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Note that Shanghai and Rotterdam's ports are already leagues ahead in terms of automation.

• gumby 7y ago
  On of the consequences of low union rate and very low wages is that the op ex of having an employee in the US is cheaper than the cap ex of automation. This is why you see such a high level of automation in Europe, Australia etc: cost of labor is higher. I think the US has made the wrong tradeoff, but this factor has gone back decades.
  • SPascareli 7y ago
    > On of the consequences of low union rate and very low wages is that the op ex of having an employee in the US is cheaper than the cap ex of automation. Are you saying that ports in China have high wages AND high union rates compared to US? Because even if that was true, it didn't stopped them automating the ports.
    • gumby 7y ago
      Good point I was talking about OECD countries, basically. China has a different problem, though related. Of course unions are illegal there ("not needed -- the communist party represents the workers"). But they have a large pool of uneducated very low cost labor they are trying to keep out of the cities (e.g. via Hukou system), trouble with controls on things like "shrinkage" (containers help a lot here) and yes, relatively high wages for the workers who are in the port cities (working in factories and white collar jobs).
• vanniv 7y ago
  LA Longshoremen have been fighting automation for my entire lifetime. Every five years, there's a rash of stories about it, and then Longshoremen eventually get even bigger guaranteed-pay-regardless-of-work deals, and the next token amount of automation happens.