The Port Alden Harbor Authority signed a ten-year cargo handling contract Tuesday with Meridian Shipping Lines that will bring two additional container ships a week to the east quay starting in March. It will also bring four automated cranes, replacing machines that have been operated by hand since the quay was rebuilt in 1998.
The deal is the largest in the port's history by shipping volume, and port officials have promoted it publicly as a win for the local economy, projecting 60 million dollars a year in added cargo fees over the life of the contract. What officials have said less about is what the automation clause means for the roughly 40 crane operators currently working the east quay.
Under the contract, two of the quay's four cranes will be replaced with automated units within eighteen months, with the remaining two converted by year four. The union representing crane operators says the timeline effectively eliminates a third of its jobs on that quay by the contract's midpoint.
