Dockworkers' fight a warning about the future of work
Dockworkers are fighting for the future of work, fearing automation will take their jobs. Even those who stay employed worry that the tech will strip their work of its worth.
The warning from the dockworkers' three-day strike is clear: The future of work is a battle for survival. And the conflict isn't just about remaining employed. People who survive an employer's automation initiative might see their jobs become meaningless.
The union reached a tentative agreement late Thursday, ending the three-day strike temporarily. Workers focused the walkout on wages, automation and job security.
Dockworkers have good reason to be worried about automation. In a report earlier this year, the Labor Center at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) examined the effects of automation at the San Pedro Bay Port Complex in Los Angeles. It found that according to a 2022 study, automation cost as many as 627 jobs out of the 13,000 dockworker jobs, or nearly 5%. The study included scenarios where more jobs could be lost to advancing technology.
But the dockworkers' strike might also have shed light on another issue by raising broader questions about the meaning of work.
Automation can devalue jobs. According to a new study, robots could take over many tasks, leaving workers with less meaningful roles.
"Robotization increases the routine tasks that workers report doing -- repetitive, monotonous tasks -- and reliance on the robot's pace of work," said Milena Nikolova, a professor of the economics of well-being at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. She studied the effects of robotization on European workers and the future of work in a recent paper.
"Robotization leads to fewer interactions with colleagues and less problem-solving and learning," Nikolova said. "It is therefore unsurprising that robotization also makes the jobs of European workers less meaningful."
Nikolova noted that some tasks can't be easily turned into steps a robot can follow. Humans often do these tasks, while robots take on tasks that are easily described. For humans, "your work becomes less varied and more monotonous, reducing the overall diversity of tasks you perform," she said.
Shaping the future of work
Compared with U.S. workers, European workers currently have more job protections. But in the U.S., some unions, such as the International Longshoremen's Association, are experiencing a moment of considerable power that could shape the future of work.
Automation likes repetition and predictability, and so when you automate, you are going to have the most repetitive, boring, potentially harmful tasks left for humans to perform.
Tia KoonseLegal and policy research manager, UCLA Labor Center
"Automation likes repetition and predictability, and so when you automate, you are going to have the most repetitive, boring, potentially harmful tasks left for humans to perform," said Tia Koonse, the legal and policy research manager at the UCLA Labor Center.
Koonse sees the unfolding negotiations as an important moment. "There isn't another workforce that has the kind of power to cripple the economy like this one," Koonse said. It will raise the visibility of this issue. "All eyes are going to be on what these guys are able to hammer out at the bargaining table," she said.
There are also questions about whether vendors are overselling their automation technology and whether managers are expecting too much from it.
Hal Salzman, a professor of planning and public policy at Rutgers University, said automation tech is often oversold, with post-installation audits revealing that it takes longer and costs more than anticipated to implement. He said it can be challenging to figure out the net savings because changes in processes are offset by hiring in other areas, such as system maintenance.
Employers often find that gradually reducing the workforce through retirements and natural attrition is "sufficient because the systems take longer to be installed and function effectively," Salzman said in an email.
There is also another argument experts like the University of Groningen's Nikolova sometimes make: Over time, automation is expected to create more jobs.
"Today, 60% of workers are in jobs that didn't exist in 1940," Nikolova said.
Patrick Thibodeau is an editor at large for TechTarget Editorial who covers HCM and ERP technologies. He's worked for more than two decades as an enterprise IT reporter.
