[gthippo]

That's a great point, Rotterdam and Oakland are both not great choices for comparisons. However, there is a general point that US ports such as LA + Long Beach do lag in efficiency compared to Asian ports such as Singapore for example (which is heavily automated but also unionized).

For example in "CONTAINER TERMINAL PRODUCTIVITY: EXPERIENCES AT THE PORTS OF LOS ANGELES AND LONG BEACH" Le and Murphy give some comparisons of LA and Long Beach to other leading terminals.

Taking Singapore as our main example, as of 2004 it moved 2.7 as much container volume as LA but occupied roughly half the land area. It has 6 times the TEU/acre of LA and 64% higher TEU/crane. General trends also hold for Kwai Tsing (HK) and Klang (Malaysia).

To quote Le and Murphy in the above-mentioned paper:

"Further consideration of these factors reveals that the terminal operators at these ports are aware of the technologies and practices used at other world ports that would allow them to achieve a higher level of performance. However, the present operating agreements between terminal operators and port labor prevent the implementation of such technologies and practices."

[bsder]

LA and Long Beach may also be hampered somewhat in that we apply pollution regulations to them, do these other ports have those restrictions?

Effectively, "it's complicated".

[nickff]

Everything is complicated, and we live in a world of high causal density, but that does not mean we should throw up our hands in dismay and self-pity.

It is clear that the union is exploiting its monopoly on the supply of port labor, to decrease efficiency, and increase costs and union membership. For some reason, most people are less likely to attribute high costs to monopoly unions, but more than happy to do so for monopoly corporations.