Sydney port development may not lead to many jobs, union warns
International Longshoremen's Association says it worries proposed container terminal will be fully automated
Members of the International Longshoremen's Association are in Sydney this week to ask questions about the proposed port development.
They want employment for longshoremen, but worry jobs could be few and far between if a container terminal is fully automated.
ILA Local 1259 president Peter Gillis, along with Michael Vigneron and James Paylor from the Atlantic District's Philadelphia office, met with Transportation Minister Geoff MacLellan, the Port of Sydney Development Corporation and others.
"We're concerned that somebody wants to fly a fully automated flagship on the East Coast and take the profits that usually wind up in the community to some other location," said Paylor.
"If you go fully robotic, where you have machinery and computers performing the work and not creating the job generation ... the original plan starts to fail what the original objectives were, creating jobs."
The mayor of the Cape Breton Regional Municipality, Cecil Clark, announced plans for the port redevelopment last summer. Last month, the municipality signed an agreement with a Chinese company to design and build a container terminal.
There's been no indication yet whether a fully automated operation is being considered.
'Promises faded'
Vigneron said a fully automated port was developed in Virginia and the community saw few benefits.
"The company came in with a lot of promises: 'We are going to create a lot of jobs and we're going to knock the socks off of productivity,'" he said.
"They put the fully automated terminal in and the promises faded. They didn't create the jobs."
The union men said the Port of Sydney, with its abundance of available land, is a strong contender for a container terminal. Gillis said there is potential for a large number of well-paying jobs.
"This industry will pay better than we are used to paying because this industry allows for that," he said.
"If we can get solid work going with eight-hour shifts, we want to get these young people back home here and we want to get our own guys working so they are working 12 months of the year."