Western Railroad Discussion > About that Pacific dock strike settlement...

The Wall Street Journal peels back some of the pages in the settlement of the long dock strike.  Five year contract covers the west coast US ports.Under the contract, the Pacific Maritime Association, a group of port terminal operators and shipping companies, will provide full health care benefits for members of the International Longshore & Warehouse Union, their dependents and retirees including full coverage with no premiums, no in-network deductibles or co-pays, $1 prescriptions and 100% coverage of hospital care.In providing such coverage, PMA also will be on the hook to cover the sizable new tax on high-cost health plans required under the national health care law beginning in 2018. The tax amounts to 40% of the value by which employer-sponsored health plans exceed a government-set threshold.

Cadillac Tax

I would slightly disagree, the competitiveness of those ports very much impacts rail IM traffic.

Out

I would completely disagree, the competitiveness of
those ports very much impacts rail IM traffic.
Everything is political in the US today.

gmojim

I wonder what the strike cost the railroads in extra movements, car storage and lost revenue.  Photos on the news this weekend of apples being dumped because they spoiled in containers at the docks.
Roger B

It's naive to think that the Chinese won't offer to pay for emproving Guaymas, which has none of the
issues that a Nicuragua canal would. Building a better railroad from there to the border is nothing but
a few dollars for them. The line to Tibet makes that look like someones el cheapo HO layout.

Out

gmojim Wrote:
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> I would completely disagree, the competitiveness
> of
> those ports very much impacts rail IM traffic.
> Everything is political in the US today.
>
> gmojim

You mean the voters don't have the discipline to separate the facts from election season hysteria?

If Port management was serious about their "competitiveness," then they should have done some due diligence, find the opponent's weaknesses, and divide the union, for example, breaking of the baseball umpire's union several years ago. They could have also gone for preemptive strike in publicity by taking a pay cut to make the union look greedy (City of San Jose vs. the police union).

Since none of these tactics were employed, I say the management caved in, because they didn't have the will, nor the willingness to sacrifice for the sake of "competitiveness."

This topic was all over TO back when the action was going on.  Nothing wrong with the results being put forth.

The Obamacare tax on "Cadillac plans", ie, employer/employee health plans, will cripple all of us that have employer provided health care. You all better read up, and then wise up. The better your health care plan at work (that keeps you off the government dole) the more tax you will pay. It's only a 2000 page document, maybe you should read it. Better yet, maybe we should vote!

"The better your health care plan at work (that keeps you off the government dole) the more tax you will pay."


As a Canadian, I wholeheartedly concur !

Bill Miller
Galt, ON

wpdude Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The Obamacare tax on "Cadillac plans", ie,
> employer/employee health plans, will cripple all
> of us that have employer provided health care. You
> all better read up, and then wise up. The better
> your health care plan at work (that keeps you off
> the government dole) the more tax you will pay.
> It's only a 2000 page document, maybe you should
> read it. Better yet, maybe we should vote!

The tax affects the employer provided premium payment for health care. If your employer has an extremely generous / rich plan, the tax falls on the amount of the premium which exceeds a national average.  It's a particular problem for collectively bargained plans where salary etc was given up in favor of keeping better benefits. Or people who live in areas where healthcare costs are unusually high.

The original idea was to tax the 1% for their imagined gold plated benefit plans, but the law cast a much wider net and caught a lot of pretty average salary people with good benefits.

====================

The PMA, the employer group, has a point in saying the increase in costs won't affect competitiveness. Since all west coast US ports are covered by an identical master agreement, all costs will go up about the same amount, regardless of the port.