LONG BEACH, Calif. – It’s been 40 years since West Coast waterfront management and labor signed the groundbreaking Mechanization and Modernization Agreement, which allowed containerization to take hold.
Now the Pacific Maritime Association’s president, Joseph Miniace, is proposing a new waterfront contract in 2002 that would be called a “technology, learning and computerization” agreement.
“Computerization and technology are today what containerization was to the industry in 1960,” Miniace said in a speech last week.
Stung by complaints about port congestion and an unreliable labor force, West Coast employers and longshore union officials are proposing ways to improve the efficiency of cargo handling on the nation’s busiest coast.
The PMA, which represents shipping lines, terminal operators and stevedores, is calling for immediate and long-term changes to make it easier for employers to introduce computer technology to terminal operations.
Local 13 of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, meanwhile, plans soon to submit to employers a proposal to improve efficiency of terminals during the annual summer-fall surge in imports.
“It will be a plan to deal with the peak-season madness,” said Mike Mitre, president of the Los Angeles-Long Beach local, the ILWU’s largest. “If it works, it can be a platform for change, a springboard to deal with the influx of cargo,” he said.
Productivity and capacity were central issues last week at the ILWU Town Hall, an annual forum sponsored by the Center for International Trade and Transportation at California State University in Long Beach.
Hundreds of longshoremen listened as industry consultants, trade representatives, shippers, shipping executives and longshore officials discussed the logistical challenges faced by Los Angeles-Long Beach, the nation’s busiest port complex.
The adjacent ports are expected to handle more than 9 million TEUs this year – four times the volume of the nation’s second-biggest container port complex, the Port of New York and New Jersey. More than 50% of U. S. container trade moves through West Coast ports.
But long-term growth in Southern California and other West Coast ports is threatened by congestion and concern about union work stoppages and slowdowns.
Although the ports have been quiet recently, longshoremen took job actions during last summer’s contract negotiations, and throughout 1998 as the ILWU and PMA waged legal battles in court.
“Our customers, the importers and exporters who utilize the West Coast terminals, are demanding reliability, predictability and efficiency in the operations. If we don’t provide these components, others will,” Miniace said at last week’s forum.
He said proposals to widen the Panama Canal could lead to an increase in all-water services between Asia and the U. S. East Coast, and expansion of Canadian and Mexican ports could result in a diversion of cargo to those countries.
It is time to resurrect the cooperative spirit of the 1960 Mechanization and Modernization Agreement, which cleared the way for containerization, Miniace said.
Just as the ILWU and PMA worked together to introduce containerization in the 1960s, the parties must cooperate today to introduce automated dispatch systems, paperless gate transactions and other computerized programs to enhance efficiency, he said.
The current three-year contract, negotiated last summer, provides a means for introduction of that technology. The contract established a technology committee to be composed of PMA and ILWU representatives, but the committee has yet to meet.
“I say to you, quite simply, that we can and we must begin tomorrow to utilize the technology committee,” Miniace said. There are technology projects that can be implemented almost immediately, if the ILWU will agree to do so, he added.
For example, an automated dispatch system has been installed in the Local 13 dispatch hall, but the rank and file voted overwhelmingly not to implement the automated system. Longshoremen fear that under automated dispatching they would lose jobs, as well as control of the dispatching process.
Individual terminal operators have developed electronic gate processes that would eliminate the need for most paper documentation and would get trucks into and out of the terminals faster. But the union has resisted implementation of those programs because of fear of job losses.
Miniace said those projects can and should be implemented immediately. He said he hopes the union will work with employers to introduce the automated systems.
The “technology, learning and computerization” agreement that Miniace proposed for the next contract would guarantee that registered longshoremen would keep their jobs as long as they train for and implement technology to enhance cargo-handling productivity.
“It’s an ironclad guarantee,” Miniace said. “Let me implement this technology. Let me run this waterfront efficiently, and there will be no loss of jobs.”
In fact, given the cargo growth projections made by industry analysts, additional longshore jobs will probably be created in the years ahead, he said.
Longshoremen realize that terminals will become congested with traffic if technology is not used, said the ILWU’s Mitre. “The computer is coming, but we must find a way that it services us as well as the terminal,” he said.
The biggest challenge for West Coast ports lies not in vessel loading and unloading operations, which are already quite efficient, but in getting containers through the terminals and out of the gates by truck and rail, Mitre said.
It was clear from the presentations of industry analysts at the Town Hall meeting that terminals will have to store more containers in stacks, which is less efficient that storing them on chassis, because ports are running out of land, Mitre said. The right technology will streamline the process, but the union wants guarantees that the jobs associated with technology go to longshoremen, he added.
The union has already lost documentation, vessel planning and other marine clerical jobs to inland cities such as Boise, Idaho, and Salt Lake City, Utah. Employers moved those jobs to inland locations to escape ILWU jurisdiction, Mitre said. The union wants a guarantee that all jobs resulting from computerization will fall under the ILWU’s jurisdiction.
