What about at the Port of Seattle, less than 20 miles from software giant Microsoft and a short ride from Boeing labs that develop high-tech jetliners and hush-hush military aircraft?
There, clerks are paid to punch in container information -- cargo, ship and destination -- that has already been typed in once before, may be re-entered several times more and could be automatically handled via simple software -- if the contract would only allow it.
How much technology is adopted at the Port of Seattle and other West Coast ports -- and on whose terms -- has emerged as a central issue in contract negotiations between the International Longshore and Warehouse Union and the Pacific Maritime Association, which represents shipping lines.
"It's so close you can taste it practically," Joe Weber, Pacific Northwest area manager for the PMA, said of the technological change. "But we're not able to do it because we're living in an anachronism. ... Information that we would expect to freely flow on the Internet regarding cargo is artificially shortstopped at the perimeter of the terminal."
The union, which has been locked out from work for a week by the PMA as the contract dispute continues, is not opposed to new technology, said ILWU spokesman Steve Stallone. But he said the union wants to make sure that any remaining jobs and any new jobs created as a result of that technology are union positions and not eventually outsourced to nonunion companies or even other countries.
"We want jobs that support our communities, so people have money to live decently and to support the communities around them," he said.
The PMA concedes the new technology could result in the loss of hundreds of jobs along the West Coast.
But the employers association also warns that without modernizing West Coast ports, the region will lose its competitive edge as other ports in the United States, Canada and Mexico seek to siphon away valuable container traffic.
Although the PMA has not specified which improvements employers want to install, a number of existing technological changes could improve how containers are moved around terminals, said Tom Ward, with Oakland, Calif.-based JWD Group, which handles terminal planning and analysis. His firm has done work for the PMA.
For example, ports can use automated inventory control; satellite positioning system devices on containers to track movement; and video terminals at gates with scanners to read container ID numbers and automatically feed and retrieve information into a centralized computer system.
Many ports have adopted such practices, both internationally and on the East Coast, where competition and proximity spur faster change, Ward said.
The Port of New Jersey has come close to doing away with people altogether at the gates, letting truckers enter, get assignments and drop off cargo automatically. That's one of the major problems for the union.
Pete Fisher of Seattle, who, like his father, works as a longshoreman, is worried about the future of union jobs.
"We do have to take a stance," he says.
Weber concedes there have been technological changes to streamline operations over the years, but there hasn't been a coordinated adoption of new technologies.
"It's done inefficiently, and you've got to battle it out foxhole by foxhole with the union," he said.
Copyright 2002. Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
