In October last year, dockworkers went on strike, demanding a 77 percent increase in wages over the next six years. This strike included the Port of Virginia, which employs 450 people. In early January, a deal was struck with the International Longshoremen's Association, which established this wage increase and placed restrictions on automation in the shipping process. While wages were due for an increase, the demand to slow the progress of automation in the shipping industry is unsustainable. Technology will inevitably improve. Cranes, paperwork and other labor can be replicated cheaply by computerized automation, so preventing companies from implementing technology runs against the natural current of progress. Instead of continuing to demand decreased automation, the union should work with the legislature in the hopes of driving investment into the reorganization of the current workforce. This will both ensure that dock workers have jobs in the future while also letting industrial progress run its course.
For Virginian dockworkers, a deal was necessary to reconcile record profit increases in the last few years with vast disparities in dock worker wages across the East Coast. Dockworkers are, on average, the highest earning blue-collar workers, with the average wage over six figures. However, this national average is not reflective of Virginia’s wages. For Virginian dockworkers, the state average comes out to about $80,000 or $38 per hour. Although Virginian dockworkers certainly work just as hard as other union ports, their efforts are not reflected in their paychecks. The 77 percent increase in wages will substantially improve the quality of life for dockworkers for the time being. What fails to improve their quality of life in the long run, however, is the union’s oblivious resistance towards automation.
The Port of Virginia has agreed to raise wages for the next six years, but the future of dockworking as a career is still quite uncertain. Technology continues to improve, which makes the need for human workers decline — potentially allowing companies like the POV to dramatically drop operating costs. Considering these factors, the idea that companies will compromise with union wage demands in the future is foolhardy. With the acceleration of automated technology, why would a company pay several crane operators increasing union wages and benefits, when they could invest in automation and pay just one operator? If technology drives the opportunity cost of employment too high, everyone will lose their jobs — regardless of how high their salaries are.
Evidence of such a dilemma has been demonstrated all over the United States and across various industries in the last few decades, from government bailouts of unprofitable airline and automobile industries to a recent refusal to acknowledge the U.S. Steel Industry’s inefficiency. But viewing the allowance of automation as a pure loss in the job market is irrational as well. The combination of union action and government investment can aid the transition of automation into one which positively improves the lives of those left behind by automation.
Take Pittsburgh for example — once an infamous “Rust Belt” city pre-2000, now revitalized into an educated, high-earning metropolis. Due to cheaper operating costs across the border, the steel industry dried up, forcing the city to change what industries it chose to support. In place of steel, it focused on building an educated workforce and economy in Carnegie Mellon University and University of Pittsburgh, improving the environment for startups and encouraging immigration to expand its tax base. Instead of ignoring the decline of the steel industry, Pittsburgh chose to actively support its former-steel working-class by developing its education system — one which introduced workers to new trades and career opportunities.
Comparatively, Virginia has the benefit of already having a highly educated workforce and developed service industry. Nevertheless, the example of Pittsburgh illustrates exactly how the government and companies within Virginia can avoid an unemployment crisis for future dockworkers. The legislature could continue to invest money in other developing sectors — particularly a growing energy field — which would grow career opportunities for working-class individuals. Unions should not be opposed to innovation in the shipping industry, but rather, should be active participants in the legislation that would support their members beyond whatever may become of the industry.
This is not to say that the transition from shipping jobs will not be painful — changing jobs is exceptionally difficult for those who have worked in shipping for decades. Following Amazon’s method of retraining could ease this process, which transitions workers into service positions using well-funded training. Learning how to be successful in an office-focused, computer-oriented, human-centered role requires time and effort, but Amazon has realized that this investment pays off. Regardless, if the dockworkers union does not change willingly and embrace retraining legislation, it will soon be forced to. To avoid the reality of automation and the threat of unemployment is to stick one’s head in the sand and expect everything to remain the same.
One cannot hold off on automation forever — the potential profits are simply too lucrative and workers too expensive. The best thing that Virginia’s union can do for its shipping workers is provide the space and resources for them to transition into new fields that have the potential to remain even as automation sweeps through most industries. Virginia has the opportunity to be proactive in its economy, and legislators should jump on the chance while they still can.
Paul Kurtzweil is an opinion columnist who writes about economics, business and housing for The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at opinion@cavalierdaily.com.
The opinions expressed in this column are not necessarily those of The Cavalier Daily. Columns represent the views of the authors alone.
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