About 100 dockworker union delegates from Canada, the US, Australia and New Zealand rallied outdoors DP World’s Centerm container terminal on the Port of Vancouver final week, launching a global marketing campaign towards what they describe as job-threatening automation and synthetic intelligence at ports.
The protest adopted the Worldwide Dockworkers Anti-Automation Summit, held at Vancouver’s Maritime Labour Centre in late September. Delegates marched to the DP World terminal Sept. 23 after adopting a shared place that accepts expertise meant to enhance security and port communities however rejects its use to chop jobs, outsource work, develop surveillance, undermine unions or erode security requirements.
The present British Columbia longshore settlement is ready to run out in March 2027, and the query of how automation impacts jobs, work guidelines and bargaining rights is anticipated to be a distinguished subject.
Tom Doran, president of Worldwide Longshore and Warehouse Union Canada, mentioned the collaborating unions had organized round what he characterised as a standard risk from employers introducing automation and AI. He singled out Dubai-based DP World, whose operations embrace the Centerm terminal in Vancouver, as an organization on the middle of longshore labor’s considerations.
“Dock staff are united and decided to carry the road on damaging automation in our ports, regardless of the place these ports are,” Doran mentioned within the union’s announcement.
DP World can be backing a significant container undertaking on the Port of Montreal, in addition to enlargement at Port Saint John on Canada’s east coast.
A world labor marketing campaign
The summit introduced collectively representatives from ILWU Canada and the U.S.-based Worldwide Longshore and Warehouse Union; the Worldwide Longshoremen’s Affiliation in Canada and the U.S.; the Maritime Union of Australia; the Maritime Union of New Zealand; New Zealand’s Rail and Maritime Transport Union; Montreal’s CUPE Native 375; the Worldwide Transport Employees’ Federation; and the Worldwide Dockworkers Council.
The group’s joint marketing campaign requires technological adjustments to be negotiated earlier than implementation. Its ideas oppose:
- Automation used as a union-busting device
- New expertise launched and not using a “social dividend” for staff
- Expertise-driven job cuts or reductions in wages and advantages
- Automation that reduces security protections or replaces safe waterfront work with out negotiated safeguards
Dennis Daggett, president of the ILA Atlantic Coast District and normal coordinator of the Worldwide Dockworkers Council, mentioned waterfront job losses prolong past terminals, affecting companies and communities supported by port staff’ incomes.
Vancouver’s Centerm dispute
The rally targeted consideration on DP World’s Centerm facility, one of many Port of Vancouver’s main container gateways and a vital hyperlink between Asian commerce lanes and Canadian and U.S. inland markets.
In a significant modernization program, DP World says the finished Centerm enlargement lifted annual container-handling capability from 900,000 to 1.5 million TEUs, whereas including rail capability, electrifying tools and supporting bigger vessel calls. The terminal consists of two berths, 15,000 toes of on-dock rail, 19 rubber-tired gantry cranes and 5 electrically powered semi-autonomous rail-mounted gantry cranes.
The Trump administration’s tariff and commerce insurance policies have fueled a shift of containerized import visitors away from U.S. West Coast hubs and thru Vancouver and the port of Prince Rupert, additionally in British Columbia, for entry into the American market through intermodal rail.
The modernization upgrades have made Centerm an necessary image within the automation debate.
In 2024, ILWU Native 514, representing ship and dock forepersons, accused DP World of planning to introduce automation at Centerm’s rail intermodal yard with out first bargaining over the technological change. The dispute was among the many elements behind a strike discover directed at DP World earlier than the Canada Industrial Relations Board dominated that the union’s strike vote was illegal and ordered the discover withdrawn.
The union’s broader concern is that terminal expertise can alter staffing, dispatching and job classifications even the place it raises capability or improves tools efficiency. Employers, in the meantime, have argued that investments in digital programs, automated gates, rail operations and distant tools can improve throughput, enhance security and protect the competitiveness of Canada’s Pacific gateway.
Competing views of modernization
DP World and the B.C. Maritime Employers Affiliation have portrayed the Centerm improve as proof that terminal modernization can develop each cargo capability and waterfront employment. A KPMG report launched Oct. 1 for the BCMEA mentioned Centerm’s capability elevated 65%, to 1.5 million TEUs, from 900,000 TEUs, whereas waterfront payroll hours rose 59%, from 835,000 in 2019 to 1.328 million in 2025. The report attributed the good points to mixed funding in terminal infrastructure, expertise, course of enhancements and workforce expertise.
The unions level out that their positions aren’t a wholesale rejection of expertise. Delegates mentioned the advantages of automation have to be shared with staff and communities, and any operational adjustments have to be topic to significant collective bargaining.
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