Supply Chain Optimization

Teamsters Can’t Organize Contract Workers

 

Also, a new Port In Mexico And Judge Strikes Down Seattle Ordinance That Had Widespread Implications

Judge Robert Lasnick accepted the argument that Uber drivers were contractors and that having contractors band together was contrary to antitrust laws as well as against the National Labor Relations Act.  Uber and Lyft didn’t have to hand over their contractors’ names and subject them to a card-check election.  This is good news for the whole country as Teamsters, or any union for that matter, representing owner-operators, etc., would be a real problem.

 
Expanding and modernizing the Mexican port of Låzaro Cådenas seemed like a no-brainer 5 years ago.  Now, after half a billion dollar investment by A.P. Moller-Maersk, the new facility opens under a cloud of uncertainty.  This backdoor to the US – served by the Kansas City Southern – is now faced with an increasingly protective U.S.  For my money, the value of this port is:
  • As an insurance policy against congestion in LA and the Longshoremen’s outlandish demands
  • As a source for imports going into the rising consumer class in Mexico itself.