The East coast has a new disaster. Apparently the port workers on the entire east coast have gone on strike. And just in time for the hurricane too. How will this affect you?
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Port Workers Strike
- Thread starter Shadetree Mechanic
- Start date
Nobody wants to see good jobs handed to robots, but if a company that wants to automate and eliminate the need for workers has all its workers walk off the job, it's not too hard to imagine what that company does about it. People talk about the strike potentially lasting months, well how long would it take to implement the automation? About the same time, I'd bet. They may strike themselves right out of a job and help the company push them out in the process.
It looks like they have suspended the strike until February according to recent news. Maybe the companies are buying time to get the robots ready 
They need the ports open to have the new robots shipped in....
The 67% increase is cheaper than air mail.They need the ports open to have the new robots shipped in....
trying to fight automation is a losing battle.
can anyone think of one time in history where technology was eschewed in favor of tradition?
it never happens.
This is John Henry all over again, and all the people who work in trades like horse-shoeing, and wagon repair had better start looking for other things to do soon.
I have already seen an entire trade basically disappear over the last 20 years and i PROMISE it's coming for many.
I work in the entertainment industry, and specifically with automation.
back when i started doing this type of work about 25 years ago there was a whole sub-section of stagehands that were called 'flymen'.
their job was to pull ropes that brought scenery up or down on the stage, and every theater built over the last 100 years has this type of setup.
well on the first show i worked, i was part of the team pulling ropes, and got to hear about the long proud history of the 'flymen' and how they came from the sailing world since it involved a lot of rope work.
on the second show i worked, about a year later, i was in the same theater that i pulled ropes in, but this time i was up in the high ceiling installing winches that replaced the need for people to pull ropes.
now, we had a bunch of winches controlling all those lines, and one person pushing a button was now doing the job of 20 people.
over the next 10 years i watched this job basically fade away and now shows can be done with a crew of 6 instead of a crew of 30.
if you think about it from a business perspective it seems like a huge savings, and it is!
but it comes at the cost of someone's specialty.
As one might guess, the unions have a big problem with this progression.
for example, the stagehands union in NY is local 1.
they are about the most powerful union in entertainment, and you've basically got to save the business agent's life in order to get in.
well all the theaters in NY still have ropes to pull, but where there used to be 50 of them, there's now maybe three.
they still force any show that comes in to those theaters to hire flymen, but those guys are doing other things besides pulling ropes.
they are flymen in name only, and even this practice is falling by the wayside.
bottom line, there is no stopping technology, and the pace of advancement is always increasing.
many jobs will be eliminated within the next 20 years.
the only good news i can offer is that someone has to know how to fix the robots!
this is what i do for a living, and there are just not enough people out there with the skillsets required, so there is always work.
my advice to those of you who still have 20 or more years left in your working life, or are giving advice to someone about to enter college, is to learn about electronics repair, computer networking, and industrial mechanics.
these three trades are going to be the most needed in the future, and being able to troubleshoot is imperative.
LC
can anyone think of one time in history where technology was eschewed in favor of tradition?
it never happens.
This is John Henry all over again, and all the people who work in trades like horse-shoeing, and wagon repair had better start looking for other things to do soon.
I have already seen an entire trade basically disappear over the last 20 years and i PROMISE it's coming for many.
I work in the entertainment industry, and specifically with automation.
back when i started doing this type of work about 25 years ago there was a whole sub-section of stagehands that were called 'flymen'.
their job was to pull ropes that brought scenery up or down on the stage, and every theater built over the last 100 years has this type of setup.
well on the first show i worked, i was part of the team pulling ropes, and got to hear about the long proud history of the 'flymen' and how they came from the sailing world since it involved a lot of rope work.
on the second show i worked, about a year later, i was in the same theater that i pulled ropes in, but this time i was up in the high ceiling installing winches that replaced the need for people to pull ropes.
now, we had a bunch of winches controlling all those lines, and one person pushing a button was now doing the job of 20 people.
over the next 10 years i watched this job basically fade away and now shows can be done with a crew of 6 instead of a crew of 30.
if you think about it from a business perspective it seems like a huge savings, and it is!
but it comes at the cost of someone's specialty.
As one might guess, the unions have a big problem with this progression.
for example, the stagehands union in NY is local 1.
they are about the most powerful union in entertainment, and you've basically got to save the business agent's life in order to get in.
well all the theaters in NY still have ropes to pull, but where there used to be 50 of them, there's now maybe three.
they still force any show that comes in to those theaters to hire flymen, but those guys are doing other things besides pulling ropes.
they are flymen in name only, and even this practice is falling by the wayside.
bottom line, there is no stopping technology, and the pace of advancement is always increasing.
many jobs will be eliminated within the next 20 years.
the only good news i can offer is that someone has to know how to fix the robots!
this is what i do for a living, and there are just not enough people out there with the skillsets required, so there is always work.
my advice to those of you who still have 20 or more years left in your working life, or are giving advice to someone about to enter college, is to learn about electronics repair, computer networking, and industrial mechanics.
these three trades are going to be the most needed in the future, and being able to troubleshoot is imperative.
LC
The trouble shooting process is quickly becoming a lost art. As an industrial electronics technician, what we do ranks right up there with magic....
Agreed!
I interview people for this type of job and it is amazing to me what the kids who come out of college DON'T know about electronic and mechanical systems.
Ive recently had someone with an electrical engineering degree not be able to tell me the difference between a stator and a rotor!
LC
This is why troubleshooting is becoming a lost art....
Good luck repairing anything in 10 years.
Fact of life.
I worked in food processing dealing with fruit juice concentrates and extracts for many years.
Long ago running fresh grapes for grape puree through a sorting line required 12 employees per shift, six on each side of the sorting conveyor to remove stems and off color product, and 8 more people for the apple line.
Now cameras scan the product and air nozzles blow rejected fruit onto another conveyor faster than anyone could ever sort by hand with better accuracy.
When I was young I remember being with family weeding cotton by hand on the west side of the valley, you learned how to sharpen a hoe with a file at a early age.
Now tractors drive themselves across the field with GPS and burn weeds around crops with lasers...
Not gonna stop it.
73
Jeff
Amen to that. When I was in commercial broadcasting, we did component level repair. We diagnosed the problem right down to the discrete component and replaced it. By the time I left that business 19 years ago most places were troubleshooting down to the board level......simply replacing an entire circuit board if a certain section was not working. Later it even came down to simply replacing an entire unit. Long gone is the component level replacement and a lot of diagnoses skills with it.