So Wrong It's Not Even Wrong"

 

“So Wrong it’s Not Even Wrong”

“Dockworker salaries already average $171,000 a year.”

                Betsy McCaughey, Op-ed, 10/10/2021

        Wow, that’s really high wages, huh? In fact, the lying (more on that, next paragraph) shrew’s target in the editorial was, of course, Joe Biden. the Op Ed was a screed blaming Biden for the current dock issues on the West Coast. In McCaughey world, this really means she opposes the right of workers to organize and/or demand fair treatment. Of course, in supporting worker’s rights, Biden has no real dog in the fight which, if such “fight” even really existed,  would be a matter to be settled between port officials and their longshoremen, if either were actually to blame for the current “supply chain” situation.

        Ms. McCaughey is doing, as others have of late, a classic “shift the blame” for partisan reasons, cheap shot hatchet job. There is no truth to the claims, made by McCaughey and her ilk that, in some alternate reality scenario, the President is in any way responsible or even remotely involved in the current port cargo glut. No, not ever, just as POTUS is and cannot be responsible for fuel prices fluctuations.

        I led with the quote simply because it is, as Nobel Physicist Wolfgang Pauli once said of a truly horrid piece of student work, “so wrong it’s not even wrong!” (By which he meant that the alleged data was faked, and the conclusions based thereon were categorically wrong.) So, how does that relate to the McCaughey dock backup claims? First off, US ports usually don’t work around the clock as many other nations’ do. Why? Because the Longshoreman’s union is selfish enough to believe that they, like most other “shift work” employees, should receive a shift or holiday differential, which port operators simply don’t want to pay. And no, port operators are not remotely in dire financial straits. They can easily afford shift and holiday extras, but they just don’t want to.  

        Now to the big lie: Because I know how to research, vice simply believe anything I read, and because the $171,000 annual salary claim seemed grossly inflated, I looked up average longshoreman’s compensation for Pacific coast ports. The average Longshoreman salary in Long Beach, CA is $64,715 as of September 27, 2021, but the salary range typically falls between $55,374 and $73,992. The highest paid dock worker on the West Coast makes about $50,000 less annually than McCaughey cites as “average.”   

        McCaughey fails to mention that ports on New York and down the US east coast are in the same crunch. And, oh by the way their average annual salary is about $100k lower than the McCaughey quote.

Why is this really happening?  US major ports’ cargo traffic has been rising since the pandemic took hold because many of us, as homebound/distancing Americans, began ordering goods online, with a record number of ships waiting to enter ports at Los Angeles and Long Beach. Marine terminals and trucking companies have been unable to keep up with the volume, resulting in bottlenecks at ports and rail yards from California to New York.

        Here’s a quote from an actual knowledgeable port management expert:  "The pandemic has exacerbated a situation that’s been building for years, as growing consumer demand for imported products comes up against an aging supply chain", John McLaurin, president of the Pacific Merchant Shipping Association, said in an interview with FactCheck.org. “We’ve never seen this amount of cargo, and at some point, you simply can’t violate the laws of physics. You can only move it so fast; you can only pile it so high, and then you just run out of space. We’re at that point, and we have been for a while.”

        The current administration has inherited that infrastructure with limited capacity. In truth, the Biden proposed infrastructure package includes billions of dollars in funding for port infrastructure, as well as money for rail, and the administration has formed a task force on supply chain disruption and named a “port envoy” to work to resolve the congestion at U.S. ports, Kabir noted. As for automation, some of which (in the interest of truth) the Longshoreman union opposes, the implementation of such shortcuts lies with Port Operators. Can they afford it? The port of Long Beach generates an average of $100 billion annually. You tell me.  

        When blaming unions and, by extension, President Biden, Betsy McCaughey is really blaming Franklin D. Roosevelt for Depression era labor legislation. As a PhD Economist she knows better, as an asshole far right sycophant, she simply doesn’t care.