Why Aren’t America’s Shipping Ports Automated? | Hacker News Reader

Why Aren’t America’s Shipping Ports Automated?

priceonomics.com

Why compare Rotterdam (Europe's largest) to Oakland?

Let's compare to Los Angeles (America's largest) instead ...

Rotterdam moves about 50% more containers, but services 36,000 ships vs. Los Angeles 2,100. Los Angeles sits on 7,500 acres with a 3,200 acre harbor while Rotterdam sits on 13,000(!) acres with a 13,000 acre harbor.

Dunno, for all that automation, Rotterdam doesn't look that much more efficient--and it uses a lot more land and water to do so.

If we include Long Beach which is effectively next to Los Angeles, the two ports combined move MORE containers in a year than Rotterdam while sitting on less land and harbor space.

So, as we can see, the antiquated, evil longshoreman's union is ... more efficient than the best automation in Europe.

Ummmmmmmmm.

Now, quit reposting this agenda driven hit piece.

It seems to me that the relevant metric would be the ports' per-container handling fees. According to the article, Oakland charges $300, but it doesn't provide comparable numbers to compare against.

Rotterdam's ships arrive after having dropped off cargo at may ports along the way as they travel from Asia, whereas those arriving in LA are making their first port of call of the journey. That accounts for the difference in containers unloaded per ship.

What if we measure efficiency in cost per container moved, rather than size of port per container moved?

That's a great point, Rotterdam and Oakland are both not great choices for comparisons. However, there is a general point that US ports such as LA + Long Beach do lag in efficiency compared to Asian ports such as Singapore for example (which is heavily automated but also unionized).

For example in "CONTAINER TERMINAL PRODUCTIVITY: EXPERIENCES AT THE PORTS OF LOS ANGELES AND LONG BEACH" Le and Murphy give some comparisons of LA and Long Beach to other leading terminals.

Taking Singapore as our main example, as of 2004 it moved 2.7 as much container volume as LA but occupied roughly half the land area. It has 6 times the TEU/acre of LA and 64% higher TEU/crane. General trends also hold for Kwai Tsing (HK) and Klang (Malaysia).

To quote Le and Murphy in the above-mentioned paper:

"Further consideration of these factors reveals that the terminal operators at these ports are aware of the technologies and practices used at other world ports that would allow them to achieve a higher level of performance. However, the present operating agreements between terminal operators and port labor prevent the implementation of such technologies and practices."

LA and Long Beach may also be hampered somewhat in that we apply pollution regulations to them, do these other ports have those restrictions?

Effectively, "it's complicated".

Everything is complicated, and we live in a world of high causal density, but that does not mean we should throw up our hands in dismay and self-pity.

It is clear that the union is exploiting its monopoly on the supply of port labor, to decrease efficiency, and increase costs and union membership. For some reason, most people are less likely to attribute high costs to monopoly unions, but more than happy to do so for monopoly corporations.

I don't think their agenda is anti union as much as it is driven by generating readership.

We see lots of these kind of on the surface interesting articles, but when it comes to having any meat, there isn't any. Just this morning on npr, there was a piece about white and Asian students being disproportionately designated as gifted, but then went on to say that there were no resources afforded those students anyway, so it was all for naught. They might as well have nominated all students as gifted because nothing accompanied such nomination.

It's like congress saying everyone is on the us presidential ballot, except everyone who is six foot three. I could complain, but it makes no difference. It's not as if you get a consolation prize.

Now, surely, _if_ they had resources behind the charade, then yes, they should try to identify all gifted students, but as is, its a meaningless designation.

er, what does volume of traffic or harbor size have to do with efficiency? And a larger number of smaller ships in Rotterdam seems harder to process, so that would count in favor of LA.

The ideal metric would be $ cost per container; we don't have that in the article, but he does talk about containers per crane, which while not perfect, is at least relevant.

Imagine my surprise when the answer is "unions"

Damn those workers for wanting a living. How dare they. Scum, all of them.

"Today, the average member of the union in Oakland makes $147,000 per year in wages, with benefits equal to another $82,000 per year."

That is a huge amount of money, especially considering that includes entry level positions. While I understand these machines are complicated, and don't blame them for wanting to keep their jobs, I didn't expect over 200k a year total to be the average.

This is especially true considering that the average individual income in Oakland is around 32k a year. (http://www.bestplaces.net/economy/city/california/oakland)

It's only huge because everyone else has had their wages frozen since 2008.

I find it interesting (if a bit sad) that your reaction to that earnings disparity is, essentially, "Union workers make too much money" rather than "Everyone else makes too little." In the free market, it seems everyone is allowed to negotiate the price of their goods except the wage-workers.

Why does HN rally against the big companies that use regulatory capture to squeeze out more profits, but then gives unions a pass. They are doing the same thing: supporting legislation that allows them to squeeze out more profits (as wages).

Unions are corrupt. Corporations are corrupt. In the absence of a magic wand to fix both, I side with the group whose interests are broader and more like mine.

I am not sure which side has interests 'more like yours' in cases like this one. On the one side, the union is trying to squeeze their employers for as much money as possible, which is a benefit for the members but raises the cost of consumer goods, and reduces the earning potential of everyone working at a (goods) exporter. On the other hand, each port is trying to gain an upper hand in capacity and cost against its competitors, by reducing salary (and other) costs, which will allow it to retain a greater portion of the earnings (if they succeed), but will benefit consumers of foreign made goods, and exporters (regardless of whether the port succeeds in capturing more profits).

The average citizen's interests seem to be much better aligned with those of the port, as the benefits of competition will serve to distribute cost reductions to all users of product which pass through the ports.

A single employee doesn't have much leverage compared to a company. The only leverage a worker has is the "freedom" to quit. For most companies this is a minor annoyance, but nothing they really worry about.

Compare this to the leverage a company has. It controls wages, work hours, work conditions and can fire a worker. This can have devastating impacts on the life of a worker. Unions are the only realistic option for the average workers to have an impact. It levels the playing field.

Unions can certainly have too much power and make self destructive decisions, but you can say the same about many corporations. This is not a problem with unions or corporations, but with a power balance that is out of control.

The only option to a union is strict regulations from the goverment, but that has problems of its own. At least the union has a more direct interest and domain knowledge about their work place

Until recently I would have agreed with many of your points, but I recently read a post to the contrary.[1] Here is a short excerpt:

>Everyone talks as if bosses have the better end. But talk is very different from action. If everyone were trying to start their own businesses and hire workers, that would count as "acting as if bosses have the better end of the deal." Most workers, however, make no effort to become entrepreneurs. You could object that most workers don't have the money to open their own businesses, but most rich workers make no effort to become entrepreneurs either.

[1] http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2015/09/scott_alexander_...

The problem is that in this case the union is the one standing in the way of other people making more money. Longshoremen's unions are notoriously corrupt and exclusive. I have no idea what the situation is today but traditionally it was nearly impossible to gain entry into a longshoremen's union unless your father was in one, or you had some similar connection.

1. Unions are not free market. They goal is to create a monopoly (hence have greater bargaining power).

I don't really understand. How is it that they make so much money?

Seemingly a lot of evening, nighttime and overtime work.

http://pma.uberflip.com/i/547677-pma-annual-report-2014/55

This is only taking "registered union members" into consideration, and many of those working lots of overtime. A good portion of longshore work is done by "casuals" who are paid less and work less hours as they gain the work experience to get into the union. There are no "entry level" positions for union members, almost everyone starts out as a non-union casual making ~25/hour for unpredictable work.

I think when all is said and done, the average longshore worker's salary is actually around 70-80k, with the average age being 45-50, but it depends on the year, agreements, etc.

As for the extra "benefits", that's just health insurance + pension, which nobody else ever calculates into your salary for any other job.

The Oakland numbers you're giving are per capita, not per household. If you cut out households making nothing, 80k isn't particularly remarkable for an Oakland income.

Remember any time a group of people cooperates to maximize profit for it's members, it is....

Oh right - bad if the group of people isn't already wealthy. This is because unions are defined as bad.

Good when it's a group of already (relatively) wealthy people. This is because corporations are defined as good.

I know I know... it's because of the fact that unions involve the government in their actions. No - that's not it... The corporations do that too.

Maybe it's that the corporations don't engage in corrupt behavior like the unions do, and hire people only using free market principles - like that time google and apple (etc) decided to price fix engineering hires. (oh no... that's not right either).

Honestly I don't see a lot of difference between unions and corporations, other than the starting conditions of the people who form them. Well, once you replace the loaded terms with descriptions of the behaviors both engage in.

In a healthy, well-regulated market, corporations compete to provide products and services. This provides everyone with incentives to improve quality and lower costs, and prevents a single corporation from charging monopoly rents, which is good for society.

Unions do not compete with each other. In fact, the entire point of unions is to eliminate competition in the labor market. Unions have a government-sanctioned monopoly on certain types of labor, and the existence of a monopoly drives up prices and reduces the incentives to perform quality work. All else equal, this is bad for society.

Of course all else is not equal, there are lots of positive aspects to collective bargaining - it does help rectify the otherwise-significant power differential between individual employees and large corporations - and there are reasonable arguments that the labor movement and unionization in general have been massive drivers of improved human well-being over the last century. But that doesn't mean that unions and corporations are two sides of the same coin -- they play very different roles in the market and have very different regulatory considerations.

Making a living through contract-enforced inefficiency might be considered a type of parasitism.

It is the definition of a monopoly rent.[1]

[1] http://www.palgraveconnect.com/esm/doifinder/10.1057/9781137...

Freedom of association should be an enshrined right that is not open to negotiation or compromise, and a counterbalance to capitalists overarching influence in their lobbies and trade associations, and also a neutralizing force for the excess in labor supply as a consequence of population growth. However, unions desperately need some serious and urgent reforms to join the 21st century and leave behind these old habits and antics for it to succeed in securing workers rights.

User feedback, and policy transparency?

Tools like LiquidFeedback: http://www.liquidfeedback.org/

Well, that's what the hand weavers wanted when the automated loom came out, and I don't think anyone thinks it would have been a good idea to destroy the automated loom to help them keep having jobs

sadly, those same unions, due to their ongoing conflict and work slowdowns, has caused the Port of Portland to lose almost all container business.

the bigger downside to this is that farmed goods aren't able to make it to the international market: http://www.opb.org/news/article/port-portland-farmers-agricu...

while i applaud them for helping retain a living wage, some of their actions have had severe negative consequences where you would least expect it, our farmers.

It also has the downside of clogging up I-5(which is two-lane for the majority of the N-Or/S-Wa section) with a ton of semi traffic.

One thing the article nor earlier short discussions here fail to mention is that a ship costs money every day, also when in port.

Consequently, speeding up unloading means one can raise prices or become more competitive, either with other ports or with other modes of transport. The latter may mean that job losses due to automation get partly offset by job gains due to increases in traffic.

Double repost: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10266191 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10262186

What would happen if someone tried to open a new port?

make that port automated as well. Provide a control system between them that allows for expansion.

Most of the best natural ports are already developed. Also, having a great modern port is not much good if you don't have the transportation infrastructure in place to distribute goods from the port.

I would like to point to a very interesting Ask HN from a few months ago. Shipping and logistics came up and was the most up voted discussion. Lots of great discussion there.

"Ask HN: What problem in your industry is a potential startup?"

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9799007

So much value can be unlocked by automating the ports that there would be plenty of room for a negotiated settlement to make the unions happy as well.

I don't disagree, but you need some numbers to back that up.

You have to get the containers out of the port as well.

So, can the rail system or trucking transfer point handle another 25% in volume?

To top that off, these ports are some of the biggest pollution sources. What happens when you add 25% to the traffic?

These things aren't simple choices.

You don't need a lot of numbers to understand that unloading ships 24/7/52 is better than unloading only during union work hours.

Reference please that the longshoremen don't work night shifts.

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