The Maritime Union of Australia has secured a historic agreement at Hutchison Ports that locks in jobs, delivers big gains in wages and conditions, and slams the door on automation for the life of the deal. The agreement was struck without any industrial action being taken.
MUA Deputy National Secretary Warren Smith said this is a clear victory for workers against the global push for automation as well as for the day to day lives of wharfies working at Hutchison. The Agreement also ensures secure work for more wharfies, reducing the likelihood of psychosocial harm resulting for insecure work.
Smith noted that the Hutchison outcome lands at a time of escalating tension with neighbouring terminal operator DP World, where members are staring down an automation push which will make no improvement to waterfront productivity. The MUA has committed to an all-of-union fight to stand up to DP World’s productivity reducing, job destroying automation.
SafetyNet reported recently on the DP World push for to replace human driven straddle cranes in Brisbane and Melbourne ports with slower, less accurate and less safe robotic cranes.
“This is a victory for every worker at Hutchison and across the whole waterfront as it will expose the productivity myth of automation. Stevedoring companies who want to use job-destroying, ineffective, slow and unsafe automation experiments will end up behind on contracts, behind on productivity and will not have a positive relationship with their workforce that can help lift productivity or build market share,” Smith said.
Evidence from international container operations shows that automated container terminals are not as productive as those employing highly skilled Stevedores, are consistently slower and more expensive, and are less safe for workers.
The International Transport Forum (an intergovernmental organisation with 63 member countries) itself acknowledged the shortfalls of automation in their Container Port Automation: Impacts and Implications policy analysis. It is often assumed that the safety and health of terminal workers is improved by automation. However, there is little robust empirical data to support this assumption.
Automation in container terminals may reduce human errors, but automation is also likely to require greater operation competencies and unlearning of old routines and may even lead to new kinds of human errors (Walters and Wadsworth, 2021). Several automated ports have been confronted with accidents related to automated equipment. Two such incidents prompted the port authority of Auckland in New Zealand to temporarily halt the usage of automated straddle carriers in 2021 out of safety, ultimately costing the company at least $65M.
Key victories in the MUA – Hutchison Ports Agreement include:
- A binding ban on automation at Hutchison terminals in Sydney and Brisbane. No remote cranes, no driverless trucks, no job-destroying machines. Human-operated terminals.
- Solid wage rises, increased superannuation, stronger rosters and grading improvements, and quality income protection.
- Introduction of secure Part-Time Permanent roles and new secure Permanent rosters, with strict limits to prevent bosses flooding the workforce or undermining existing jobs.
- A productivity framework that puts workers in the driver’s seat, proving that human labour outperforms robots and securing the long-term viability of union jobs.