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May You Reach Your
Wellness Potential Productivity, once directly related to human muscle, sweat and attitude, is now measured on scales that only a high-tech machine (or a corporate bean counter) could love. Technological advancements nothing short of amazing - couple Seemingly without second thought, people today talk about being "riffed," an innocent-looking little acronym meaning "reduction in force." It reminds me of the doctor who, on reporting the cause of death, said the patient failed to fulfill his wellness potential. The Port of Duluth-Superior offers a textbook illustration of the reduction-in-force imperative. As elsewhere, it didn't happen overnight. The most graphic example is the Twin Ports coal trade. Eastern coal was once our largest inbound cargo, averaging more than 10 million tons a year in the 1920s and, as recently as the 1950s, more than five million tons a year. Today, we annually receive only about 200,000 tons of eastern coal - but last year the Superior Midwest Energy Terminal shipped out 13.4 million short tons of low-sulphur western coal. I recall the late Buster Slaughter, longtime international vice president of the International Longshoreman's Association, reminiscing about the days when 2,000 ILA members worked at local coal docks. I checked the figure with Ken Fossum, retired superintendent of the former Berwind Dock and Briquette plant in Superior. |
Cement Goes In, Cement Goes Out Groups Meet to Discuss Port Capital Needs Midwest Energy Breaks Own Record Museum Welcomes 10 millionith Visitor Who Says Indiana Harbor Isn't Romantic An Anomaly Wrapped in an Enigma? Wheat: King of the Northern Plains |
| Mr. Fossum said that when he
joined Berwind in 1941 there were 16 coal docks here and Berwind alone employed 120
people. He said 2,000 coal dockers portwide was probably right. Consider the contrast: The Midwest Energy Terminal - moving more tonnage by itself than 16 docks once did with 2,000 workers - employs 62 people full-time, including management. During an average load, says General Manager and Vice President Fred Shusterich, one ship requires five or six people per shift, including maintenance personnel. And one person, the shiploader, orchestrates the entire operation from the ship's deck with a handheld remote control box. Here's another one: The DM&IR Railroad, which carries iron ore pellets from the Mesabi Range to its docks in Duluth and Two Harbors, had a total employment in 1952 of about 7,000. Eleven hundred of those workers were in the Proctor steam locomotive shop. Today, per DM&IR Administrative Manager Bob Bennett, top-to-bottom jobs total about 725. For a more recent comparison, Local 118 of the American Federation of Grain Millers was said to have about 500 members working at Duluth-Superior elevators in 1979. Today, Dennis Tollers, the local president, represents about 125 members. The biggest elevator, Harvest States Cooperatives, with an 18-million bushel capacity, is operated by 26 people. I offer these hit-and-miss anecdotes because we lack data regarding Port employment until 1984 when the Port Authority began commissioning economic impact studies by the Duluth firm of Klaers, Powers and Associates. The most recent KPA analysis, conducted with the aid of the University of Minnesota-Duluth Bureau of Business and Economic Research, reports that in 1996 there were 1,944 jobs dependent on Port activity. "The relatively small number of jobs considering the volume of commerce involved (37.1 million metric tons of cargo worth nearly $2 billion) is a testament to the high productivity and efficiency of port operations," the authors said. "High productivity and efficiency ..." It's the name of the game today.
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d with constant pressure on management to
bolster the bottom line - have created automation, downsizing, rightsizing and all the
other euphemisms that mean slashing the work force.
