Ocean cargo: Dockworkers use the “green card” to leverage contract talks

Patrick Burnson, Executive Editor -- Logistics Management, 3/24/2008

SAN FRANCISCO—At a time when ports, terminal operators, and ocean carriers are making unprecedented moves to reduce dockside pollution, organized labor is seizing upon the emotional issue to leverage public opinion in its favor during contract talks.

“The technology now exists to create cleaner, greener ports and ships,” said Clarence Thomas, a spokesman for the San Francisco Bay Area dockworkers with the International Longshore andWarehouse Union (ILWU) Local 10. “The ILWU is encouraging the Port of Oakland and the shipping companies to take such steps as switching to lower-sulfur fuels and installing engine particulate filters so that the American economy and its children can remain healthy.”

His remarks were made public following the health risk assessment released late last week by the California Air Resources Board.

Conspicuous by its absence, was any mention by the ILWU of strategies the union could put into place to ease pollution: namely, supply chain velocity. Yet if there is one area of agreement among maritime analysts, it is that speed of throughput equals “greener” ports.

Among the cleanest gateways is Rotterdam, where dockworkers maintain night shifts to discharge cargo as expeditiously as possible during hours when the highways are free of traffic. The Netherlands has been a leader in promoting environmental causes and worker safety for many years. Rotterdam is also among the most technologically advanced gateways in the world, using “robotics” to replace jobs posing the most physical threat to longshoremen. Such changes have been steadfastly resisted by the ILWU.

Union Facts, a Washington, DC-based industry watchdog, describes the ILWU tactics as rather “typical” for diverting attention away from issues on the table.

“The air traffic controllers did something similar during their negotiations,” said spokesman, Tim Miller. “At that time, they expressed alarm over the threat to the community posed by lost or missing aircraft in so-called ‘black zones’ where radar tracking failed. Upon further investigation, the Federal Aviation Administration found the claims to be greatly exaggerated, and not to be the consequence of substitute controller’s oversight.