Managerial Technologies and Power Relations: A Study of the Australian Waterfront

In recent times, the modern port has been characterised by rapid changes in work technologies and the consolidation of logistics functions. These changes signify an important recomposition of the port labour process and raise questions about the strategic location of frontline manual jobs. This research examines how these changes have played out in the Australian ports industry, developing the argument that a depersonalised managerial form of control is emerging with potentially challenging consequences for worker solidarity and collective organisation. The argument is that relations between port management and workers have changed significantly, with a reconfiguration of job roles, skill compositions and thus workplace power relations. It is informed by qualitative research at two Australian ports, exploring the organisation of work and the impact of recent technologies.

[1]  E. Shayan,et al.  The importance of information technology in port terminal operations , 2000 .

[2]  E Van De Voorde,et al.  A quarter a century of port management in Europe: objectives and tools , 1998 .

[3]  Brian Slack,et al.  Pawns in the Game: Ports in a Global Transportation System , 1993 .

[4]  Tim Butcher,et al.  Global Logistics and Supply Chain Management , 2008 .

[5]  John Bessant,et al.  Managing Innovation: Integrating Technological, Market, and Organizational Change, 2nd Edition , 2001 .

[6]  N. Lillie.  Global Collective Bargaining on Flag of Convenience Shipping , 2004 .

[7]  Mark Dodgson,et al.  The Management Of Technological Innovation , 2000 .

[8]  Donald Fitzgerald,et al.  Work on the Waterfront: Worker Power and Technological Change in a West Coast Port , 1990 .

[9]  T. Notteboom,et al.  Containerisation, Box Logistics and Global Supply Chains: The Integration of Ports and Liner Shipping Networks , 2008 .

[10]  S. Lukes.  Power: A Radical View , 1974 .

[11]  Erik Olin Wright,et al.  Working-Class Power , Capitalist-Class Interests , and Class Compromise 1 , 2000 .

[12]  Richard Whitley,et al.  Divergent Capitalisms: The Social Structuring and Change of Business Systems , 1999 .

[13]  E. Webster,et al.  Organising on the periphery: new sources of power in the South African workplace , 2008 .

[14]  C. Davis.  The Politics of Ports: Privatization and the World's Ports , 2007, International Labor and Working-Class History.

[15]  Work on the waterfront : worker power and technological change in a west coast port , 1989 .

[16]  Peter Hall,et al.  Container ports, local benefits and transportation worker earnings , 2009 .

[17]  Gerry Griffin,et al.  Industrial Relations Implications of the Australian Waterside Disputes , 1998 .

[18]  Alfred J. Baird,et al.  Port Privatisation: Objectives, Extent, Process, and the UK Experience , 2000 .

[19]  A. Vigarié.  From break-bulk to containers: the transformation of general cargo handling and trade , 1999 .

[20]  Peter Turnbull,et al.  The War on Europes Waterfront - Repertoires of Power in the Port Transport Industry , 2006 .

[21]  Victoria Wass,et al.  Defending Dock Workers Globalization and Labor Relations in the World's Ports , 2007 .

[22]  P. Feuille,et al.  Conflict at work , 1986 .

[23]  Beverly J. Silver.  Forces of labor : workers' movements and globalization since 1870 , 2003 .

[24]  Harry Barton,et al.  Labour Regulation and Competitive Performance in the Port Transport Industry: The Changing Fortunes of Three Major European Seaports , 2002 .

[25]  Alberto Bayo-Moriones,et al.  The Effects of Integrated Manufacturing on Job Characteristics , 2010 .

[26]  Khalid Bichou,et al.  A critical review of conventional terminology for classifying seaports , 2005 .

[27]  Jan Weglarz,et al.  Interpreting Information Systems in Organizations , 1993 .

[28]  P. Turnbull,et al.  The limits to‘Japanisation’—Just‐in‐Time, labour relations and the UK automotive industry , 1988 .

[29]  C. Mcconville.  The Australian Waterfront Dispute 1998 , 2000 .

[30]  B. Dabscheck.  The Australian Waterfront Dispute and Theories of the State , 2000 .

[31]  Vivek S. Borkar,et al.  Manufacturing consent , 2010, 2010 48th Annual Allerton Conference on Communication, Control, and Computing (Allerton).

[32]  Pierre Cariou,et al.  Costs, Benefits and Pricing of Dedicated Container Terminals , 2002 .

[33]  William Finlay,et al.  Getting the Goods: Ports, Labor, and the Logistics Revolution , 2009 .

[34]  Daniel Roos,et al.  The machine that changed the world : the story of lean production , 1991 .

[35]  P. Thompson,et al.  Labour Power and Labour Process: Contesting the Marginality of the Sociology of Work , 2009 .

[36]  Edna Bonacich,et al.  Getting the Goods: Ports, Labor, and the Logistics Revolution , 2008 .

[37]  Peter Rousseeuw,et al.  The Competitive Advantage of Seaports , 2000 .

[38]  Brian Slack,et al.  Transformation of port terminal operations: from the local to the global , 2005 .

[39]  Sidney Tarrow,et al.  The New Transnational Activism , 2005 .

[40]  Tim Butcher,et al.  Supply chain knowledge work: should we restructure the workforce for improved agility? , 2007 .

[41]  P. Fairbrother,et al.  The Local is Now Global: Building a Union Coalition in the International Transport and Logistics Sector , 2010 .

[42]  G. Carchedi.  On the Economic Identification of Social Classes , 2023 .

[43]  Anthony Kenneth Charles Beresford,et al.  The UNCTAD and WORKPORT models of port development: evolution or revolution? , 2004 .