Junior bankers are jumping ship from Goldman Sachs over complaints of late nights, paltry bonuses, and feeling 'unappreciated'

rhodkin@businessinsider.com (Reed Alexander,Dakin Campbell) - Yesterday 

Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon has made no bones of

 his desire to get staffers back to the office. 

Michael Kovac / Getty Image

There's unrest on the healthcare team at Goldman Sachs, where 11 junior bankers recently quit.

Six bankers left on the same day last week, Insider exclusively reported.

Bankers complained about long hours, intense demands, and disappointing bonuses.

At least 11 junior bankers at Goldman Sachs have quit in recent weeks, with six of them — all first-year analysts — handing in their resignations on the same day last week, according to a person close to the bank.

The analysts and associates were members of the ultra-elite Wall Street bank's healthcare investment-banking team, and represented about one sixth of the team's junior workforce in New York.

"It'll definitely be stressful to the group" to handle this chunk of bankers exiting at roughly the same time, said one current US employee at Goldman. Now, senior bankers on the team may be apt to take their feet "off the gas pedal" in seeking out new business opportunities, said a former associate who departed earlier this month.

That associate said a major factor for their departure was the payout of paltry bonuses by Wall Street standards. This person said that other associates had received year-end bonuses, which are paid to junior bankers in August, ranging between $25,000 to $75,000 — and that set off alarm bells. For comparison, the year prior, some top-performing associates earned $200,000 bonuses as a "thank you" for their efforts, the person said.

The current US employee, who has since spoken firsthand with some of the ex-analysts who left last week, said they were tired of feeling "unappreciated" by their bosses and routinely working until 5 a.m.

The person close to the bank disputed the notion that these 11 departures were an anomaly, saying that their timing reflects the spate of departures that can sometimes happen at Wall Street banks after juniors receive their bonuses in late summer. "There's always natural turnover around bonus season, and this small number of departures is par for the course," the person told Insider.

Goldman's healthcare team has advised on five announced M&A transactions over the past three months, including Amazon's blockbuster $4 billion takeover of primary-care provider One Medical. The bank's healthcare advisory practice is the second biggest fee earner on Wall Street following rival JPMorgan Chase, according to data from Dealogic.

For all the details on what's going on and what it could mean for the powerhouse healthcare banking team at Goldman, read Insider's full report here.

Rules need change to keep international students in Canada and fill labour gaps: RBC

OTTAWA — Researchers with RBC are calling for an urgent reset of Canada's immigration process to keep talented international students in the country to fill key labour shortages.



The path from becoming an international student to a permanent resident in Canada is not a straight line, lead researcher Ben Richardson and editor Yadullah Hussain said in a new paper for RBC Thought Leadership.

"Once they finish school, thousands of international students find themselves lost in this labyrinth that is the road to permanent residency," the authors explained.

The daunting task of navigating the complicated system may be turning qualified and much-needed workers away.

"Trouble in navigating a complex system adds to student stress and could deter many students from pursuing their Canadian dream," the researchers wrote.

According to a separate RBC Economics report, businesses posted almost 70 per cent more job openings in Canada as of June 2022, compared to pre-pandemic. But these firms were competing for 13 per cent fewer unemployed workers than were available in February 2020.

Richardson and Hussain argue health-care worker shortages in particular are a wake-up call for Canada to be more strategic in expanding and retaining its international student pool.

The pair laid out seven recommendations to hold on to Canadian-educated students from abroad while filling jobs in key industries like STEM, health care and green trades.

One of the issues, they said, is that study permit holders are limited to only 20 hours of off-campus work per week to protect the immigration system from potential abuse.

Given the tight labour markets, the researchers argue there is a case to allow international students to accumulate more Canadian work experience in their field of study.

They say a lack of work experience is a key barrier to students finding a job after they graduate, which also puts them at a disadvantage when it comes to getting permanent residency.

They also suggest the government should provide guidance on targeted work-study programs that more closely align with the skills needed by provincial governments and employers.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 1, 2022.

Laura Osman, The Canadian Press

Defence lawyers to stage walkout in Edmonton and Calgary Friday over legal aid funding

CBC/Radio-Canada - Yesterday 

Alberta defence lawyers will stage a 90-minute courthouse walkout in Edmonton and Calgary on Friday morning, to protest the lack of progress in their fight with the provincial government for increased legal aid funding.


Defence lawyers will stay out of the courtroom in Calgary 

and Edmonton on Friday morning for 90 minutes.© Cort Sloan/CBC

The planned walkout will take place between 9 and 10:30 a.m. The demonstration is the latest salvo in the ongoing battle between lawyers and Justice Minister Tyler Shandro and the provincial government over legal aid funding.

"Across the province, defence lawyers have decided that enough is enough," the lawyers stated in a joint news release issued Wednesday afternoon by the Calgary, Edmonton, Red Deer and southern Alberta defence lawyers associations.

"The government's funding commitment arrears now sit at $80 million."

Legal Aid Alberta (LAA) is a non-profit organization that provides legal services to Albertans in family, domestic violence, child welfare, immigration and criminal defence cases.

Joseph Dow, Shandro's press secretary, said earlier this month that Alberta offers more legal aid services than other jurisdictions and that since 2015, the government has increased funding to LAA by 47 per cent.

According to figures from LAA's annual reports, provincial government funding did increase by 47 per cent between the 2015-16 fiscal year and 2018-19, but decreased for the next two years.

"We're not here to play politics, which Shandro is," Criminal Trial Lawyers Association president Danielle Boisvert told CBC News.

"I would tell him 'stop playing politics and get the job done. You're in a position of power. Make it happen'."

Boisvert said no meetings or negotiations are currently scheduled with justice department officials or the justice minister.

"The level of frustration is increasing insofar as the lack of response from the government," Boisvert said. "That really actually only strengthens our resolve."

Beginning Thursday, the defence lawyers will stop accepting new legal aid cases for the most serious criminal charges, including sex assaults and homicides.

"With defence lawyers no longer willing to prop up a broken system, our courts will be swamped with more and more self-represented persons," states the joint news release from the four associations.

"Matters will take longer, backlogs will mount, access to justice will decline and overall system costs will increase."

Alberta extends deadline for Athabasca U on deal to move staff into town

Alberta's advanced education minister has extended a deadline for a distance learning university to move more staff to the small town where it is headquartered.

Demetrios Nicolaides says he's granted a brief extension for Athabasca University to comply with his decree to move 500 staff to the town the institution is named for.

He has threatened to withhold the school's $3.4-million monthly grant if the school fails to comply.

Nicolaides did not specify a new deadline.

The university has resisted the demand, saying it will make it harder to recruit top talent and waste money, time and other resources.

Nicolaides says he believes that Athabasca University can excel while strengthening ties to the community and driving employment and economic growth the region.

Athabasca is Canada's largest online university, hosting 40,000 students linked up virtually across Canada and beyond with instructors.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 31, 2022.

Canadian grocers keep raking in sky-high profits, but does that equal ‘greedflation’?

Sean Boynton -

Canada's major grocery chains continue to see their sales and profits rise in the midst of record-high inflation, but a new report says it's hard to determine if they are taking advantage of the situation by profiteering.

The report from Dalhousie University's Agri-Food Analytics Lab, released Thursday, compared the year-end profit margins of the three major chains — Loblaw, Metro, and Empire Co., which owns Sobeys — over the past four years and found they stayed "relatively consistent," leaving little public evidence of so-called "greedflation."

"Indeed, revenues have increased dramatically, but so have the costs of goods sold," said the report, which was based off research led by Dalhousie University professor of food distribution and policy, Sylvain Charlebois.

Read more:
Jagmeet Singh says grocery chains are ‘profiteering’ amid inflation. Is it true?

For example, while Loblaw's gross profit margin was 3.76 per cent by the end of 2021, that's only up slightly from the 3.57 per cent margin posted in 2018.

Similarly, Empire's margin also grew less than one basis point over the same time period, from 1.64 per cent to 2.08 per cent. Metro, which actually saw a negative margin of -0.24 per cent in 2018, posted a 0.44 per cent profit margin last year.


Clickable image 1© Provided by Global News

Charlebois and his fellow researchers found that, with a couple of exceptions, the same trend was seen over the past four years among the major U.S. grocery companies, which include Walmart, Costco and Kroger.

"It may look counterintuitive, but the numbers are not pointing to commercial abuse towards consumers," the report says.


Clickable image 2© Provided by Global News

How you can save money at the grocery store as prices soar

The report comes shortly after Statistics Canada reported inflation caused food costs to rise 9.9 per cent this past July, compared with a year ago, the fastest pace since August 1981.

That was despite slowing of the overall inflation rate in July to 7.6 per cent, down from 8.1 per cent in June.

Among food items that have got considerably more expensive, bakery goods are up 13.6 per cent since last year amid higher input costs such as the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which continues to put upward pressure on wheat prices. The prices of other food products also rose faster, including eggs, which are up 15.8 per cent, and fresh fruit, up 11.7 per cent since last year.

The soaring prices are having an impact on shopping habits, with a recent survey finding more than two-thirds of Canadians attributing their financial stress to sticker shock at the grocery store.

Read more:
More price hikes coming to Canadian grocery stores this fall, food suppliers say

In their latest earnings calls over the past two months, the heads of Loblaw, Metro and Empire have lamented that rising food costs have shifted buying habits, with customers sticking to shopping lists and avoiding impulse buys while gravitating toward lower-cost "house" brands. They also said other economic factors like labour shortages have "softened" growth.

Yet all three companies have seen their sales — and profits — continue to increase, according to their latest quarterly earnings reports.

Loblaw's revenues in its second quarter were $12.85 billion, an increase of $356 million or 2.9 per cent compared with $12.49 billion in the prior year quarter. Adjusted profits for the three months ending June 18 was $566 million or $1.69 per diluted share, up from $464 million or $1.35 per diluted share in the second quarter of 2021.

Metro's third-quarter results showed a profit of $275 million, up from $252.4 million a year earlier, as sales gained 2.5 per cent. The profit amounted to $1.14 per diluted share for the period ending July 2, up from $1.03 cents per diluted share a year earlier. Sales totalled $5.87 billion, up from $5.72 billion.

Meanwhile, Empire reported a quarterly profit of $178.5 million, up from $171.9 million a year earlier, as its sales also climbed higher. The company said its fourth-quarter profit amounted to 68 cents per diluted share, up from 64 cents per diluted share a year before. Sales in the 14-week period ending May 7 totalled $7.84 billion, up from $6.92 billion.

Video: Inflation: Why the price of groceries are expected to rise

All three companies, however, said the continued increases were largely due to high sales in the pharmacy divisions, which have far outstripped food sales.

Among Loblaw's existing stores, for example, pharmacy sales increased 5.6 per cent compared to last year, while food sales rose just 0.9 per cent. Metro, too, saw a 7.2 per cent spike in pharmacy sales compared to a 1.1 per cent rise in food sales.

"Right now cough and cold (sales) ... it's like we're in the middle of winter," Loblaw chief financial officer Richard Dufresne said during an earnings call with investors in July.

The Dalhousie University report suggests more evidence is needed to determine if the major grocery corporations are taking advantage of inflation to post higher profits.

"A proper investigation by the Competition Bureau of Canada would shed more light on practices in the industry," the researchers wrote, including how food processing, transportation and affiliated companies in the food industry impact costs and profit margins.

Read more:
Soaring food inflation has 72% of families with kids worried: Ipsos poll

Because the publicly available data in earnings reports is "inconclusive at best," the report concludes that there is "little evidence to suggest grocers in Canada and the United States are colluding or taking advantage of the current food inflationary wave the western world is experiencing."

The Competition Bureau has not said publicly if it is investigating the operations of the grocery industry. The bureau did not answer Global News' questions on whether it is planning such a probe.

In the meantime, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh has made the increased profits a key issue for his party, calling on the Liberal government to impose an “excess profits tax” on major grocery chains and oil and gas companies.

In a statement to Global News, a spokesperson for Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland’s office said the government remains focused on “building a fairer and more inclusive economy,” which includes ensuring the wealthiest Canadians and businesses pay their fair share in taxes.

— With files from the Canadian Press

Lawyers bash Goodell-led arbitration in NFL racial bias suit

NEW YORK (AP) — Lawyers for three Black NFL coaches alleging racial bias by the league took aim directly at Commissioner Roger Goodell on Wednesday in their latest arguments against arbitrating a dispute they say belongs before a jury.

In papers filed in Manhattan federal court, the lawyers wrote that arbitration would allow “unconscionably biased one-sided ‘kangaroo courts’” to decide the outcome of the lawsuit filed in February by Brian Flores, who was fired in January as head coach of the Miami Dolphins. He is now an assistant coach with the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Two other coaches — Steve Wilks and Ray Horton — later joined the lawsuit as plaintiffs.

Their lawyers said Goodell, who would lead the arbitration if the case is not decided by a jury, could not be fair in overseeing and ruling on the dispute as to whether the league engages in systemic discrimination. They included in their submission articles about Goodell's salary and other personal details.

They cited the hundreds of millions of dollars he earns from teams, his public statement that the lawsuit is without merit and the likelihood that he could be a witness in the case.

In June, lawyers for the NFL and six of its teams said arbitration was required because the coaches had agreed in their contracts to multiple arbitration provisions “that squarely cover their claims.” They also said the coaches were required to go to arbitration individually rather than as a group.

Lawyers for the league and its teams did not immediately respond to requests for comment Wednesday from The Associated Press.

Letting Goodell preside over the case would “deviate from established authority and societal norms” and create a new standard for arbitration that would let it be approved “no matter how biased and unfair the process,” lawyers for the coaches said in their latest submission.

And they added that it would “embolden employers to create manifestly unfair arbitrations with assurance that they will be approved by the courts.”

“If the Court compels arbitration, scores of employers following this case, and those who learn of it, will undoubtedly change their arbitration clauses to permit the appointment of an obviously biased decision-maker,” the lawyers said.

Several weeks ago, U.S. District Judge Valerie Caproni denied a request by lawyers for the coaches to gather additional evidence before she rules on whether the case must go to arbitration.

That move made it more likely she'll rule on the arbitration issue within weeks rather than months.

___

More AP NFL: https://apnews.com/NFL and https://twitter.com/AP_NFL

Larry Neumeister, The Associated Press

Bed Bath & Beyond is closing 150 stores and slashing 20% of its corporate staff

gkay@insider.com (Grace Kay) - Yesterday 

A Bed Bath & Beyond store in New York City. 

Bed Bath & Beyond announced in a financial update for investors that it is closing about 150 stores.
The company is also cutting its corporate staff by about 20% as sales fell 25% last quarter.

The company is one of several to initiate a round of sweeping layoffs in recent months.



The rise and fall of Bed Bath & Beyond: Once one of America's most beloved big-box retailers, it's now on the brink

Since its founding in 1971, Bed Bath & Beyond has been a go-to destination for home goods.
In recent years, however, the retailer has shown significant signs of struggle, including slumping sales and executive turmoil.

 
We took a look at the rise and fall of the iconic big-box retailer.

Once the golden child of big-box stores, Bed Bath & Beyond is now struggling to stay afloat.

The company reported a $358 million net loss in its most recent quarter, the latest in a series of setbacks for the home goods store. In June, Bed Bath & Beyond announced it was replacing CEO Mark Tritton and a number of other executives in yet another attempt to reorganize its leadership.

Now, analysts are saying the company is in its "end days," with some speculating it will become the next meme stock, following in the footsteps of Gamestop before it.

Bed Bath & Beyond was once a leading home goods retailer, appealing to shoppers across the nation with its strategy of abundance. The beloved store, which lined strip malls nationwide, became known for its huge assortment of products spanning every color and style.

Over the years, it became a go-to for just about anything for the home and — true to its name — beyond.

We took a closer a look at Bed Bath & Beyond's rise from a small linen store in New Jersey to a major national retail chain now on the brink of collapse.

Bed Bath & Beyond plans to close about 150 of its stores and cut its corporate workforce by 20%.

The announcement was made ahead of a financial-update call on Wednesday. Shares of the retailer's stock fell by more than 24% after Bed Bath & Beyond revealed sales across its stores had dropped 25% in the previous quarter.

The company plans to cut costs by $250 million in 2022 via layoffs and store closures and has already begun shutting down some of its flagship stores that it has identified as underperforming.

"The company continues to evaluate its portfolio and leases, in addition to staffing, to ensure alignment with customer demand and go-forward strategy," Bed Bath & Beyond said in a press release.

The retailer also plans to shed a third of its flagship brands and expand further into national brands. It also announced that the Buybuy Baby chain of stores will remain with the company.

"We have taken a thorough look at our business, and today, we are announcing immediate actions aimed to increase customer engagement, drive traffic, and recapture market share," Sue Gove, director and interim chief executive officer, said in the press release. "This includes changing our merchandising and inventory strategy, which will be rooted in National Brands. Additionally, we are focused on driving digital and foot traffic, as well as optimizing our store fleet. We believe these changes will have a widespread positive impact across customer experience, inventory assortment, supply chain execution and cost structure."

Bed Bath & Beyond is one of several companies to initiate a sweeping round of layoffs in recent months as shoppers have begun to cutback amid soaring inflation and concerns of an impending recession.

Toxic chemicals commonly found in dollar store items, testing shows


OTTAWA — Canada needs more transparency and better enforcement to protect Canadians from unlimited exposure to toxic chemicals like lead and cadmium, an analysis from Environmental Defence said Wednesday.


The organization reported on tests conducted on dozens of products purchased at popular Canadian dollar stores. One in four of the products tested were positive for substances managed under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act. Many of the findings were within the allowable limits, but the report says those limits are not strong enough.

The outer ring on a set of stereo headphones was found to have 24 times the legal limit of lead, and five times the legal limit of cadmium.

The solder inside the same headphones had 170 times what is considered safe on outer portions of the headphones. The solder on a separate set of earbud style headphones had 3,000 times the amount of lead allowed on the accessible portions.

But the solder is not covered by the regulations, a gap Environmental Defence insists must be closed.

Cassie Barker, toxics manager for Environmental Defence, said internal lead can still be exposed if products break or wear down.

"The way that kids use products, and you know they break things and so that internal (lead) quickly becomes external lead," she said.

The toxic harm from lead poisoning has been documented for more than 50 years. It can cause significant cognitive and developmental delays in young children with high exposures, and can create risks of high blood pressure and kidney damage in adults. It has been barred from use in gasoline, food cans and paints.

Cadmium, often found in batteries, coatings and plastic stabilizers, is a known carcinogen.

Barker said the headphones, which exceeded the allowed limits of both metals, are proof that monitoring and enforcement of toxic substance regulations need to be beefed up.

"Obviously, retailers shouldn't be shirking their responsibility for having safe products on their shelves," she said, but regulators are leaving "big loopholes" for dollar stores to walk through.

Other products that raised concerns for Environmental Defence were food cans lined with bisphenol A, commonly known as BPA. The chemical, which helps make plastics harder, was added to the list of toxic substances in Canada in 2010 after studies linked it to prostate disease, breast cancer, infertility and behavioural problems in children. It was banned from baby bottles and other plastic baby products that same year.

But it is still allowed in products such as food cans, said Barker. Some companies have moved away from using the substance on their own, but 60 per cent of the cans the organization tested contained it.

The report calls on Environment Canada to require companies to label all hazardous ingredients in products, including those that are hidden inside electronics or used in the packaging. It also recommends more regulatory enforcement and product testing so that harmful products can be identified before they hit store shelves.

Barker said the tests were done on items from dollar stores because such stores are often the only option for people with low incomes or in marginalized communities.

Environmental Defence provided its report to the companies whose stores it visited, including Dollar Tree and Dollarama. A statement from Dollar Tree said a similar study in the United States two years ago prompted it to remove 17 chemicals from its products.

A statement from Dollarama said, "consumer product safety is our utmost priority, and we have strict processes and controls in place to monitor product safety and quality. The four Dollarama product categories identified in the report (stereo headphone, earbud, pencil pouch and activity tracker) meet applicable Canadian product regulations and are safe to use for their intended purposes."

The Canadian Environmental Protection Act, which governs toxic chemicals in Canada, is in the midst of being updated.

Legislation that would enshrine the right to a healthy environment into law for the first time passed in the Senate in the spring, though the law doesn't define what a "healthy environment" means.

Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault said in an interview that he is open to additional changes to the bill, which is expected to be debated in the House of Commons this fall.

Guilbeault said he hadn't yet read the Environmental Defence report and couldn't comment on its specific findings.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 31, 2022.

Mia Rabson, The Canadian Press

Lufthansa canceling flights from Frankfurt, Munich as pilots strike
CBSNews - 6h ago

German carrier Lufthansa says it is canceling almost all passenger and cargo flights Friday from its two biggest hubs, Frankfurt and Munich, due to planned strike action by pilots.

A union representing Lufthansa pilots said early Thursday that they will stage a walk-out after demands for a pay increase were rejected by management.

Lufthansa said some 800 flights would be canceled, affecting many travelers returning at the end of the summer vacation. The airline's budget carrier Eurowings would not be affected, it said.

The union Vereinigung Cockpit accused Lufthansa on Thursday of failing to improve on the company's previous offer, leaving pilots no choice but to go on strike to press their demands.

According to Lufthansa, the company had offered a one-off increase of 900 euros ($900), amounting to a 5% increase for senior pilots and an 18% increase for those starting the profession.

The union had called for a 5.5% raise this year and an automatic above-inflation increase in 2023. In addition, pilots are seeking a new pay and holiday structure that the airline said would increase its staffing costs by about 40%, or some 900 million euros over two years.

Airlines around the world are facing a shortage of pilots as many carriers offered early retirement to thousands of pilots in an effort to slash costs as COVID-19 was spreading in 2020 and 2021, when airline operations came to a near standstill. An aging workforce has also led significant numbers of older pilots to retire as scheduled, further reducing the number of available flyers.

US labor dispute: Dock workers say 'no' to port automation

Teddy Ostrow, Deutsche Welle - 

Labor negotiations for 22,000 dock workers on the West Coast are having US industries biting their nails for fear of disruptions to trade. The dock workers' union says automated ports are job killers and less productive.The labor contract of 22,000 West Coast dock workers expired on July 1 and negotiations for a new one are reportedly stalled. A key issue for the workers and the employers is one that has rattled the ports for six decades: automation.

Terminal operators and ocean carriers claim that automated technology at the ports is necessary to keep the US competitive. Yet the dock workers union argues that while automated ports are killing jobs and stripping worker power, they are not even leading to an increase in productivity.

"I like the work, but the sad part is there have been a large number of jobs that have been eliminated because of it," Rebecca Schlarb, an automation coordinator at the Long Beach Container Terminal, one of two automated ports on the US West Coast, told DW.

Stalled negotiations

The labor agreement under negotiation covers workers across 29 ports in California, Oregon and Washington state. That includes two of the country's most trafficked ports at Long Beach and Los Angeles.

The Wall Street Journal reported that labor talks, which began on May 10 in San Francisco, are presently stalled over a jurisdictional conflict at the Port of Seattle between the negotiating union, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU), and a separate machinists union.

As they often are, these negotiations are incredibly high stakes. US President Joe Biden has met with both negotiating parties to encourage smooth talks, so as to prevent the monthslong shipping delays that resulted from previous disagreements between the union and employers in 2002 and 2014.

US ports are already strained due to supply chain disruptions, operating at peak capacity and handling record volumes over the past two years of the pandemic. The ports at Los Angeles and Long Beach have been rated among the world's least efficient in the World Bank and S&P Global Market Intelligence's 2021 Container Port Performance Index.

The union and the 70 terminal operators and ocean carriers represented in the negotiations by the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA) have agreed to a media blackout during the labor talks, but they released a joint statement in July announcing they have a tentative agreement on health benefits.

Stalled talks mean the ILWU and PMA have yet to settle on wages and the key issue of automation.

A decades-old conflict

Whether more remotely operated cranes, autonomous vehicles and other automated technology should be brought to West Coast ports sits at the center of the current labor dispute.

Two automated ports reside on the US West Coast in the San Pedro Bay Complex: the Trans-Pacific Container Service Corporation (TraPac) at the Port of Los Angeles and the Long Beach Container Terminal (LBCT) at the Port of Long Beach.

Even though automation requires massive upfront investments, the PMA argues the changes are critical for American ports to increase their waning efficiency. PMA President Jim McKenna told Bloomberg news agency that this was "the key to long-term survival, long-term competitiveness."

The ILWU, on the other hand, has been arguing for years that automated technologies are job killers for their members. Employers' introduction of machines has stripped workers of their power over the docks and weakened the union.

Indeed, the issue has been front and center during labor talks for over six decades. The massive cranes, cargo ships, and rectangular containers that speckle coasts around the world were an innovation, or automation, of the mid-20th century.

Prior to the 1960s, during the "break-bulk" era of shipping, longshoremen loaded and unloaded cargo ships in cases, nets, or on wooden pallets. It was meticulous, dangerous and time-consuming work that required large numbers of dock workers.

The ILWU and PMA struck a deal in 1960 to allow the burgeoning technologies on the ports, but neither party expected just how much the automation would transform work on the waterfront. Tens of thousands of longshoremen jobs were shed from the ports as employers decided to cut labor costs.

In 1971, a few years after so-called containerization really took hold on the ports, West Coast dock workers were fed up with the deterioration of their jobs and led the union's longest strike in history -- 134 days. It was the first such coordinated strike for the union, shutting down ports up and down the coast.

While workers won wage increases, automation remained on the table, and in the decades following, the ILWU has conceded to more and more automated technology at the ports. Most recently in 2008, the union explicitly accepted machine-automation technology in their labor agreement.

More robots, less productivity

Employers are insistent that automation will not kill jobs. The PMA commissioned a report showing that the West Coast's two automated port terminals, TraPac and LBCT, actually saw a 31.5% increase in paid hours for dock workers, in addition to container processing twice the speed as nonautomated ports.

But workers and labor researchers dispute both findings. Patrick Burns, a senior researcher at the Los Angeles-based nonprofit Economics Roundtable told DW that the influx of shipping volume over the past two years masked the job loss at both terminals.

Accounting for the job hours per container that went through the ports, Burns and his colleague Daniel Flaming found in their report "Someone Else's Ocean" -- which was underwritten by the ILWU -- that automation reduced employment by 37% to 52% at LBCT, and by 34% to 37% at TraPac.

Nearly 580 jobs were eliminated at the ports in 2020 and 2021, "a huge, kind of staggering amount of job loss," according to Burns.

Schlarb has been a dock worker since 1991 and was the first woman to be elected business agent at ILWU Local 63. She describes her work as a "bittersweet job," because while she likes the position, it's clear to her that automation technology has cut many jobs from the port.

According to her, if LBCT were a conventional port, it'd have 138 crane operators and 69 signal people. But with automated technology, "the signal people were eliminated and now crane operators are down to 14 in a remote location."

Burns and Schlarb explained that job losses have a negative effect on the surrounding communities.

"They're the types of jobs where you can get health coverage, buy a house and maybe put your child through college," said Burns adding that "those types of jobs are extremely valuable for the region."

Schlarb said dock workers would pump their high wages into the local economy and if they would their jobs "that money is gonna start to dry up."

Ironically, Burns' research also found that automated ports were 7% to 15% less productive than nonautomated ports.

Schlarb's own experience backs up the findings. If cranes suffer mechanical failures, she said, or the autonomous ground vehicles lose their wireless network connection, for example, repairs are less seamless and disruptions are more severe than at nonautomated ports.

"Cranes go down quite often, and if one crane goes down, for a mechanic to safely enter, both cranes [in the specific bay] and other adjacent cranes have to be shut down too," Schlarb explained. "Now you've got thousands of containers within the two blocks while the repairs are being done. In a conventional operation, you would lose that bay where the crane broke down and that would have been only 30 containers."

Schlarb believes workers across the economy should be concerned about automation. Even as an automation coordinator, Schlarb doesn't believe automation is always the answer. "Just because you can advance something doesn't mean you need to," she said.

Some things work better the old-fashioned way.

"There is nothing more beautiful to watch than a group of longshoremen executing a plan," she added.

Edited by: Uwe Hessler

Copyright 2022 DW.COM, Deutsche Welle. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.