A study commissioned from ILWU Canada evidences the loss of places of work determined from the automation of the harbour terminals



The automation of the harbour terminals will suppress thousands of places of work in the ports of British Columbia having removed every year hundred of million dollars to the economy of the region. The denunciation the Canadian division of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) commenting the conclusions of a study that the union, that it represents the North American workers harbour, has commissioned to the Prism Economics and Analysis in order to estimate which will be the impact of the introduction of the digitalisation and the automation in the harbour terminals of the British Columbia and, in particular, in three communities of the region - Prince Ruper, Delta and Vancouver - than mainly depends on the harbour field, analysis that is limited to the introduced technological innovations in the terminals that enliven containers as in those which they enliven bulk still is not applied effective technologies of automation.

The study evidences that the adoption of automated technologies in the ports of the world has determined a decrease of the harbour labor and cites the formulated forecast second this year from the World Maritime University which within 2040 until 90% of the places of work of crane operators or other harbour workers could be replaced from the automation of the activities. In order to estimate the economic impact deriving from the loss of places of work determined from the automation, the Prism has analyzed two scenes: a scene "Brownfield", based on the technological update of the current harbour terminals through "seeds automatization", in which the cut of places of work it is of 50% and a scene "Greenfield", that it takes in consideration harbour of new construction and "completely automated" terminals, that previews a reduction of 90% of the occupied ones.

In the 20178 they were the 6,428 employed harbour workers from the Maritime BC Employers Association (BCMEA). The workers full-time were 2,502, those occasional 3,926 and squad leaders 629, for a total of 7.057 places of concentrated job of which the majority in the field of the container. (than last year he has totaled the two third party of the business hours carried out from the harbour ones).

The analysis previews that in the Brownfield scene they would be to risk 5.990 places of job in the ports of the region (of which beyond 2.300 in the Delta, more than 2.200 to Vancouver and beyond 700 to Prince Rupert), included 4.736 places of work directed between ILWU and non-ILWU and induced 1.254 places of job, against the creation, for activity of maintenance and repair, 794 places of job, with balance negative of job 5.106 places.

In the Greenfield scene a doubling of the risk would be recorded almost that would regard job 10.783 places (of which 4,100 in the Delta, beyond 4.000 to Vancouver and 1.200 to Prince Rupert), constituted from directed 8.524 places of job between ILWU and non-ILWU and 2,259 in the induced one, against the creation of 1.513 new places of work, with a balance negative of 9.270 places.

The study previews that in the Brownfield scene the reduction of the total yields of the workers, of the contributions of the employers to the pension and social insurance plans caused from the automation would pile of 349 million dollars, with a decrease of 36,6 million dollars to the jettison at sea of the federal taxes, of 16,1 million to the jettison at sea of the provincial taxes and of 4,6 million to the jettison at sea of the municipal taxes. In the Greenfield scene, instead, the cut would be attested to 628 million dollars totally, with decreases of 66,6 million dollars to the jettison at sea of the federal taxes, of 28,9 million to the jettison at sea of the provincial taxes and of 8,3 million to the jettison at sea of the municipal taxes.