
As L.A. ports automate, some workers are cheering on the robots - notlukesky
https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2019-11-07/port-automation-dockworkers-vs-truckers
======
pokstad
It’s hard to root for the ILWU. I grew up in San Pedro, where many of the long
shoremen live (near the port of L.A.). Once you’ve known these people for a
while, you start to understand that the problem is not only a strong union but
also a stubborn and incompetent people.

The workers there are known for working doubles while on meth/speed. There are
horror stories of crane operators high while operating machinery. Every so
often a worker is flattened by a container.

Outside of work, the longies act like royalty in San Pedro. I grew up with
their self entitled kids who would refuse to study in high school because they
knew their parents would get them into the union. They drive around in jumbo
SUVs like maniacs around town.

The longshoremen are still living off the karma of bloody Thursday, but one
day that karma will wear off and the port will be modernized.

~~~
klipt
> they knew their parents would get them into the union

Ironic that union membership would become just another form of heritable
wealth.

~~~
clairity
it's not wealth, it's advantage. once you get the job handed down to you, you
still _have to do the work_ to get the money, unlike wealth.

not saying jobs should be doled out that way, but it's quite different to get
a chance at future income vs. having it mounded in your lap without lifting a
finger.

~~~
zozbot234
That's just as true with wealth. Sure, you _could_ spend your wealth down, but
that's like eating your seed corn; very few actually do that, because it means
you're not wealthy anymore afterwards.

~~~
skybrian
Uh, the money grows by itself if properly invested. Investing in an index fund
hardly counts as working.

------
dmix
> On one side are well-paid union members, many of them third- and fourth-
> generation dockworkers.

Which highlights one of the dirtier parts of the history of union jobs: the
rampant nepotism and exclusionary culture it develops in local communities.
Valuing who you know in a community over your merits as a worker. It had a
long history of being used to keep black workers out of white jobs:
[https://www.jstor.org/stable/30030646](https://www.jstor.org/stable/30030646)
and the note about workers taking "2hr lunch breaks" is unsurprising in such a
culture.

------
Axsuul
Note that Shanghai and Rotterdam's ports are already leagues ahead in terms of
automation.

~~~
gumby
On of the consequences of low union rate and very low wages is that the op ex
of having an employee in the US is cheaper than the cap ex of automation. This
is why you see such a high level of automation in Europe, Australia etc: cost
of labor is higher.

I think the US has made the wrong tradeoff, but this factor has gone back
decades.

~~~
SPascareli
> On of the consequences of low union rate and very low wages is that the op
> ex of having an employee in the US is cheaper than the cap ex of automation.

Are you saying that ports in China have high wages AND high union rates
compared to US? Because even if that was true, it didn't stopped them
automating the ports.

~~~
gumby
Good point I was talking about OECD countries, basically.

China has a different problem, though related. Of course unions are illegal
there ("not needed -- the communist party represents the workers"). But they
have a large pool of uneducated very low cost labor they are trying to keep
out of the cities (e.g. via Hukou system), trouble with controls on things
like "shrinkage" (containers help a lot here) and yes, relatively high wages
for the workers who are in the port cities (working in factories and white
collar jobs).

------
hinkley
From the complaints of the trucker they interviewed, it sounds like Maersk has
a management problem. Crane operators have long breaks because the work is
taxing. But having an operator on break shouldn’t mean the crane stops. Two
hour breaks are basically split shifts. So five operators for four cranes
should cover you. If the don’t all work identical split shifts.

Robots are a pretty passive aggressive way to get rid of bad management.

~~~
noobermin
Other way around, robots are a way to get around the consequences of bad
management while the managers keep their jobs. Was middle management slashed
too when the robots were rolled out?

~~~
notatoad
Middle managers don't typically keep their jobs for long once all their direct
reports are gone.

------
asaph
Surprisingly, there is no mention in the article of how the truckers feel
about the threat of automation to their own jobs.

~~~
Mountain_Skies
Pretty much every single truck driver I've talked to on the subject is in deep
denial. They believe that the weird layout of the loading dock at some
warehouse could never be navigated by automated system or that them handing
documents to someone at the point of delivery cannot be automated. They don't
seem to understand just how much capital businesses are willing to spend to
get rid of reoccurring labor costs.

If there are any bright spots in all of this, it's that trucking has a high
turnover rate already so few will directly lose their jobs and that trucking
in general is rough on the body and the mind. The difficult question to answer
is where will all of the people who would have gone into trucking going to go
instead?

~~~
goldcd
My guess is that the "death of trucking" will come in two parts.

The part they say is 'hard' \- is definitely a hard nut to crack - but maybe
only a few percentage of the time they spend trucking.

The "endless trips down thousands of miles of interstate, whilst remaining
alert" \- well that definitely sounds like something robots could do better
right now.

If I were "Lord of all truckers", I'd be negotiating right now. Build some
idiot-robot-proof lots near major cities that their new robot overlords could
drop off/pick up from, and then focus on just the difficult short trips from
these lots to drop-off/pick-up points. Nobody else seems to be working on
building these hubs, and truckers themselves could send a day working to/fro
and then sleep in their own beds.

~~~
Spooky23
Truckers are fucked because of motor carrier regulations that were changed to
bust unions in the 80s.

There’s no organization going to happen because distance trucking operates
from labor hostile states.

That said, the automation story is overplayed. Trains are the threat to
trucking as fuel goes up.

~~~
asaph
What about electric trucks?

------
eggy
“Large corporations pit worker against worker,” said Joe Gasperov, president
of ILWU Local 63, which represents the clerks. “I feel sorry for the truckers.
They’re exploited. They’re paid by the load, not the hour, so they assume all
the risk of terminal delays. And some companies care more about saving a buck
than servicing the trucks.”

Let's not pay by what you produce (number of loads), but by how much time you
take, and drivers will not care about the delays, and the ILWU will not care
about delays, and you will have a more efficient, egalitarian system? Yeah,
right. Then you will get ILWU types driving trucks and taking their time is
all you will have in the end.

~~~
noobermin
Should developers be paid by the lines of code they produce?

~~~
Nasrudith
If lines of code were a useful commodity in themselves? Yes it would be
reasonable. Now we know that is not the case and any attempt to do so would
ens in foregone disaster.

The reason not to do things like that is if said metrics can do more harm than
good. However freight is pretty commodity by definition. Aside from not doing
damage to goods and people, throughput is basically the only things that
matter in that context.

Employees demanding a "standby base rate" would also be sensible if they were
required to wait while lacking work to do.

~~~
noobermin
What about by files of code they produce? Or webpages or assets? I imagine
some contractors work this way.

Why can't what developers produce be commodified?

------
atentaten
It's interesting to see that one group (truckers) are welcoming automation
since it will boost their take home pay and the another group (longshoremen)
are resistant because automation reduces their job security. I wonder if the
truckers know that in the foreseeable future the activity of hauling
containers in and out of port will be automated as well.

~~~
ilaksh
Most assume it's too hard to automate any time soon.

But most people driving to work assume we are nowhere near automating that
either.

------
markus_zhang
Automation will come sooner or later for many, if not most of the jobs that we
have. Better to get prepared. From my POV, a lot of those jobs out there can
already be 100% automated with human watch, we simply keep them for
employment.

~~~
greglindahl
It's useful to look back in history: the automation of most of the work in
agriculture over the last 10,000 years turned out to be mostly great in
hindsight... but it was a lot slower than the pace of change today.

~~~
maxerickson
There also wasn't necessarily displacement.

Much of the agricultural automation that occurred in the 19th century was a
response to labor _shortages_ as people moved to industrial centers for jobs
that were more attractive than farm labor.

~~~
crdoconnor
In the UK people didn't move because the jobs were more attractive. They moved
because the enclosure movement stripped them of land and they had nowhere else
to go. They hated working in factories.

There are pamphlets by early industrialists who advocated this as a way of
dealing with labor shortages in their factories and the natural idleness of
peasants.

------
jmpman
My one experience with the port directly - I dropped off a car for a friend
shipping the vehicle overseas. A complete logistics nightmare, and when it
arrived in Europe, the plates had been stolen. Which port is to blame?
Impossible to say, but the European port would have less use for stolen US
plates.

------
flurdy
TL;DR:

Truckers are all for automation at the port, as it makes their job better as
there will be fewer queues and delays in loading their cargo. Their job
security is not affected and they can deliver quicker.

Port workers are against automation, as it replaces their job descriptions.

Many of the port workers are also unionised and have more influence over the
politicians and port authority. Truckers and immigrant port workers are not
unionised and less effective at being heard.

\--

Luddites will always resist technological improvements that reduce their job
security. Everyone else will be for it as it improves their interaction with
whatever that job delivers.

~~~
ghaff
Just about everyone (not just Luddites) will tend to resist technology changes
that reduce their job security.

Automation is certainly not always a net improvement for users of the
technology though. For example, self-service can certainly be good--ATMs,
provisioning servers, even scanning one or two quick items in the store. But
self-service for non-barcoded, awkwardly shaped, or just for large quantities
is mostly a regression relative to a cashier as are all the automated phone
systems that mostly try to keep you from actually reaching a person.

~~~
wolco
Self serve will improve to the point where scanning each item won't be
required.

~~~
ghaff
Assuming everything is tagged for the scanning system which, for example,
fresh produce often isn't. (Some chains get around this by packaging the fresh
produce so it doesn't need to be individually weighed. Of course this
generates additional packaging waste.)

But, yes, in general I expect self-serve checkout will get better/easier over
time.

~~~
wolco
Upscale stores all package the freshest looking biggest produce and sell as a
package for slightly more. Meat is similiar. Could be implemented right now in
some places.

~~~
ghaff
Whole Foods is pretty much unpackaged today for produce and much of the meat
and fish.

------
tehjoker
Very cool that management can get an anti-union piece in the mainstream media.
The bulk of the article is about sowing division within the working class, and
then there's some reasonable points by the union below the fold about how the
reason the truckers are salty is in part because they are getting screwed by
their management in a way that places them in opposition to the dockworkers by
being paid per load instead of hourly.

~~~
thesausageking
Or maybe using laws to prevent technology from making the port more efficient
has downsides that affect not just management and shipping companies, but
working class people as well.

~~~
tehjoker
How would keeping things exactly the same hurt working class people? Making
the port more efficient helps business and consumers, but not workers who are
continuously ground into the dirt, commanded, and deprived of basic
necessities. These workers have a decent job because they have banded together
to challenge management through their union.

Unfortunately, making things efficient on management's terms means that
workers are fired rather than sharing in the fruits of a more efficient
company. Only democratic ownership of the companies by the working class can
change this equation. Then improved efficiency would be enacted on the
workers' terms and would actually improve the lives of ordinary people.

