WASHINGTON: The Port of Charleston will offer extended gate hours for containers at its Wando Welch and North Charleston terminals this week to cope with the aftermath of a surprise labor slowdown on the waterfront Friday that ground truck traffic there to a halt. The South Carolina Ports Authority will offer extended gate hours for dry boxes at the Wando Welch and North Charleston until 9 p.m. Monday and Tuesday in an effort to help mitigate some lingering “issues motor carriers experienced Friday,” as well as cope with larger-than-average rail volumes on the waterfront, the port authority told JOC.com Monday. The work slowdown at the Wando terminal was orchestrated by the International Longshoremen’s Association local mechanics union in response to a new automated gate system that was implemented at the terminal last summer and is in the very early stages of testing at the nearby North Charleston terminal. The technology, known as an “advanced gate system” or AGS, is similar to what’s already used to speed up and standardize truck turn times at major ports worldwide, from India’s Jawaharlal Nehru to the Port of Virginia. Labor groups, however, have expressed concern that the new technology will eliminate waterfront jobs.
Last Friday, a day before the port authority began testing the AGS technology at the North Charleston Terminal, union workers refused to use the new automated gate system technology at Wando Welch, forcing truck drivers there to stop for manual chassis inspections. The port authority told JOC.com that by 2 p.m. that afternoon the port authority had managed to clear the backlog of truck traffic that had mounted at the terminal, but apparently “issues” may have remained. “The extended gate hours is to further mitigate any issues motor carriers experienced on Friday,” port authority spokeswoman Kelsi Childress told JOC.com Monday, “as well as to handle expected heavier rail volumes.” Childress added that the port authority met with members of the local ILA mechanics union over the weekend. “It was a productive meeting and we do not expect the disruption that occurred on Friday to happen again.”
Automation at terminal gates has emerged as a top ILA concern. The union has been wary of automated systems in which chassis are scanned by optical character recognition cameras instead of by workers in truck lanes. ILA President Harold Daggett said this month that automation will dominate the forthcoming negotiations on a new East and Gulf coast dockworker contract to replace the current one, which expires Sept. 30, 2018. In other ports where the technology has been introduced, employers and the ILA have negotiated agreements to reduce the impact on jobs. Jim Newsome, South Carolina port authority president and CEO, has said that the AGS technology did not and will not eliminate any ILA jobs. Instead, workers were retained and trained to use the new equipment. This is the second time the AGS technology has been the root of delays and disruption at the Wando Welch Terminal. Due to a technical “threading” issue with the technology on the day of its rollout on June 20, dozens of big rigs were left lined up on the eastbound lanes of US Interstate 526 as port employees and truck drivers worked through what have been characterized as “kinks” and “bugs.” The port responded immediately, shutting down the terminal gates for three hours before reopening and beginning to work through the backlog. Terminal gate hours were extended as congestion persisted the following days and terminal gates remained open over the following weekend. The port authority is now testing AGS on a single lane at its North Charleston container terminal this Saturday. Testing will run through Feb. 10 and truck drivers can elect to use the lane or not. Full implementation on all lanes at the North Charleston Terminal is slated for Feb. 11. After the Wando incident this summer, the port authority said it is willing to delay implementation by a full week if the North Charleston test is unsuccessful, according to Barbara Melvin, senior vice president of operations and terminals. After a successful implementation at the North Charleston Terminal, rollouts for AGS will be complete for both of Charleston’s container terminals, as well as its inland port facility in Greer, South Carolina.
