Category Archives: Labor Economics

Port of LA will pay container terminals for efficiency gains

Posted on January 21, 2021 by | Leave a comment

One way to improve throughput is to offer performance rewards to the players. The Port of LA will reward Terminal Operators for each fast turn around of a truck.

It is an interesting attempt to help truckers out. Quicker turns mean more driving time for truckers, and more loads carried. It also keeps chassis at work instead of sitting and waiting. As we know, there is a shortage of chassis at ports in the US today.

Let’s see how the reward system works. And how long the port will keep it up; as time passes, terminals may deliberately slow up to get the port to keep rewarding them. The bad performance could become ordinary, requiring rewards to go faster.

Kim Link-Wills, Senior Editor Wednesday, January 20, 2021

Port of LA will pay container terminals for efficiency gains – FreightWaves

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Posted in Labor Economics, Logistics, Ports, Production Operations, Supply Chains, Trucking

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Challenge HOS final rule in federal court

Posted on September 17, 2020 by | 1 comment

Teamsters and several safety organizations have challenged the new HOS rules. It won’t keep them from going into effect; but it will point out that the new rules directly contradict previous findings of the FMCSA.

I’ve been waiting for such challenges. The HOS rules were negotiated with lots of deliberation a couple of years ago, and they represent losses of rights for employee truckers. Independent Owner-Operators may have a different view, since they are playing with their own money and time, and might prefer longer hours even if it is less safe.

Like not wearing a mask.

Link: https://www.freightwaves.com/news/breaking-news-safety-groups-teamsters-challenge-hos-rule-in-federal-court

By John Gallagher, Washington Correspondent Wednesday, September 16, 2020

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Posted in Labor Economics, Logistics, Trucking

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Covid puts workers at risk of modern slavery

Posted on September 4, 2020 by | 1 comment

Modern slavery is not like the kind we know from the colonial era. Instead, people have no permanent jobs or benefits, and there are no rules controlling their employment relations; or perhaps there are not even jobs to be found. Society for most becomes anarchy, nations of refugees with nowhere to be, nothing to do.

According to this report, quite a few countries, mostly in the far east, are moving into a high risk category because of layoffs and dislocations due to the virus. In a sense, though it is happening everywhere, even in the US. People can’t find jobs, and it’s likely to continue long after the virus passes out of daily consciousness, as companies figure out how to do more with less. We will be converted to nations of gig workers with fewer and fewer gigs.

By Alex Lennane 04/09/2020

Link to article: https://theloadstar.com/warning-to-firms-as-covid-puts-more-and-more-workers-at-risk-of-modern-slavery/

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Posted in Labor Economics, Logistics, Managerial Econ, Org Behavior, Sustainability

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