quote:
And the crane operators need a regular quota of cargo they have to move. Nothing insane and unsafe but taking your slow arse time should never be tolerated.

I'd imagine they do. I'm not sure if this is relevant to the current situation or not - but Long Beach is a landlord port, who leases individual container terminals to an outside operator. Its really more of a business operations agreement and most major west coast ports operate this way while Houston, Savannah and a lot of east coast port handle the operations internally, still contracting out to the unions where necessary.

But the terminal operator handles logistics, contracting out with the various unions, etc. Most ports who operate as a landlord also include a minimum volume guarantee either per TEU, sometimes to streamline it, they have a single through-rate per ship based on classification.

So at least in the case of the landlord ports (aka, the west coast) there is a private company who benefits from volume and efficiency with increased revenue. I have never seen the arrangement with various port unions, but I'd imagine that the arrangements are also structured for higher volume while maintaining efficiency increases revenue. The actual crane operator may be getting a base salary, but the union contract likely has breakpoints where they get additional revenue over a certain annual TEU volume.

Also, when they reference the automated crane terminal in long beach, this was a decade long project that was just completed and is one of the most advanced facilities in the world. Its efficiency isn't just from cranes moving faster, the entire facility was designed from the ground up for this purpose and has tons of software advantages over older terminals - which are usually expanded in stages so don't have the same comprehensive design.

This post was edited on 10/17/21 at 11:13 am