I was just at a wedding and a woman at my table works w/ the longshoremen / port workers in some HR role. She said the issue they’re having is each person interacts w/ 10s of other crew people a day. If just one of them tests positive or has a contact who tests positive they all have to go out & quarantine. They simply don’t have enough skilled people to balance the large numbers that keep having to tap out.
The entire world economy is experiencing shortages of necessary parts and labor due to the pandemic. Why do you think they’d be doing this as some conspiracy to force an infrastructure bill, vs it being what are currently normal hiccups in operation?
That’s even before asking how many cranes they had on the first place. The cranes to handle loading and unloading shipping containers off of ships are not small machines that can be set up in a week
Edit: I made the cardinal mistake of commenting before reading the article. An executive from the port is quoted as talking about the infrastructure bill and lack of investment in west coast ports. While I doubt that they are causing delays on purpose, it’s a legitimate question to ask given their statements.
Leaving my original post up as a monument to my sin
Hanlon’s Razor: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity. I find mismanagement due to a few people in power to be a much easier explanation to swallow than a planned conspiracy.
