Background

In a series of posts entitled Autonomous Everything, we are exploring automation in all its technological forms, including legacy working assumptions about the term itself.  We began the series in June at the bleeding edge of autonomous vehicles, with a description of the first autonomous ship to cross the Atlantic Ocean. But autonomy is not just for the future of the car and personal mobility but includes a broad autonomous future in areas such as Security Automation, Automation and the Workforce, Automation – or Augmentation – of the workforce, and Automation of AI/Machine Learning Training Models and Industry Standardization. 

We now tack to the familiar heavy industrial history of automation and global shipping port terminal operations, which have been the frontline in the tensions between labor, industry, and automation in the U.S. for decades.  Port automation is also prescient in the context of the recent pandemic-induced supply chain bottlenecks, which strained port operations globally:  “Terminal automation has helped to relieve severe supply chain congestion at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach by substantially accelerating cargo handling and expanding terminal capacity while generating longshore work significantly faster than conventional terminals, according to a groundbreaking new study on port automation.” (1)

The study “analyzes new public and previously unpublished data [and] was commissioned by the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA) during the Covid-19 pandemic – when a surge of Asian imports exposed severe shortcomings in the U.S. supply chain. The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, which process 40% of containerized imports from Asia, bore the brunt of this influx. They handled record levels of cargo, but backlogs – at times more than 100 ships anchored offshore awaiting berths – underscored the need for the country’s largest port complex to enhance terminal efficiency and productivity to accommodate growing container volumes and stanch the diversion of cargo to East Coast and Gulf Coast ports.” (3)  The study “analyzed automated terminals at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach — the two busiest in the nation — and found that cargo handling was accelerated, terminal capacity was expanded and longshore work was generated “significantly faster” there than at conventional terminals.” (2)

Over the last 100 years, labor has always operated on the assumption that automation would contribute to the elimination of jobs and the number of (generally unionized) highly skilled, high-wage laborers working in port terminal operations.   Authors Dr. Michael Nacht, Professor of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and former Assistant Secretary of Defense, and Larry Henry, Founder of ContainerTrac, Inc. in the report, Terminal Automation in Southern California,  place “automation in a broad context’ based on the attention automation has garnered recently, while also dispelling historical assumptions about the role of automation in job elimination and capturing some of the motivations behind OODA Loop research and analysis on the topic:

“In the past decade, robotics, self-driving cars, drones, additive manufacturing, and a range of other “smart” technologies have propelled “automation” – nominally defined as the use of technology to perform tasks with reduced human assistance – to the forefront of industrial planning and labor-management negotiations. These innovations’ disruptive, potentially revolutionary impact on the workforce has been the subject of popular fascination, fear, and, increasingly, academic research.

MIT formed a multi-department task force, which spent over two years examining emerging technologies in a wide variety of industries. In a 2020 report, ‘The Work of the Future: Building Better Jobs in an Age of Intelligent Machines,’ the researchers wrote: ‘We see no trade-off between improving economic security for workers and embracing ongoing technological change and innovation. Achieving both goals will require both technological and institutional innovation.’ Among the report’s six conclusions:

• Technological change is simultaneously replacing existing work and creating new work. It is not eliminating work altogether.
• Fostering opportunity and economic mobility necessitates cultivating and refreshing worker skills.
• Investing in innovation will drive new job creation, speed growth, and meet rising competitive challenges.

The evolution of the logistics industry, for one, has relevance for port automation. Long before surging consumer demand during the pandemic overwhelmed the supply chain, the study noted that e-commerce was transforming distribution. Even as companies like Amazon and FedEx adopted automation, warehouse and storage industry jobs more than doubled to 1.1 million, and trucking added 130,000 jobs. ‘If we think of logistics employment as a tug of war between job gains from e-commerce and job losses from automation, job gains are winning decisively at present,’ the study said.  (7)

Far from predicting an imminent onslaught of robots, the MIT task force found that automation is being adopted incrementally and can take decades to have a profound impact on labor, affording time to “craft policies, develop skills, and foment investments to constructively shape the trajectory of change toward the greatest social and economic benefit.” (7)

Port Automation, Productivity, and Labor

Nacht and Henry provide a brief history of the agreements between port workers and employers, which is a sophisticated history of negotiation on the role of automation in contract agreements that most other industry verticals simply have not experienced – but will:

“Since the Mechanization and Modernization Agreement of 1960, West Coast port workers have accepted the right of employers to introduce labor-saving technology. The landmark 2002 labor contract between the Pacific Maritime Association and the ILWU (International Longshore and Warehouse Union) paved the way for digital technology on the docks. And in 2008, the ILWU explicitly accepted automation by agreeing to allow “fully mechanized and robotic-operated marine terminals,” a principle enshrined again in 2014.

In the case of the West Coast ports, labor has fared well:

“With each contract, the union secured wage and benefit enhancements that are among the most generous in organized labor. Since 1965, ILWU hourly wages have grown significantly faster than the national average. Under the current contract, full-time ILWU workers earn, on average, some $195,000 – nearly three times the median U.S. household income.

The ILWU did not accept modernization without a fight. In 2002, a labor dispute shut down West Coast ports for 11 days during contract negotiations, and even after subsequent agreements, union leaders continue to resist moves to automate. Despite their fears of job losses, since the start of the “technology era” in 2002, the registered ILWU workforce at West Coast ports has grown 52%.  Importantly, the ‘automation era’ has produced faster employment growth in Los Angeles and Long Beach than the other 27 West Coast ports: 11.2% versus 8.4% between 2015 and 2021.”

Productivity gains have included:

• Throughput of Twenty-Foot Equivalent Units (TEUs, the standard measure of cargo volume) per acre is 44% higher at San Pedro Bay’s automated terminals than at conventional terminals, thanks to autonomous vehicles and cranes that stack containers higher, closer together, and more efficiently for transferring to trains and trucks.
• Since 2019, the two automated terminals have processed containers faster than conventional terminals – at times more than twice as fast.
• The gains in output in Los Angeles and Long Beach mean that contrary to fears of job losses, automation has increased, not reduced, ILWU jobs and work opportunities, including training and upskilling.
• Between 2015, the last year before the transition to automated operations, and 2021, paid ILWU hours
  at the two automated terminals rose 31.5%, more than twice the 13.9% growth rate at the non-automated terminals.
• More broadly, the registered ILWU workforce in Los Angeles and Long Beach grew
  11.2%, compared to 8.4% for the other 27 West Coast ports.

The study found automation provided benefits to shippers and consumers, but also did not reduce job opportunities for dockworkers.”  Still, the ILWU is hardline based on previous contract negotiations.  Frank Ponce De Leon, ILWU Coast Committeeman, delivered a response: “The very purpose of automation is to replace human workers with machines, and in this case to harm a U.S.-based workforce and local communities only to increase the projects of the largely foreign-owned terminal operators.”

“Automation is offering early proof of a win-win strategy,” wrote Nacht and his co-author, Larry Henry, founder of ContainerTrac Inc., “work gains for ILWU members and productivity and efficiency gains that will drive up growth, drive down cargo-handling costs, and help restore the San Pedro Bay ports’ competitive advantage.”

What Next?

https://youtu.be/g1fu7Yb4zkA

• “‘Leading ports in Rotterdam, Singapore, and along China’s coast are technological marvels that fuel world trade,’ the report said. ‘For its size, the United States lags behind the number of automated terminals and cargo volume handled by them.’
• Because of the broad gains for business, labor, and the environment, automation is the hallmark of the world’s most advanced ports and is vital to growth at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, the anchors of 29 West Coast ports that support 12.5 million jobs nationwide and generate nearly 9% of the country’s Gross Domestic Product.
• The San Pedro Bay complex is projected to reach capacity by 2028…with limited potential to physically expand their marine terminals, the two ports risk further loss of discretionary cargo, threatening jobs, wages, and tax revenue essential to Southern California’s economic vitality.
• “As previous research by Nacht and Henry has shown, automation also helps reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, bringing environmental and health benefits for workers and residents of neighboring communities.”  (1)
• Moving forward, industry will need to continue to quantify the job creation and the overall value creation enabled by automation.
• Labor will also need to quantify their counterarguments of job loss and opportunities lost for workers based on new efficiencies enabled by automation.  As the volume of work increases based on productivity gains, labor will be a smaller percentage of overall productivity on an annual basis.  What are the new port labor opportunities that will continue to require a high-skill, high-wage human factor?
• Industry and labor will need to create research that quantifies the negative and positive impacts as argued by both sides with methodologies, frameworks, and opportunities for collaboration by both parties in the contract negotiation.  These port operations are heavy industrial megaplexes – which can translate into tons of innovative data capture opportunities throughout the port infrastructure.
• “The ILWU and the more than 70 employers represented by the PMA (Pacific Maritime Association) started talks May 10 to work out a new contract for longshoremen across 29 ports in California, Oregon, and Washington. While the current agreement ended Friday, July 1st,  the groups had recently said they were unlikely to reach a deal before then and had reaffirmed neither party was preparing for a strike or lockout. Talks often go past the expiration.   The union representing about 22,000 West Coast dockworkers and their employers will continue negotiations for a new labor contract past the July 1 expiration of their current pact and said the ports — among them the US’s busiest — will keep functioning.  ‘While there will be no contract extension, cargo will keep moving, and normal operations will continue at the ports until an agreement can be reached between the Pacific Maritime Association and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union,’ the parties said in a joint statement Friday.” (4)
• How is the human factor quantified and job creation opportunities contextualized in areas such as Security Automation and Automation – or Augmentation – of the workforce?  For Automation of AI/Machine Learning Training Models and Industry Standardization, has the human-in-the-loop argument won the day?  If so, what is the training required for these jobs which require exposure to systems thinking, ethics and organizational behavior, among other areas of study?

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