Most things that are wrong in our modern economy is the fault of communism; it’s the process of thinking that comes from the ridiculously stupid philosophy of Karl Marx.  And that’s precisely what the International Longshoremen’s Association was during a recent strike, raw communism.  When it comes to these unions, notice they always start with “international.”  These are not American efforts rooted in capitalism.  They are globalist enterprises.  A few weeks ago, the dockworkers at ports of entry for shipping all along the east coast down into the Gulf along Texas walked off the job, which essentially crippled American infrastructure and it was all over pay.  This forced the shipping companies to throw a lot of money at those losers to prevent a complete halt of our economy, which amounted to an average of 4 dollars per hour for each six-year contract with an opportunity to raise wages by 62% over the life of the contract, which previously had an upward pay scale of $39 per hour or 81K per year.  And that is on straight time.  In truth, many of these people are making 300K per year once they had the overtime before this strike, so these dock workers are getting rich off an extortion racket that is essential to the American infrastructure and economy.  Their malicious timing was to perform this strike while a weak president, Joe Biden, was sleeping on the beach before Trump’s next term. They took advantage of the situation while they could and put everyone at risk with a hostile attack on our supply chain. It was reprehensible on a good day and detrimental in their intent and malice.  Fortunately, people learned pretty quickly what the leaders of the strike were up to; they were living in mansions and were not hurting for money for a job that wasn’t that skilled.  In the vacuum of a communist bubble, they had thought themselves something better than what they were, and they took advantage of America for their benefit, and it’s disgusting. 

I don’t like union workers of any kind on a good day.  I think they are worthless slugs rooted in Marxist ideology and have no place in American society.  I know these days, many union workers are breaking away from their leadership and voting for Trump for president, which makes us all friendly under a big tent of politics these days.  But it doesn’t change what they are.  Trump has successfully dealt with unions as a builder, and if you have a good personality, you can deal with reasonable people. Most of the time, union workers think they are doing right.  They don’t think of themselves as communists or detriments to society.  However, as a mob of insurgents who threatened to take away the need for labor if they didn’t collectively get what they wanted, everything they were was born on the pages of Karl Marx.  I think it should be illegal and punishable with years in jail to walk off a job that is critical to American economic infrastructure.  If I didn’t know the teaching profession was so worthless, I’d associate that field with the same sentiment.  But teacher unions have made themselves worthless with their brand of Democrat politics baked into everything they do, which is useless to a conservative family with children attending a school.  From top to bottom, there is no place for communism in our labor force, and the ILA didn’t care.  They wanted to take advantage of desperate people to extract even more money from the process while political disorder was a raging fire.  And what they did will cost us a lot more money in terms of shipping costs.

I don’t respect these ILA workers or most union jobs.  I have seen firsthand how unions destroy a company, and I have been in many fist fights in parking lots myself for breaking strikes in what they call a SCAB.  I, for the fun of it, made a living breaking strikes, one at a company in Cincinnati called Cincinnati Milacron, which is no longer there because of radicalized unions, and a company that built conveyor belts in the 90s for Amazon, well before anybody knew what Amazon was.  I was never one to join with group behavior, and when I disagreed with the behavior, the union stewards wanted to fight, which they regretted.  Many people from my past are ashamed of what they did and what I did to them, just to put it nicely.  I could tell stories about some of these antics that sometimes got bloody for quite a long time.  So, my hatred for these labor unions runs very deep.  To say I hate them isn’t a strong enough word.  But I do have much experience as a blue-collar worker, and I’ve watched the crane operations at the shipping docks who just went on strike, and I can say that it’s an easy job.  Certainly not worth 300K per year.  I’ve done lots of comparable work with cranes and jigs with very expensive hardware, and while it takes some skill to operate, it’s not worth the kind of money these unions extract for it.  They are only paid so much because companies fear through radicalism that all the workers will collectively leave their jobs and cause a work stoppage.  Even though Trump has successfully dealt with unions, everyone who has dealt with them can’t hide the fact that collective bargaining agreements harm enterprises by making them too expensive or taking too much time to do the task.  And very little good comes from a unionized workforce. 

One of those stories I could tell involved three union stewards who thought they were tough guys and wanted to fight me in an empty parking lot near our plant at 3 PM when the first shift ended.  I guess they didn’t think I’d show up, and let me say politely, they didn’t win.  The whole plant showed up to watch the fight, which was very embarrassing for the union stewards.  And that particular plant, once management figured out that the union couldn’t be dealt with, shut down within six months.  I knew it then, and I know it especially now: unions had no place in America, and they were dying.  And that is certainly true today.  Already, robots could do a much better job than many of the crane operators working these docks, and they never call off work or get sick.  Labor in an economy is always needed, but that labor doesn’t need to be a human.  It needs to be intelligent, and with A.I. these days, they are far more intelligent than these dock worker slugs.  I’ve known them from personal experience, and believe me, if you pay them more than $10 an hour, you are paying them too much.  Unions have made themselves worthless, which is the case with the ILA strike.  It only lasted a few days, but it shouldn’t have happened at all.  I would encourage all those companies involved in shipping to invest in robots for their future work.  And don’t waste your time on these slugs that affect our economy.  There is no reason these days to overpay for labor and to throw money at these people.  The ILA strike broke once people realized how much money these employees made.  America was not sympathetic.  They just wanted their stuff shipped to them to arrive.  Globalism has given these international unions leverage through a monopoly status.  And it’s time we change that, for good, with automation and robotics. 

Rich Hoffman

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