ABSTRACT
Dockworkers are workers who are involved in the movement of cargo to and from vessels. The number of dockworkers worldwide has been declining. In the U.S., for example, dockworker jobs declined from 80,000 in 1967 to 11,400 in 1986 (Chadwin et al. 1990) and declined by 44 percent between 1989 and 1992. In Australia, waterfront reforms introduced in 1989 led to a 42 percent reduction in dockworker jobs; in France, work rule reforms (that were introduced in 1992) led to a 66 percent decline in dockworker jobs at its major ports (Talley 2002). The job losses are attributed to (1) the introduction of port labor-reduction technologies such as containerization, (2) the privatization of ports, and (3) the increasing number of landlord ports, where terminal operators other than the public port authority are operating the ports.
