What is port automation — and why are striking workers concerned about it?

More than 7,400 unionized employees at more than 30 ports along British Columbia's coast are off the job in a labour dispute that concerns, among a number of issues, how automation will affect the future of work at vital maritime gateways for Canadian imports and exports.

The International Longshore and Warehouse Union Canada (ILWU), which represents the striking workers, has warned for years automation will be a threat to current and future jobs at the province's ports. 

There are now more than 50 terminals around the world with some degree of automation, according to a report from the International Transport Federation (ITF), incorporating equipment such as automated stacking cranes, gantries and guided transport vehicles controlled from remote operating centres. 

British Columbia has two semi-automated container terminals: Global Container Terminals' (GCT) Deltaport, which is located at the Roberts Bank Superport, 37 kilometres south of downtown Vancouver in the city of Delta; and DP World's Fairview Container Terminal in Prince Rupert on the North Coast.

But a proposed third terminal, the Roberts Bank Terminal 2 expansion project, which recently received federal approval, has the ILWU warning of what could come.

Weeks before the contract talks broke down and the strike began, on July 1, ILWU Canada president Rob Ashton warned of the "domino effect" a new automated terminal could have on the Port of Vancouver — Canada's busiest port — possibly forcing conventional terminals to automate as well. 

While port workers walk the picket lines to demand protections against what the union describes as the "devastating impacts" of automation, others warn slow movement on automation may pose its own risks to the industry and Canada's economy. 

The legitimate concerns for job loss have to be weighed against the greater benefit to consumers and the economy, said Joel Bilt, an economics professor at the University of Waterloo who has researched automation and the future of work.

He said it's "worrisome" how much Canada is falling behind when it comes to automation, in general, and the country is going to pay a price if it doesn't start catching up, noting Canada is now the second-least productive economy among its Group of Seven partners, with Japan in the bottom slot. 

"I really do see both sides," Blit said. "But we can't, as a country, allow the interests of one particular group to sort of stall the technological advance and the productivity advance of our economy." 

ILWU's Ashton, speaking to CBC Vancouver's Early Edition, pointed out that there is already some automated equipment in use at conventional container terminals and the union has worked with terminal operators to procure technology that can "help make the workers' job easier."

But he said it's a different situation entirely when it comes to automation that will take away jobs. 

Ashton referenced an ILWU-commissioned study, released in 2019, that estimated semi-automating work could lead to the elimination of 50 per cent of the workforce and as much as 90 per cent in the case of full automation — even when factoring in positions created as a result of automation.

While ports in other countries have already travelled further down the path to automation, they don't necessarily provide clear answers on whether it will kill jobs or keep people working.