Dockworkers protest at Port of Vancouver over automation, AI

“Dock workers are united and determined to hold the line on destructive automation in our ports, no matter where those ports are,” Doran said in the union’s announcement.

DP World is also backing a major container project at the Port of Montreal, as well as expansion at Port Saint John on Canada’s east coast.

A global labor campaign

The summit brought together representatives from ILWU Canada and the U.S.-based International Longshore and Warehouse Union; the International Longshoremen’s Association 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 Local 375; the International Transport Workers’ Federation; and the International Dockworkers Council.

The group’s joint campaign calls for technological changes to be negotiated before implementation. Its principles oppose:

• Automation used as a union-busting tool
• New technology introduced without a “social dividend” for workers
• Technology-driven job cuts or reductions in wages and benefits
• Automation that reduces safety protections or replaces secure waterfront work without negotiated safeguards

Dennis Daggett, president of the ILA Atlantic Coast District and general coordinator of the International Dockworkers Council, said waterfront job losses extend beyond terminals, affecting businesses and communities supported by port workers’ incomes.

Vancouver’s Centerm dispute

The rally focused attention on DP World’s Centerm facility, one of the Port of Vancouver’s major container gateways and a critical link between Asian trade lanes and Canadian and U.S. inland markets.

In a major modernization program, DP World says the completed Centerm expansion lifted annual container-handling capacity from 900,000 to 1.5 million TEUs, while adding rail capacity, electrifying equipment and supporting larger vessel calls. The terminal includes two berths, 15,000 feet of on-dock rail, 19 rubber-tired gantry cranes and five electrically powered semi-autonomous rail-mounted gantry cranes.

The Trump administration’s tariff and trade policies have fueled a shift of containerized import traffic away from U.S. West Coast hubs and through Vancouver and the port of Prince Rupert, also in British Columbia, for entry into the American market via intermodal rail.

The modernization upgrades have made Centerm an important symbol in the automation debate. 

In 2024, ILWU Local 514, representing ship and dock forepersons, accused DP World of planning to introduce automation at Centerm’s rail intermodal yard without first bargaining over the technological change. The dispute was among the factors behind a strike notice directed at DP World before the Canada Industrial Relations Board ruled that the union’s strike vote was unlawful and ordered the notice withdrawn.

The union’s broader concern is that terminal technology can alter staffing, dispatching and job classifications even where it raises capacity or improves equipment performance. Employers, meanwhile, have argued that investments in digital systems, automated gates, rail operations and remote equipment can increase throughput, improve safety and preserve the competitiveness of Canada’s Pacific gateway.

Competing views of modernization

DP World and the B.C. Maritime Employers Association have portrayed the Centerm upgrade as evidence that terminal modernization can grow both cargo capacity and waterfront employment. A KPMG report released Oct. 1 for the BCMEA said Centerm’s capacity increased 65%, to 1.5 million TEUs, from 900,000 TEUs, while waterfront payroll hours rose 59%, from 835,000 in 2019 to 1.328 million in 2025. The report attributed the gains to combined investment in terminal infrastructure, technology, process improvements and workforce skills.

The unions point out that their positions aren’t a wholesale rejection of technology. Delegates said the benefits of automation must be shared with workers and communities, and any operational changes must be subject to meaningful collective bargaining.

Read more articles by Stuart Chirls here.

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