SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
Dockworkers from Boston to Houston were just a week away from another strike, then came word of a tentative deal on a new contract. The dockworkers' union and the shipping companies appear to have found common ground on one key sticking point, the use of automated technology. NPR's Andrea Hsu has more.
ANDREA HSU, BYLINE: The fear of robots taking over jobs runs thick among dockworkers. Their message at the Port of Baltimore last fall...
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Hi-ho, hi-ho...
UNIDENTIFIED GROUP: Automation's got to go.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Hi-ho, hi-ho...
UNIDENTIFIED GROUP: Automation's got to go.
HSU: And until Wednesday, it appeared they were willing to walk off the job again and halt the flow of billions of dollars' worth of goods before they let machines move cargo in their place. Their last union contract already had restrictions on the use of technology. But Harold Daggett, the dockworkers union president, told Fox News last fall...
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
HAROLD DAGGETT: Not strong enough.
HSU: He wanted a ban on all automation in the new contract. The ocean carriers and port operators, meanwhile, argued that technology would make the work safer, keeping workers away from those massive containers. It would also boost efficiency. In fact, a handful of U.S. ports already use robots to move containers around the yards and onto trucks. I heard about this from a truck driver named Pamela Miller.
PAMELA MILLER: I'm an owner/operator. I'm a one-truck wonder (laughter).
HSU: She's from Baltimore, but she worked out of the Port of Virginia for several months last year. There, she encountered rows and rows of robots.
MILLER: Robot comes up. He takes your box off, or he puts your box on. Then you get a green light. You go lock your box down, go through another portal, get another ticket, and you leave. You're in and out of the port in 20 minutes.
HSU: Which she loves, because where there aren't robots, like in Baltimore, she says truck drivers often get into jams.
MILLER: We get in each other's way. The machine can't get to me. The checker can't get to the machine. It's ridiculous.
HSU: Still, last October, as she joined her dockworker friends on the picket line, she was torn. She knows this kind of advanced technology could leave some of them without jobs.
MILLER: This breaks my heart. It really does. But yeah, I'm on both sides.
HSU: Now, we still know little about what the dockworkers union has agreed to in terms of automation. Details won't be made public until the dockworkers themselves vote on the agreement. But the West Coast does offer some clues as to how this all might play out. A different union represents dockworkers there, and they agreed to the use of some technology back in 2008. But adoption is taking time.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
GENE SEROKA: Three of our 12 terminals have an automated environment.
HSU: That's Gene Seroka, executive director of the Port of LA, at a briefing last month. The port there and next door at Long Beach are handling more cargo than they used to. And so even though there have been job cuts due to automation...
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
SEROKA: Longshore work here in Los Angeles and Long Beach is up about 32% over the last decade. Could it have been more? Possibly.
HSU: As for the machines themselves, well, sometimes they work; sometimes they break down. Seroka characterized it as mixed results.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
SEROKA: Some have opined that productivity is not that great, but costs have been dropped.
HSU: And robots don't clock in and clock out, so the ports can operate longer hours. Now, only about 5% of ports around the world have introduced automation, in part because the transition is costly. Still, Seroka says, it's coming.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
SEROKA: Technology is not going to slow down. We can yell and scream all we want. We've got to find better ways to keep employment up, cargo flowing through this port and giving families good opportunities at middle-class jobs.
HSU: On that front, the ports of LA and Long Beach are building a new training campus where dockworkers can find opportunities and learn new skills, including coding. Seroka's message - there are ways to move forward without leaving workers behind.
Andrea Hsu, NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
