Unions: Support automation that helps workers without sinking them

The stevedores at ports between Texas and Maine won a stunning victory this month after just three days on the picket line.

These ports account for about 60 percent of the containerized trade in the U.S. A strike would quickly have crippled the economy and, among other collateral damage, likely torpedoed the Harris-Walz campaign.

Instead, they won a record 62 percent wage gain over a six-year period. This gain will boost wages to $63 an hour for senior dock workers in 2030. Even in a year of impressive union gains, from autoworkers to actors, this result jumps off the page. 

That’s the good news. The bad news is that the strike has been paused, not settled. Both stand by the agreement on wage, but all other issues must now be negotiated by Jan. 16, 2025, or a strike could occur four days before the next president assumes office.

The most important and contentious unresolved issue is automation. Harold Daggett, president of the International Longshoremen’s Association, has forcefully come down hard on further automation because he views it as devastating for jobs at the ports. He would like to jettison it in other areas as well, from EZ pass toll booths to self-checkout at supermarkets. 

Before tackling automation, let’s first look at the significance of what has been won on wages. Well, you may be thinking: “Great gains for those on the docks but aren’t they already among the highest-paid blue-collar workers and what exactly does this victory mean for other workers?”

The workers who unload cargo ships are highly paid. One-third of them made $200,000 or more annually in 2020 — but this reflects extensive overtime and skilled, stressful jobs operating cranes for long hours to unload containers off giant ships floating in unpredictable waters. And it comes in the wake of inflation eating up wage gains for dock workers over the previous six years.

These workers are celebrating now, but the results are also great news for workers well beyond the ports. Union gains tend to flow through the economy raising wages for other unionized workers and for far larger numbers of nonunion workers as well. 

The United Auto Workers won strong gains after World War II under the legendary Walter Reuther, which helped pave the road to the middle class for working Americans. Think pensions, paid vacations, employer-paid health care.

More recently, the union won major gains after a 40-day strike in September 2023 at the Detroit automakers under UAW president Shawn Fein. These gains quickly spread to almost all the non-union automakers from Toyota to Tesla, who raised wages for their workers to dampen union drives.

The victory on the docks reflects a determined union and 47,000 members who displayed remarkable solidarity. Daggett said they would stay out for weeks if necessary and the workers enthusiastically agreed. The employers read the writing on the wall and put forward a record wage offer.

This offer reflected strong skillful prodding from President Biden and his administration. Vice President Kamala Harris, Acting Labor Secretary Julie Sue and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, among others, were all deeply involved in convincing both sides a quick settlement was their best option. 

President Biden placed his bet on collective bargaining and refused to invoke the Taft-Hartley Act, which would have paused the strike for 80 days, severely weakening the union’s leverage and possibly provoking a work slowdown on the docks. His bet paid off for everyone.

The employers can afford this deal. Since the start of the pandemic, the United States Maritime Alliance, the association of port operators and shipping carriers, has raked in hyper-profits. These carrier groups, as President Biden noted, are almost all foreign-owned. 

Last year, Maersk, the second largest carrier, reportedly paid out over $10 billion to its shareholders, and not to be outdone, Hapag-Lloyd rewarded its investors with $12 billion.

Now that both sides are back at the table, Daggett is right to be concerned with job loss since it can tear apart families and destroy communities but opposing automation flat-out is a dead end and likely unsustainable.

A far better approach would be to ensure that automation benefits workers, not just providing stratospheric gains for shareholders and executives. The irony is that the increased productivity of accepting automation under the right terms would benefit workers, their communities and stockholders as well.

Three interrelated demands are worth looking at.

First and most important, a shorter workweek. When Fein introduced the demand of a 32-hour work week at 40 hours pay last fall in the auto talks it seemed vaguely utopian and was soon withdrawn. The demand now seems prophetic for these ILA talks and beyond. 

Second, a three-month paid sabbatical for longshore workers every seven years. The jobs that remain will be highly skilled and likely highly stressful. The United Steelworkers won this demand in the steel industry in the 1960s and it was popular among workers and can improve productivity. 

Many academic economists who oppose this idea as unrealistic I suspect may have done their research to reach this conclusion on their own sabbaticals.

Finally, President Biden has proposed a major effort to expand domestic manufacturing including factories that build cranes and port machinery. An apprentice program to learn skills to build and repair this machinery is vital and will create new jobs. Longshore workers should be given priority for these apprenticeships if they qualify as the UAW has done for a long time. 

Embracing worker-centered automation is vital for the future. It will fuel a healthier economy and improve life for working Americans, their families and their communities. It might avoid a strike on the ports and contribute to a broadly shared prosperity with a union label.

Harley Shaiken is a professor emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley who specializes in labor and the global economy.