Now Comes the Hard Part of the Dockworkers Fight: Automation

Operators can afford the 62% pay increase, but not the low productivity that the work rules produce

By Peter Tirschwell. He is vice president of global intelligence and analytics at S&P Global Market Intelligence and chairman of the TPM shipping conference. Excerpts:

"the tentative deal that averted the strike will result in dockworkers at the New York-New Jersey port earning more than $500,000 a year on average"

"the U.S. is building new port facilities at a snail’s pace—the last new marine container terminal, at Charleston, S.C., opened in 2021 and was the first since 2009—the only way to expand capacity is by handling more cargo more quickly through existing facilities. The only way to do that is with automated cargo handling."

"The lack of automation in the U.S.—only three port facilities are fully automated, all on the West Coast—exposes ports as an Achilles’ heel of U.S. trade competitiveness. High costs and inefficiency have long been the status quo. 

"Not one U.S. port ranks in the top 50 globally in productivity as defined by the number of containers moved on and off ships per hour"

"The fully automated Long Beach Container Terminal, completed in 2021, can handle 12,000 to 15,000 20-foot equivalent units per acre per year versus 6,000 to 8,000 at a nonautomated terminal"

"Low productivity was one of the factors behind a record 109 containerships being idled off the Los Angeles-Long Beach port complex in early 2022, stranding billions of dollars worth of goods and upending supply chains."

"The consequence of low port productivity is that “instead of facilitating trade, the port increases the cost of imports and exports, reduces competitiveness, and inhibits economic growth,” the World Bank said in its 2023 index. Another way to look at it is the outsize economic impact created by ports: The Savannah, Ga., port employs roughly 2,000 dockworkers but more than half a million jobs, or 11% of Georgia employment, is dependent in some way on it—including those who drive trucks and work in warehouses, factories and retail stores."