Automation fears at the heart of the dockworkers’ strike

• Automation is a key issue at play in the ongoing strike by dock workers at eastern US ports.
• The employer says it is willing to renew the terms of the contract regarding the use of new technologies.
• Negotiations broke down over the summer to determine whether the shipping companies met the terms.

Dock workers on strike at US ports say they are worried jobs could fall as shipping companies increasingly turn to automation.

Picketing workers gathered at ports in New York and Miami, carrying signs reading “Cars don’t feed families” and “Fight automation, save jobs.”

Their concerns have pushed automation to the center of the current conflict between the International Liquidators Association (ILA), the union that represents the tens of thousands of dock workers on strike at 36 eastern US ports, and the US Maritime Alliance (USMX), which represents their employers .

USMX called the strike “completely avoidable” in a statement Tuesday and said it “strongly supports a collective bargaining process that allows us to fully negotiate wages, benefits, technology and ensure the safety of our workers.”

The union’s objection to how shipping companies now use automation is a key sticking point in negotiations for a new labor contract.

Earlier this summer, ILA President and Chief Negotiator Harold Daggett said one of USMX’s major companies “continues to violate our current agreement for the sole purpose of eliminating ILA jobs through automation.”

For its part, the employers declared themselves willing to renew the existing contractual clauses regarding the use of the new technology.

USMX said in August that its latest offering at the time retained “the existing technology language that created a framework for modernization and improved efficiency while protecting jobs and working hours.”

The ILA did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

According to the labor contract that expired Monday night, “no fully automated terminals or fully automated equipment is being developed,” and partially automated equipment is only allowed after a labor protection agreement is in place.

The contract further calls for a review of “new jobs” arising from technology, as well as training and reassignment opportunities in a manner that preserves union hours.

But negotiations broke down over the summer when the union said a gate at a facility in Mobile, Ala., was allowing trucks to enter without union workers’ involvement, in violation of the contract.

The union accused Maersk Line and APM Terminals of trying to circumvent automation provisions in the contract and said it would not return to the table with USMX until the matter was resolved.

“We will never allow automation to come into our union and try to put us out of work as long as I’m alive,” Daggett said in July.

A spokesman for Maersk and APM Terminals did not respond to a request for comment.

The move ultimately contributed to the ILA’s win the unusual distinction of being a union being named in an unfair labor practices complaint filed by management.

Automation is already transforming the supply chain and reshaping jobs, though it’s coming more slowly to eastern U.S. ports than to other ports around the world as container volumes continue to grow.

Stephen Edwards, CEO of the Port of Virginia in Norfolk, told The New York Times in September that semi-automated operations allowed his facility to handle surges during the pandemic and after the Baltimore bridge collapse.

Despite the now expired ones contract provisions for semi-automated technologies, Daggett said in a Sept. 7 letter that “ILA does not support any kind of automation, including semi-automation.”

And while the first signs of movement in the months-long standoff came just hours before Monday night’s strike, with the USMX raising its pay hike offer to nearly 50 percent, the debate over the place of automation in American ports remains unresolved.

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