"U.S. dockworkers threaten to strike against automation, creating economic uncertainty,"

Vowing to stop machines from taking their jobs, 45,000 U.S. longshoremen are threatening to go on a strike that would shut down ports on the East and Gulf Coasts and could damage the American economy just as president-elect Donald Trump returns to the White House...

Negotiations resume Tuesday between the ILA and the U.S. Maritime Alliance, which represents ports and shippers. The sticking point is a familiar one at America’s ports: machines replacing human labour, specifically semi-automated cranes operated by software or employees working remotely to guide containers onto trucks or trains. Conventional cranes have a human at the controls.

The union and its president, Harold Daggett, are dead set against allowing additional automation at East and Gulf Coast ports. They argue the machines aren’t any more efficient than human labour.

“This isn’t about meeting operational needs,” Mr. Daggett’s son Dennis Daggett, the union’s executive vice-president, wrote last month. “It’s about replacing workers under the guise of progress while maximizing corporate profits at the expense of good-paying, family-sustaining U.S. jobs.”...

Companies are taking steps to pre-empt potential damage from a strike. Some are rerouting shipments to the West Coast or to Canada...

Some shippers are hitting their customers with strike-related fees...