Dockworkers Accept Automation

The West Coast dockworkers union has agreed in principle to retain control of marine clerical work even as that work is automated, something it had resisted. Using software to track cargo and schedule the drop-off and pickup of goods arriving via ship could cost up to 600 clerical jobs on the West Coast. People in those posts type in data about cargo shipments and pickups.

The move is part of an effort by businesses making up the Pacific Maritime Association to enhance efficiency and make West Coast docks more competitive with other docks around the globe. It's also been one of several contentious issues complicating a labor contract between the association and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union.

It's not a done deal yet, though. "The technology agreement is not finished until the issue of pension is finished," says a spokesman for the union. "Companies are going to save thousands of dollars from increased productivity, and we want to make sure we get a share of that money saved for our pension. Until that part is finished, there is no deal." He would not talk specifically about whether new jobs created by the use of new technology would be union posts.

Gary Chaison, professor of industrial relations at Clark University's graduate school of management, says the union is "cushioning the effect" of new technology by maintaining jurisdiction over marine clerk responsibilities.

Settlement of the issue of who will control jobs changed or created by technology could be a major step toward boosting productivity and a signed labor agreement. Disputes between the association and the union resulted in a work stoppage that stalled billions of dollars worth of U.S. trade and compelled the Bush administration to invoke the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act to get the ports to resume business.

Little is known about what kind of technology the association wants to employ, but even instituting a scheduling system on the docks for truckers to pick up containers could do a lot to rev up productivity.

"The time that truckers spend sitting in queue, waiting to come into the container port, and then giving information about the cargo they're picking up would go down significantly if the docks used an appointment system," says Peter Vandermat, VP of planning and analysis at JWD Group, an engineering consulting company.

Vandermat adds that using a system that contains data about a pickup even before the trucker arrives would help terminal operators stack containers more efficiently and have them read for pickup.