Paper short abstract:

Drawing on ethnographic data collected on the job with longshoremen at the Ports of Los Angeles/Long Beach, this paper provides a critical analysis of the struggle over Maersk’s ongoing efforts to automate Pier 400 at the Port of Los Angeles.

Paper long abstract:

Since 2018, the 16,000+ longshoremen whose labor powers the twin ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach have organized a series of protests aimed at forestalling a massive new port automation project currently being implemented by Maersk APL, which operates the port’s largest container terminal. Drawing on interviews and ethnographic data collected on the job with longshoremen at the Southern California port complex, this paper argues that port automation is a ruse––it is, in effect, a ploy to enable management to reduce labor costs and undermine longshore power. The paper plays out in three parts. Part one consists of an account of the debate at LA in conversation with recent scholarly work that deals critically with the politics of automation. In part two, I analyze two key pieces of automated port equipment, namely the driverless container cranes that Maersk has begun to install at Pier 400 and the automated container sorting yard at the nearby Long Beach Container Terminal, the latter of which is based on an optical AI system with backup human-in-the-loop operators. And finally, in part three I compare the experience of working on an automated terminal to the experience of working at a conventional terminal. Central here is the concept of “the audibles of labor,” a longshore term that refers to the ability of port workers to adjust their work plan on the fly by talking to one another on the job. Port automation, I argue, is an overt attack on the audibles of labor.