Category Archives: Automation

Three Ball State colleagues and I recently authored a meta-study analyzing the potential impact of automation, trade and urbanization on regions and households in the United States. The motivation for this study is our casual observation there is great angst over the state of the economy in many corners of the country. We thought it possible turmoil surrounding economic policy has its roots in different economic outcomes between regions and households.

First, close to half of all jobs are at risk of being eliminated by technology that is already in use at commercial locations, while a quarter of all jobs are at risk of trade-related dislocation. To explore this, we mapped data created by researchers at Oxford and Princeton universities estimating the risk of automation and trade related job losses to the 3,144 U.S. counties. This provided an interesting visualization of where potential job losses may cluster. We then conducted a more formal battery of assessments of the clustering of potential job losses across people and places. The results were eye opening.

It turns out the higher a countys risk of losing jobs to automation, the higher the risk in the adjacent counties. This confirms what appears to be true in the maps, and is disconcerting since it means automation-related disruption likely extends across labor markets. This is true also with trade-related job losses. The other side of this relationship is that counties with lower risk of automation or trade-related job losses are adjacent to other low-risk places. This simple fact implies regional inequality might be poised for a big increase.

The study also pointed out as these jobs are lost, other jobs are created, but these new job openings are in different places and require different skills than those that are lost. This prompted us to look at what happens to individual workers and households. There the results were even more startling.

Trade-related job losses due to offshoring or import substitution tend to cut across educational and income levels. There is no correlation between risk of job losses due to trade and either education or earnings. Automation risk couldnt be more different. There is a strong inverse relationship between educational attainment and risk of automation job losses. The data on wages is even starker. Wages for the lowest risk 10 percent of occupations average about $84,000 per year. Wages for the highest risk 10 percent are about $36,000 per year. Indeed, for workers who have more than a 50/50 chance of automation-related job losses, wages are below $40,000 per year. Those with less than a 50/50 chance of automation-related job losses average almost $70,000 per year.

Taken together, the increasing risk of automation and trade-related job losses will disproportionately impact low-wage, low-skilled workers who live in counties with an abundance of other similar workers. This is a perfect recipe for growing income inequality across regions and households. Beyond the distasteful political manifestations of inequality, we should worry that labor market disruptions falling most heavily on those least prepared to adjust could quickly turn into much broader social and economic problems. Automation, and to a lesser degree trade, impacts the most vulnerable people and places in America. Growing urban migration exacerbates the pain for communities.

The findings of our study (www.bsu.edu/cber/publications) should give readers some concern, but we also want to be clear that technological change, trade and the rise of cities generates untold wealth, opportunity and other secondary benefits that can scarcely be measured. Economic growth is good and the results benefit us more than we imagine. I simply point to the 50 extra years of life the average American enjoys since the start of the Industrial Revolution.

Still, rapid technological change, particularly as it affects clustered industries or occupations, can generate real economic discomfort. Change is not always easy, and not every household finds itself clearly better off in the short run. Our hope in authoring this research is that policymakers can prepare for and embrace these changes. To do so, we should think about policies at the state and local level, especially in education policy, that make vulnerable communities and households more resilient to change.

Michael J. Hicks, Ph.D., is director of the Center for Business and Economic Research and a professor of economics at Ball State University. Contact him at cberdirector@bsu.edu.

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Michael Hicks: Automation, trade, urbanization require resilient people - Kokomo Tribune

Todays financial services institutions are under increasing pressure. Growing consumer confidence, regulatory change and the rise of fresh-faced fintech start-ups means competition in the space is stiffer than ever before. As a result, businesses are having to work harder and smarter to attract and retain clients.

A huge part of this work has focused on technology and how banking services can expand their digital offer. The digital revolution has fundamentally changed the way businesses operate for their customers, and retail banks in particular are increasingly moving online due to consumer demand.

Most recently, the focus has been on automation and artificial intelligence particularly their potential for customer experience. Several banks have been dipping their toes in the chatbot water. Capital One, for example, recently launched their chatbot Eno, which lets customers text to see their balance, transaction history, and pay bills.

But automation can also be used for more than straightforward customer management. The technology has the capability to unlock value across a range of business functions. RPA can be especially useful in transforming complex and time-consuming back-office processes, which in turn will allow companies to free up employees to focus on more value-added work.

RPA is hugely beneficial to commercial finance divisions, for example, where efficiency and cost-effectiveness is of paramount importance. And in such a heavily regulated industry, the technology also eliminates room for human error.

Needless to say, integrating automation is a significant undertaking. While the specifics will depend on the business, the space they operate in, and the extent to which they are aiming to automate their processes, there are three critical ingredients for a successful RPA transformation.

1. Strategic fit

The first and perhaps most important is that RPA must be a strategic fit for the company. Automation needs to be understood not as a process but as a strategic capability that increases business value. This re-engineering will be key to increasing the impact of automation and maximising ROI, and must be given due diligence. Key to success will be for businesses to understand which processes will deliver the biggest business benefit when automated, and follow their roadmap accordingly.

2. Buy-in

Next, there also needs to be buy-in for transformation and automation from the C-suite for RPA to be a success. Cultural adoption may often require education and careful articulation of the business benefits of the solution, and lack of internal support at a senior level can be one of the major stumbling blocks to implementation.

3. Engagement

Legacy IT systems and resistance from existing IT departments can often be a barrier to transformation and automation. To avoid potential opposition, automation adopters would do well to focus on IT engagement from the get-go. Bringing the IT function on board at the beginning of the automation journey will help to set a clear roadmap for transformation and identify any potential roadblocks that lie ahead.

Of course, automation is no small undertaking. While the steps outlined above will form the backbone of the transformation, it isnt often as simple as 1,2,3. However, businesses have much to gain from RPA and by integrating it where appropriate, banking services can strategically use technology to drive finance forward.

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How automation can help transform the financial services landscape - Finextra (blog)

Businesses are enthusiastically investigating the possibilities of artificial intelligence and automation, and workers are scared for their future.

A quarter of Australians fear redundancy due to increased use of artificial intelligence and automation as businesses increasingly investigate options, according to a new report into business use of emerging technologies.

The study from research firm Telsyte looks broadly across Australian businesses and the rapid adoption of new technologies under way, including artificial intelligence and automation, wearable technology, augmented and virtual reality and drones.

It finds that nearly two-thirds of businesses are already dabbling with machine learning or deep learning to improve operations or influence business decision making, with so-called artificial intelligence and automation technology use growing for things ranging from physical robots to digital assistants and chatbots.

Telsytemanaging director Foad Fadaghi said there was a distinct difference in the enthusiasm for intelligent automation among company executives from the general population. Despite regular statements that automation will augment rather than replace jobs, workers are not buying it.

The study found that financial processes are considered ripe for early automation with 65 per cent of chief information officers questioned saying they saw opportunities to deploy machine learning in financial modelling and fraud detection.

However, it is in customer-facing roles that jobs may be noticeably affected first, with almost two thirds of organisations saying they intend to use cognitive computing for applications like chatbots, which mimic human interaction.

"AI intentions are running at two speeds in the Australian market, with businesses much more bullish about using automation technology than consumers," Mr Fadaghi said.

"There is an undercurrent of fear in the average consumer about the impact of AI on jobs and future prospects for later generations in a highly automated world. When we compare with consumer research, we see that mainstream Australians are cautious about technology, in particular automation.

"One in four Australians are concerned they might lose their job to a machine or robot in the future, and only 45 per cent think the future will be betterthanks to the opportunities technology offers."

Elsewhere in the Telsyte study it found that organisations are rapidly adopting the internet of things (IoT), which means non-traditional connected devices like sensors and cameras providing vast amounts of data for analysis.

Almost 90 per cent of technology executives in the study said their organisation would be using IoT for important processes within five years, and 59 per cent of early adopters said they are already seeing cost savings from its introduction.

Meanwhile, over 60 per cent see value in smart wearable devices such as smart watches and smart glasses in their organisation, for internal operations, access control and customer-facing applications. More than half of organisations are investigating augmented reality applications and a quarter of tech executives believe that drones or autonomous flying vehicles will become useful.

Mr Fadaghi said this would include most sectors like agriculture and fishing with underwater drones, mining operations, security and surveillance, transport and logistics, warehousing and emergency services

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Workers are not as enthusiastic about artificial intelligence and automation as their bosses - The Australian Financial Review

Writing for City Journal, Mark Mills warns that the robots (to use the shorthand) will be gnawing their way far higher up the food chain than we have seen before.

Heres the dirty little secret about automation: its easier to build a robot to replace a junior attorney than to replace a journeyman electrician. And that fact helps explain why economists and politicians are feeling misgivings about creative destruction, which, up to now, they have usually embraced as a net good for society.

In the age of the algorithm, though, theyre not so sure any more, and no wonder: instead of creative destruction coming to factories and farms, its sweeping through city centers and taking white-collar jobs. The chattering classes have talked and written for years about the end of work. Doubtless many fear that the end of their work is in the offing, this time around.

Creative destruction doesnt sound so benign when its coming your way.

Mills:

Consider a bellwether of more white-collar disruption yet to come: of the nearly 200 so-called Unicornsprivate, venture-backed companies such as Uber that are valued over $1 billion90 percent are in nonmanufacturing businesses. Theres a good reason for such a skewed focus. Supercomputer-class software in the cloud can perform, at minimal cost, once-daunting information-centric tasks, from reading X-rays to managing a passive investment fund. But the engineering challenges are far greater and many times more complex in cyber-physical systems, where software meets steel in real time

[W]ere in the midst of an upheaval in what we might call the means of management. The overall effect, I believe, will be the same as in the pasta boost to the economy and more jobsbut the makeover this time will affect the professional and managerial classes. We should expect them to be at least as vocal about it as many factory workers were a generation ago.

While I doubt that this revolution will create more jobs (at least any time soon and then theres its depressing effect on the wages of those who still have work to consider) Id agree with Mr. Mills that those being displaced will be at least as vocal about it. In fact, my guess is that they will be very much more vocal about it.

I touched on this topic last year on a piece on automation for NRODT.

Heres an excerpt:

When Americans do finally grasp what automation is doing to their prospects, rage against the machines (or, more specifically, their consequences) will blend with existing discontent to form a highly inflammable mix. This broader economic unease is already spreading beyond left-behinds and Millennials, but when we reach the point where even those who are still doing well see robots sending proletarianization their way, theres a decent chance that something akin to middle-class panic (a phenomenon identified by sociologist Theodor Geiger in, ominously, 1930s Germany) will ensue. Many of the best and brightest will face a stark loss of economic and social status, a blow that will sting far more than the humdrum hopelessness that many at the bottom of the pile have, sadly, long learned to accept. They will resist while they still have the clout to do so, and the media, filled with intelligent people who have already found themselves on the wrong side of technology, will have their back

Every revolution, whether at the polling station or on the street, needs foot soldiers drawn from the poor and the left behind. Still, its the leadership that counts. Add the impact of automation to the effects of existing elite overproduction and the result will be that the upheaval to come will be steered by a very large officer class angry, effective, efficient, a counter-elitelooking to transform the social order of which, under happier circumstances, it would have been a mainstay.

The consequences are unlikely to be pretty.

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Automation: This Byte's For You - National Review

Dan Gearino The Columbus Dispatch @DanGearinoMark Williams The Columbus Dispatch @BizMarkWilliams

It was nice while it lasted.

A surge in auto-manufacturing jobs since the start of the decade provided a desperately needed lift for Ohioas it climbed out of the worst recession since the Great Depression.

But that growth has stalled, based on recent figures,and analysts expect the job totals to remain flat or even shrink.

Much of the blame goes to a peak in auto sales after years of growth; automation is also a factor because it allows companies to produce more with fewer workers.

The question for Ohio is how will this shift reverberate through the economy. In short, the state will need to look more to other sectors to attract jobs, or find ways to counter the trend in auto manufacturing.

"It's not a catastrophe, but some of the bloom is off the post-recession growth," said Mike Hicks, a Ball State University economist. "For Ohio, that may be more painful, and for the Midwest in general. It is another factor that keeps growth less robust than we might have wished or expected it to be."

Ohio's auto-sector employment both vehicle manufacturing and the making of parts rose by 1,500 jobs, or 1.6 percent, lastyear; that was the slowest growth rate since the recession, according to federal employment data.Those two sectors employ about 97,000 in Ohio.

Looking ahead, modest increases probably will shift toward modest declines, according to a forecast by Moody's Analytics. The research firm expects that Ohio's transportation-sector employment will grow less than 1 percent this year, followed by decreases of less than 1 percent in each of the following six years.

"We'll be expecting this to be a slowdown, but we don't think it's going to be anything that will be severe enough to send Midwestern states into recession," said Brent Campbell, a Moody's Analytics' economist who covers Ohio.

Bound to happen

The stalled growth is a normal part of the economic cycle after the boom of the last few years. Auto-related employment in Ohio has increased about 35 percent since 2010, when automakers began adding jobs after the recession. Auto plants have been running at close to full capacity as sales of new cars and trucks doubledfrom 2009 to 2016.

There is no doubt that the tide has turned, however. Here is some of the evidence:

Ohio'semployment in manufacturing had flat-lined as of June compared with a year ago, with a drop of 200 jobs among manufacturers of "durable goods," which areitems meant to last at least three years, according to preliminary government data issued Friday.

Auto inventories were at 4.2 million vehicles as of July 1, the highest in 13 years, according to Automotive News.

New-vehicle sales are down 2.1 percent from 2016's record pace.

Production in the first five months of 2017 at auto assembly plants in the district covered by the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland all of Ohio, western Pennsylvania, eastern Kentucky and northern West Virginia was down about 9 percent from the same period of 2016, according to the bank.

At the same time, the industry is contending with an unsettled political climate.

President Donald Trump has threatenedto enact stiff tariffs or quotas on steel imports. Although such a move would benefit U.S. steel producers, it probably would lead to higher prices for trucks and cars and potentially further depress sales because automakers would have to use more-expensive domestic steel.

At the same time, banks and other lenders have tightened some lending for auto buyers,particularly for those with low credit scores.

If these factors weren't enough, manufacturers continue to figure out how to produce more with fewer workers.

"They are developing remarkable technologies. It is much more sophisticated, but needs fewer people to operate," said Eric Burkland, executive director of the Ohio Manufacturers' Association. Workers "are higher-skilled, more highly compensated."

Openings available

Despite the slowdown in hiring, manufacturers have openings, and Burkland said they routinely talk about how tough it is to find applicants.

That trouble finding workers is another reason that job growth is being held in check, said Ned Hill, an Ohio State University economist.

"If the cost of semi-skilled labor gets too high, including the cost of health-care benefits, work will be automated," he said. "This is looming in the logistics side of the business."

But Hill does see a silver lining: Predictions of a decrease in manufacturing jobs do not account for normal attrition, such as retirements. So, even if the state's total is falling, there will be openings.

Also, other sectors will be growing. Moody's Analytics and others expect service and health-care jobs to become a larger share of Ohio's economy. Economic-development leaders can use this information to help attract more jobs in the fields most primed for growth.

Unexpected events could change the landscape, however. Hill said the only way he sees more-significant auto-related employment in the future is the addition of an assembly plant, something he doubts will happen.

In addition, the state will need to hold on to the assembly plants it has: two Jeep plants in Toledo, a General Motors plant in Lordstown, and Honda plants in Marysville and East Liberty.

In addition, many plants make engines, transmissions, vehicle bodies and other auto parts.

The president of the United Auto Workers union raised concern last week that GM's lagging sales could lead to job losses. Reuters reported that GM is considering a phaseout of U.S. production of several passenger-car models. Absent from the list, which Reuters said came from unidentified sources familiar with the plans, is the Chevrolet Cruze, the model assembled in Lordstown.

Honda appears to be a stable presence in central Ohio, where it makes the Accord in Marysville and the CR-V in East Liberty, among other models.The automaker also has a research-and-development office and has attracted a network of other companies that manufacture parts, making the region a hub for auto production.

Asked about Honda's plans, spokesmanChrisAbbruzzese said:

"We're confident that our products and our flexible manufacturing operations will continue to provide Honda and our suppliers with the ability to maintain a significant presence in central Ohio."

mawilliams@dispatch.com

@BizMarkWilliams

dgearino@dispatch.com

@DanGearino

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Softening vehicle sales, rising automation halt growth in Ohio's auto jobs - The Columbus Dispatch

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Don Lindich's Sound Advice: Home automation without breaking the budget Pittsburgh Post-Gazette We recently received an Amazon Dot as a gift, and a few people have suggested we use it to integrate home automation into the room, but we find this a bit intimidating. The electrician will be wiring things soon and we need to make a decision. Any ...

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Don Lindich's Sound Advice: Home automation without breaking the budget - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Toronto Sun

Automation Nation: Amazon's Brampton facility putting robotics to the ultimate test Toronto Sun The scene resembles something out of Wall-E, with these nine-foot automated Amazon Robotics Drive Units scanning QR codes to detect their path and moving in different directions within a grid. Using built-in sensor technology, the robots don't crash ... Robots Are Moving in on E-commerce PackingFortune all 4 news articles »

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Automation Nation: Amazon's Brampton facility putting robotics to the ultimate test - Toronto Sun

The Hindu

'I'm concerned about automation replacing jobs' The Hindu It highlights the challenges that are coming ahead and one of those big challenges is that if you look at many economic assessments, they are all saying the radical displacement of jobs due to automation. A big component of that automation is robotics, ...

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'I'm concerned about automation replacing jobs' - The Hindu

As developments in artificial intelligence and robotics advance, there is going to be a severe and swift disruption of many working classes. Large swaths of laborers are going to lose their jobs, leading to unprecedented levels of unemployment.

To account for this problem, having access to basic needs should become a right, not a privilege for the non-automated classes. It should be the responsibility of the corporations that have taken away working-class jobs to grant families this rightand the best solution would be in the form of a universal basic income.

UBI, an economic proposition in which a sum of money is regularly paid to a population, could be a vital bulwark against the unintended consequences of automation in the workforce. Companies will profit significantly from workforce automation, so the private sector will be able to afford shouldering this burden, while at the same time still making greater profits.

AI and robotics technologies have been accelerating at an impressive clip and show no sign of slowing down. A number of economic and technical barriers to wider adoption are beginning to fall, says the Boston Consulting Groups latest report. As a result, a dramatic takeoff in advanced robotics is imminent. These advances allow businesses to perform more complex functions at greater efficiency and ease, and such automated workforces have huge benefits for companies. After all, a full-time human has needs: 30 minutes for lunch each day, vacation and sick time, toilet breaks, and health benefits, to name a few. Meanwhile, an automated worker would only require an initial installation and the occasional repair or upgrade. This will have complicating effects on the health of Americas employment statistics.

The prices for robotics hardware and software have decreased by around 40% over the last decade as the cost of systems engineering has gone down. The BCG report stated that a human welder today is paid around $25 an hour (including benefits) versus the equivalent operating cost of around $8 for a robot. In 15 years, that gap will widen even more dramatically, the report states. The operating cost per hour for a robot doing similar welding tasks could plunge to as little as $2 when performance improvements are factored in.

This trend will only continue to accelerate. McDonalds, an early pioneer of automation, is already replacing human workers with automated kiosks. They expect a 5% to 9% return on investment in just the first year; in 2019 they expect this return to balloon to double digits. And this is only one sector: PricewaterhouseCoopers estimates that 38% of US jobs will be in danger of being replaced by automation by 2030.

Companies that automate their workforces should be taxed on these new massive profits, and some of the resulting capital given back to workers by the government in the form of UBI.

While the idea of a UBI is popularMark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, and Bill Gates have all championed ithow exactly would a universal basic income be engineered? A small, yet successful, experiment has conducted in the UK, and Ontario, Canada is also about to experiment with it this year. But how would a private-sector-funded version work?

As the robots take over, people will begin to lose their jobs, but companies will be fine. More likely than thattheyll thrive.The profits generated from automation could be used to pay a basic wage to those displaced by robots. To use the welder example from before, a company could slash the cost of their production by at least a third in a short period of time, and would continue to see greater profits as efficiencies increase and the price for parts drops. If that company eventually arrives at the $2 an hour mark that BCG predicts, the companys bottom line would have been improved by 1250%.

Given all of the savings and massive profits companies are going to reap from these new technologies, they should be responsible for using part of this monetary kick-back to help the workers theyve displaced. Legislators might consider a sliding-scale automation tax, where a company qualifying itself as using an automated workforce would be taxed depending on how many human workers they have performing tasks compared to how many tasks are performed by automated workers that a human could rightly do. This money could then be put into a UBI fund that is then distributed by the government to citizens affected by automationor to the entire population.

At the exponential rate of robotization, there isnt a lot of time for legislators to figure out the intricacies of a solutionbut they dont seem to be in too much of a rush. Steven Mnuchin, the USs treasury secretary, is already completely ignoring this issue, for example. To understand how crucial it is that legislators get cracking, consider the timeline for the current mess that is healthcare in America: If it takes this long to debate solutions on something as dire as health insurance, what hope do we have for the solution to an automated economy? Governments need to act now to stymie potentially disastrous socio-economic effects in the coming decades.

The answer lies in two of the most popular contemporary hot-spot topics in the modern media landscape: UBI and automation. They could play into each other in a mutually beneficial fashion. Portions of the profits reaped by robots should be diverted to support this new system as humans inevitably phase out of the workforce.

Learn how to write for Quartz Ideas. We welcome your comments at ideas@qz.com.

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Let the robots take our jobs and pay for a universal basic income - Quartz

Photo: Ben Margot, Associated Press

A crane transporting vehicles from a container ship operates at the Port of Oakland. Automation is reducing the number of longshore workers jobs.

A crane transporting vehicles from a container ship operates at the Port of Oakland. Automation is reducing the number of longshore workers jobs.

Dockworkers squeezed by automation, abandoned by politicians

The ink wasnt even dry on the West Coast longshore contract when the head of the employers group, the Pacific Maritime Association, proposed to the International Longshore and Warehouse Union a three-year extension, making it an eight-year contract. While the number of registered longshore jobs, 14,000, is the about same as in 1952, the volume of cargo passing through the 29 ports has increased 14 times to a record-breaking 350 million revenue tons a year.

Under the current contract, employers have eliminated hundreds of longshore jobs through automation on marine terminals such as the fully automated Long Beach Container Terminal and the semi-automated TraPac freight-forwarding facility in the Port of Los Angeles.

By the end of an extended contract in 2022, several thousand longshore jobs will be eliminated on an annual basis due to automation, warned Ed Ferris, president of ILWU Local 10 in San Francisco. With driverless trucks and crane operators in control towers running three cranes simultaneously, the chance of serious and deadly accidents are enormous.

Now maritime employers are pulling out all stops to push through this job-killing contract extension, using both Democratic and Republican politicians, high-powered PR firms and even some union officials.

On July 18, The Chronicle published an Open Forum by Democrats Mickey Kantor, former U.S. secretary of commerce who led the U.S. negotiations to create the World Trade Organization and the North American Free Trade Agreement, which cost millions of jobs, and Norman Mineta, also a former secretary of commerce.

The authors of this pro-employer piece talk of preserving labor peace and refer to West Coast port shutdowns over the last 15 years. Yes, there is a class war on the waterfront, but its being waged by the employers: Those port closures were caused by employer lockouts in 2002, 2013 and 2014 during longshore contract negotiations.

The 2002 lockout was ended after Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., called on President George W. Bush to invoke the antilabor Taft-Hartley Act not against the maritime employers lockout but against the longshore union. The only time the ILWU shut down Pacific Coast ports between 2002 and today was May Day, 2008, in protest of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan the first-ever labor strike in the United States to protest a war.

In their Chronicle commentary, the two Democrats cite figures for wages and pensions that reflect only the highest skill level after a lifetime of work in one of the most dangerous industries. And then they threaten that if the contract proposal is rejected, it could lead Republicans and Democrats alike to impose antistrike legislation on the waterfront.

The ILWU backed Bernie Sanders in the presidential primary and then Hillary Clinton in the election. Yet no matter who leads it, the Democratic Party represents Wall Street on the waterfront. Clearly whats needed is a workers party to fight for workers interests. And that includes fighting for nationalization without compensation of the transport industry while establishing workers control.

The so-called friends of labor Democrats have been enlisted by the Pacific Maritime Association because earlier this year at the Longshore Caucus, a union meeting representing West Coast dockworkers, the San Francisco delegates voted unanimously to oppose a contract extension. Saturday, they held a conference at their union hall on automation and the proposed contract extension. One proposal was to make automation benefit dockworkers by reducing the workweek to 30 hours while maintaining 40 hours pay, creating another work shift.

There are tens of millions of unemployed people in this country. The labor movement should launch a new campaign for a shorter workweek at no loss in pay as part of a struggle for full employment to benefit all, not President Trump and his Wall Street cronies. In resisting this contract extension, ILWU waterfront workers can stand up for all workers.

Jack Heyman, a retired Oakland longshoreman, chairs the Transport Workers Solidarity Committee. https://www.transportworkers.org/

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Dockworkers squeezed by automation, abandoned by politicians - SFGate