the U.S. In that discussion a person said that minimum wage workers were irrelevant and that the minimum wage was just a political talking point.
Of course they count. The question is whether port logistics is the best policy tool with which to address their plight.
The striking dockworkers don’t earn minimum wage. If the striking workers win, the minimum wage stays right where it is and has been for ~2mm minimum-wage workers [1]. This isn’t a fight about minimum wage. They count. But they aren’t relevant.
about the pay/productivity gap in the U.S.
Fair enough. I believe we need a minimum-wage hike. But I don’t see how that’s relevant to a union strike.
This argument shifted the goal posts. First, it was about compensation in general against productivity. now it’s about minimum wage workers, who comprise 1% of the workforce ? What is the productivity change of minimum wage workers? (I actually don’t know.)
We are pointing out that the salaries are stagnant or getting worse over time (e.g. min wage) in real money terms. We show you that the inflation is same or higher than the annual wage raises, while the GDP is still growing (GDP growth is already adjusted for inflation).
So someone is benefiting from the GDP growth, but this someone is not the W2-worker. But you don't want to admit the facts.
The data shows that the average wage is keeping up with productivity growth. The only argument you've presented is that the minimum wage has not kept up with productivity growth. You're right about that, which is a fairly narrow point, given the proportion of people making federal minimum wage has dropped from 13% to 1% of workers.
The union is demanding “a total ban on the automation of cranes, gates and moving containers in the loading and unloading of freight” [1].
That said! They are negotiating. This is their opening ask. If they stick to it, fuck them. But maybe they can permit modernisation alongside a pay raise.
Workers have a right to oppose automation and strike over it if they so choose
Workers have a right to strike. But there should be room, at the same port, for trying a more-efficient approach.
The management of this unionised workforce shouldn’t have a choice. But this union’s members shouldn’t have dictatorial power over our Eastern seaboard’s port infrastructure.
(Also, I have the right to demand a personal battleship. Not everything one has the right to do is reasonable.)
But there should be room, at the same port, for trying a more-efficient approach.
I'll gladly steelman the opposite idea. If you're running a McDonalds and you fire half your employees to replace them with burger-flipping robots, you damn well better expect the cashier to quit or go on strike. People aren't that stupid - they can see the Looney-Tunes ACME anvil suspended over their heads, they know when they have to negotiate themselves off the red painted 'X'.
Similarly, I think introducing automation to a historically-human career like longshoring is absolutely an all-or-nothing shtick. You're either displacing your human workers entirely with unpaid alternatives, or you're dealing with the consequences of a partially human workforce. There is no magic compromise, despite what management wants. You either acquiesce or replace them with robo-scabs.
We shouldn't right wrongs by deliberately capping economic efficiency, especially in sectors that are foundational to the rest of the economy (e.g. maritime trade and energy).
We shouldn't. Dockworkers should allow automation, and those jobs that remain should capture a fair share of the increased productivity in increased wages.
The difficulty is that owners don't just voluntarily hand out "fair shares" to workers who agree to play nice. The only reason workers get paid at all is because if they stopped getting paid, they would stop working.
Once enough automation is introduced, the owners really have no incentive to pay a fair share to anybody whose labor they no longer need. So any promises to "share the wealth" that comes from automation ring hollow.
Once business adds additional automation, (a) the business made additional investment in the automation, (b) the remaining jobs tend to be higher-skill, (c) (after recouping cost of automation) the business now has better margins and can afford to pay the remaining employees more, (d) because of (b) and (c), they usually do pay their remaining employees more as a way to retain now even more critical labor.
Businesses rarely automate the hardest / highest-skill parts of the job first. Why would they? There are lower-hanging fruit.
I don’t think is true. “Higher skill” is nebulous, but lots of automation quick reduces higher paid positions, such as software that allows people to be more productive or technology that obviates many other devices (smartphones).
But the pace of automation is slower for high touch work, such as nursing home work, cleaning, cooking, and other jobs that typically pay the least.
Of course, there is a need for very specialized work that could pay more, such R&D in cutting edge computing, medicines, chemistry, etc, but the chances of achieving that level of expertise does not seem realistic for the majority of the population.
You're looking at it in terms of capability, instead of ROI.
CFO/COOs typically aren't investing in the highest-capability automation, because that's the most capital-expensive automation.
It's far cheaper and easier to buy another crane or loader, driven by a person, than a fully autonomous system.
So given the two options, they'll usually pick the former (because it has quicker ROI).
There are some exceptions, if a large proportion of the work is high-skilled, e.g. pharmacy, but with dockworkers we're probably talking about the lowest-skilled jobs being eliminated first.
Comments
There is no need to make a case. They have the right to strike. In general though one should support workers when they seek higher wages since the pay has increased at a much lower rate than productivity the last 40 years or so. Enough wealth has been extracted from labor. It’s time to give labor its due.
I just looked up FRED data on productivity and total compensation (including benefits) and they look roughly in line. Actually, compensation seems to have gone up faster.
To be honest, this comment reads like a political campaign statement, and I’d like less of this on Hacker News.
To be honest, this comment reads like a political campaign statement, and I’d like less of this on Hacker News.
To be honest this comment reads like a statement from someone who can’t dispassionately discuss something. The validity of what I wrote is independent of the motivation for writing it.
I was reacting to this: “Enough wealth has been extracted from labor. It’s time to give labor its due.” It sounds like a campaign speech.
https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap/
This next paper is funny. Notices the decoupling and tries to hand wave it away without explaining why there was no decoupling before the 80s. At any rate note that the graph is from FRED.
https://fredblog.stlouisfed.org/2023/03/when-comparing-wages...
The FRED blog discussion makes an interesting point about whether deflators are calculated from import or export prices changes (or both), and the effects it has on the analysis.
Reminder of how difficult it is to make real-terms adjustments to economic measures over multiple decades spans when a country's balance of trade with the world in different sectors is also changing!
Notice though that the FRED blog post does not explain away the discrepancy but merely mitigates it a bit. Note the decoupling still starts in the 70s. The great wealth disparity that exists today started at the same time. I don’t believe this is a coincidence.
"A bit" is imprecise for the adjustment. I'd say more than a bit.
It also suggests that if you dice it up by sector you might get different amounts of decoupling, which makes logical sense given productivity gains aren't equally spread.
Sure. But in general there was no decoupling prior to 1970 and there is now decoupling. There has been wealth extraction from labor. That it is more prominent in some sectors than others is not too relevant in my opinion.
You seem to be looking for facts to support your argument, instead of being curious about what the facts are.
The fact is that the FRED blog post shows there is decoupling starting at 1970 and they give an analysis about this to show isn’t as bad as it seems. But this analysis shows that there is still a decoupling that starts at 1970. I don’t think one can credibly believe that there hasn’t been massive wealth extraction from labor the past 40 years.
The link is absurd. The productivity data is for everyone while the wage data is for a subset of data. If you look at compensation for everyone against productivity it tells a different story
Can you post your comparison?
Can you share the links because from what I see the federal minimum wage is stagnant for decades.
Search FRED employment cost index.
The federal minimum wage is irrelevant. Something like one percent of workers make federal minimum wage. It’s a good political talking point though…
The annual raises seem to be in the order of 2-3% [1]. Inflation is also in the same order [2].
I am asking you again to show me convincing numbers.
[1]https://www.bls.gov/eci/home.htm
[2] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FPCPITOTLZGUSA
Yes, let’s ignore the million plus workers getting minimum wage. A wage that hasn’t increased in a very long time. It’s not a political talking point; it’s a moral talking point.
If you want to make a minimum wage argument, you have to look at total receipts and benefits.
For better or worse, we have opted for a systems where much of the receipts for low income works flow directly from the government. A minimum wage worker qualifies for free healthcare, food subsidies, and greatly subsidized housing if they can navigate the waitlist.
Neither of you have a point. Median wages have lagged productivity growth. But most Americans don’t earn the minimum wage.
We should ignore that a million plus people are working for minimum wage. They don’t count. I agree with you.
It’s better to say that the statistics aren’t changed much by increasing the federal minimum wage as it pertains to the productivity/pay gap. But one should acknowledge that for those making minimum wage it is a disgrace that it hasn’t increased for a long time and that it is far too low. Those people do matter. This isn’t just a discussion about statistics. There is a human element to the issue and morality is part of what one ought to consider when thinking about the issue.
EDIT: I edited my comment while you were responding. The discussion in the present thread is not about the dockworkers. It’s about the pay/productivity gap in the U.S. In that discussion a person said that minimum wage workers were irrelevant and that the minimum wage was just a political talking point.
That’s unfair.
Of course they count. The question is whether port logistics is the best policy tool with which to address their plight.
The striking dockworkers don’t earn minimum wage. If the striking workers win, the minimum wage stays right where it is and has been for ~2mm minimum-wage workers [1]. This isn’t a fight about minimum wage. They count. But they aren’t relevant.
Fair enough. I believe we need a minimum-wage hike. But I don’t see how that’s relevant to a union strike.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage_in_the_United_S...
Average compensation has not lagged productivity growth. Maybe median has? Maybe only some subset?
Longshoreman make well above median wage.
This argument shifted the goal posts. First, it was about compensation in general against productivity. now it’s about minimum wage workers, who comprise 1% of the workforce ? What is the productivity change of minimum wage workers? (I actually don’t know.)
You are the one shifting the goal posts.
We are pointing out that the salaries are stagnant or getting worse over time (e.g. min wage) in real money terms. We show you that the inflation is same or higher than the annual wage raises, while the GDP is still growing (GDP growth is already adjusted for inflation).
So someone is benefiting from the GDP growth, but this someone is not the W2-worker. But you don't want to admit the facts.
The data shows that the average wage is keeping up with productivity growth. The only argument you've presented is that the minimum wage has not kept up with productivity growth. You're right about that, which is a fairly narrow point, given the proportion of people making federal minimum wage has dropped from 13% to 1% of workers.
Less than 1% of workers are on federal minimum wage.
What if the workers are opposing automation?
The union is demanding “a total ban on the automation of cranes, gates and moving containers in the loading and unloading of freight” [1].
That said! They are negotiating. This is their opening ask. If they stick to it, fuck them. But maybe they can permit modernisation alongside a pay raise.
[1] https://apnews.com/article/longshoremen-strike-ports-pay-con...
Workers have a right to oppose automation and strike over it if they so choose.
Workers have a right to strike. But there should be room, at the same port, for trying a more-efficient approach.
The management of this unionised workforce shouldn’t have a choice. But this union’s members shouldn’t have dictatorial power over our Eastern seaboard’s port infrastructure.
(Also, I have the right to demand a personal battleship. Not everything one has the right to do is reasonable.)
I'll gladly steelman the opposite idea. If you're running a McDonalds and you fire half your employees to replace them with burger-flipping robots, you damn well better expect the cashier to quit or go on strike. People aren't that stupid - they can see the Looney-Tunes ACME anvil suspended over their heads, they know when they have to negotiate themselves off the red painted 'X'.
Similarly, I think introducing automation to a historically-human career like longshoring is absolutely an all-or-nothing shtick. You're either displacing your human workers entirely with unpaid alternatives, or you're dealing with the consequences of a partially human workforce. There is no magic compromise, despite what management wants. You either acquiesce or replace them with robo-scabs.
Longshoring has had numerous technological advancement over centuries that have resulted in fewer workers being needed.
Far, far, fewer longshoreman are accomplishing magnitudes more work than longshoremen a few generations ago.
Sure they have the right. But the bigger question is - is it a net benefit for society to do so?
Would that we ask if it is a net benefit for society that so much wealth extraction from labor has occurred the last 40 years.
We shouldn't right wrongs by deliberately capping economic efficiency, especially in sectors that are foundational to the rest of the economy (e.g. maritime trade and energy).
Indeed. And we shouldn’t ask if it is in society’s best interest only when the discussion is about benefits for labor.
We shouldn't. Dockworkers should allow automation, and those jobs that remain should capture a fair share of the increased productivity in increased wages.
The difficulty is that owners don't just voluntarily hand out "fair shares" to workers who agree to play nice. The only reason workers get paid at all is because if they stopped getting paid, they would stop working.
Once enough automation is introduced, the owners really have no incentive to pay a fair share to anybody whose labor they no longer need. So any promises to "share the wealth" that comes from automation ring hollow.
That is and isn't how things work in reality.
Once business adds additional automation, (a) the business made additional investment in the automation, (b) the remaining jobs tend to be higher-skill, (c) (after recouping cost of automation) the business now has better margins and can afford to pay the remaining employees more, (d) because of (b) and (c), they usually do pay their remaining employees more as a way to retain now even more critical labor.
Businesses rarely automate the hardest / highest-skill parts of the job first. Why would they? There are lower-hanging fruit.
I don’t think is true. “Higher skill” is nebulous, but lots of automation quick reduces higher paid positions, such as software that allows people to be more productive or technology that obviates many other devices (smartphones).
But the pace of automation is slower for high touch work, such as nursing home work, cleaning, cooking, and other jobs that typically pay the least.
Of course, there is a need for very specialized work that could pay more, such R&D in cutting edge computing, medicines, chemistry, etc, but the chances of achieving that level of expertise does not seem realistic for the majority of the population.
You're looking at it in terms of capability, instead of ROI.
CFO/COOs typically aren't investing in the highest-capability automation, because that's the most capital-expensive automation.
It's far cheaper and easier to buy another crane or loader, driven by a person, than a fully autonomous system.
So given the two options, they'll usually pick the former (because it has quicker ROI).
There are some exceptions, if a large proportion of the work is high-skilled, e.g. pharmacy, but with dockworkers we're probably talking about the lowest-skilled jobs being eliminated first.
And the rest of society has a right to bypass and work around them.
And society has a right to ignore people who want to make it worse.