The longshoremen's union's fight against automation is strangling US growth

It is the processing gate that roared.

APM Terminals at the Port of Mobile, Alabama, uses a semi-automatic gate to process trucks without union labor, and this alleged scandal is one of the reasons the International Longshoremen's Union went on strike.

Not to mention, the gate has been in operation for years and is a more efficient and safer way to control and enter trucks.

The strike, which affected ports on the East Coast and the Gulf, has ended for now with a tentative agreement on wages.

But the larger problem of automation, which is completely opposed by the union, remains unresolved; it has been postponed until an extension of the current contract expires on January 15.

“Machines don’t pay taxes,” complained the head of the local union in Mobile.

Yes, this also applies to wheelbarrows or iPhones, but we still use them as tools to make a number of tasks easier and less time-consuming.

Harold Daggett, the union's president, has promised a relentless fight against automation. He famously earns almost a million dollars a year and lives in a mansion in New Jersey.

No word on whether he insists that he and his family wash their clothes and dishes by hand — or whether he employs a laundress and personal dishwasher — to forego labor-saving appliances.

Technological progress is necessary for economic progress.

It would be disastrous if the longshoremen's union were to successfully block them in our ports, or worse, an alarmist view of automation would take hold in our society as a whole.

We may think we live in a time of revolutionary technological change, but we are not seeing major productivity gains.

This is important because higher wages (and lower prices) ultimately depend on higher productivity – or the ability to do more with the same or fewer inputs.

Robert Atkinson of the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation points out that much of our new technology has entered the consumer market – smartphones, social media, online retail and the like.

The key lies in applying the technology to other sectors of the economy.

Which brings us back to the ports.

The technology’s productivity benefits – including automated gates, cranes and cargo handling – are clear.

But China, the Netherlands and Singapore are overtaking us.

Rotterdam began automating in the early 1990s. In contrast, we have only three terminals in our ports fully automated, with another three considered semi-automated.

We do not have a port that makes the World Bank's top 50 list worldwide.

Depending on the circumstances, automation may eliminate some jobs but also create others.

If the catastrophic warnings about the job-destroying effects of technology were true, we would all be unemployed farmers.

Recently, we've seen how the breakthrough innovations of companies like Amazon and FedEx have led to a huge increase in warehousing, warehousing and trucking jobs.

In the maritime sector, union representatives also hated the shipping container revolution of the 1960s.

Although the containers reduced jobs at the port, they led to an almost miraculous increase in efficiency. Would anyone really want to spend days loading and unloading ships again, or workers trying to figure out how to fit random things onto a ship?

The West Coast longshoremen's union accepted fully automated machines in a 2008 contract, and the situation was spared. The company has added new jobs since 2020 and received a generous wage increase in its most recent contract.

Thriving ports that can handle larger ships and more cargo are a national economic asset.

An analysis for the Pacific Maritime Association, which represents shipping lines and port and terminal operators, said of the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach: “These economic engines anchor a network of 29 West Coast ports that serve 12.5 million “Supports jobs and creates nearly 9% of U.S. gross domestic product.”

Our ports should be run for the benefit of all of us and the entire economy, not for a union that represents a worldview that can only lead to stagnation and mediocrity.

Twitter: @RichLowry