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- cross-posted to:
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A federal judge has blocked the state of Hawaii from enforcing a recently enacted ban on firearms on its prized beaches and in other areas including banks, bars and parks, citing last year’s landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling expanding gun rights.
Hawaii is a colonial project and isn’t respected by the federal court circuits in the same manner that continental states are. It’s closer to Guam and Puerto Rico than other states in that it carries disproportionate financial and military burdens, including the effects from the Jones act for example.
I gotta say, my understanding of MLism is pretty spotty, but a Lemmygrad user opposing the Jones Act seems really weird.
Anti-Jones arguments are generally just raw-freetradeism – advocating to remove protectionist regulations so businesses can off-shore (literally off shore) their shipping to cheaper foreign crews, with the (supposed) benefit being that they will save money and then pass the savings on to the consumer. Were you a big NAFTA fan as well?
Prices in US territories such as Guam, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico are sky-high due to the Jones Act to protect American industries at the expense of colonized people. It’s more about the where the ship was built and who operates them than the workers themselves.
Yes, I am a big fan of NAFTA as well. The only parts I dislike are the parts that allow free movement of capital, disallow free movement of people, and protection of IP.
Wild. And the unions who argue against free-tradeism are the bad guys?
Labor is almost always the largest contributor to any business’s costs and offshoring it is very popular with capital, so waving away the 75% American crew requirement as “not about the workers” is wrong. From a DOT study, in 2010 an American crew costs 5x what a foreign crew does.
I live in Hawaii and while I don’t like paying more to subsidize US domestic shipbuilding (if the government wants to subsidize our shipyards, they should do it themselves), but when the major voices advocating for this (in Hawaii) are Republicans, libertarians, and business-oriented Democrats like Ed Case (one can argue those aren’t really three separate categories), I get wary. Because this sure looks like every other time capital wanted to stop having to pay so many expensive Americans with their benefits and labor protections when they could instead offload to foreign workers without any of that. And they pinky swear promise they’ll give us cheaper stuff in return rather than just pocketing the difference.
Your bad guy, good guy view of the world is myopic.
American labor vs International labor is a false dialectic that is used to pit working class against each other by the capital. You do realize that right? How is the Jones Act about the workers as you state when it doesn’t stipulate better working conditions, better pay, or ownership in the business itself? I don’t think you’re seriously arguing that the main reason for the price gouging that is happening in Hawaii is due to higher pay for American crew members, so I’ll ignore that.
In general, Marxists are internationalists and we don’t care about protecting American workers over other workers. I would be a syndicalist if I argued for the supremacy of the union.
You can talk all you want about an international brotherhood, but these are people’s livelihoods you’re dismissing as unimportant.
And requiring American labor IS stipulating working conditions, because there is a very real difference between the working conditions of Americans and foreign sailors. This sounds like all you ever engage in is theory, while capital favors foreign workers because they don’t have the same power (and expense) that American workers have.
Much of the American owned fishing fleet is entirely staffed by much cheaper foreign labor unable to leave their ships because their American company can get away with not applying for work visas. They didn’t just happen to end up with foreign crews effectively held captive during port calls, they do it because they’re cheaper and unable to easily challenge their bosses on conditions.
https://www.ap.org/explore/seafood-from-slaves/hawaiian-seafood-caught-foreign-crews-confined-boats.html
This isn’t a case of an open labor market where everyone is on an equal footing and Americans simply choose not to do this work. Americans simply can’t work for 70 cents an hour and bosses prize workers that don’t have worker protections and can’t demand more.
An American crew has recourse and the force of law when an employer just refuses to pay their workers.
When your labor solidarity philosophy leads you to support and defend the position of capital, a position known to depower workers and empower abuse, it feels like that’s the point where you should be thinking about what the whole point is.
So you are deliberately ignoring your previous point about how the main business cost and therefore the reason for the high prices in Hawaii is due to higher wages for American sailors. It’s curious how you weren’t actually arguing in good faith then.
You do realize that America as a country can simply change its regulation to stipulate equal pay and treatment for foreign crew members who dock in American ports or are employed by American companies, right? You are arguing that Americans and American companies are allowed to treat foreign workers under horrible conditions, so it is labor solidarity to employ only American workers. Do you see how deranged that sounds when we get down to the meat of it?
What? This response is incoherent. American crews cost more, significantly more than foreign crews, and that has a significant impact on costs. Labor is 2/3 of the operating cost for domestic shipping and 1/3 for foreign shipping. Domestic workers costing more and offshoring being cheaper aren’t some new theory, they’re the bedrock motivation for global free trade. Are you a real person?
And why do you ignore that your philosophy just happens to align with capital? This just read like a neoliberal screed about supporting the global south through deregulation.
Ahhh here comes the bot accusation for you liberals as always. You still haven’t shown how the Jones Act actually help workers, and are arguing for the sake of arguing if you’re committed to your bit of saying that the higher prices in Hawaii are due to labor costs.