Men Versus Machines
The project has completed work on the documentary film that tells the story of the time leading up to the implementation of the first Modernization and Mechanization (M & M) Agreement in 1961. These stories reveal the often-fierce debates that erupted within the union and the issues and concerns the membership faced. The M & M controversy turned friend against friend and often brought former enemies together. At stake was the transformation of the ILWU.
The agreement had a deeply personal affect on the union's membership up 
and down the Pacific coast – thousands retiring, thousand more facing fundamental changes in their workplace. Former and current ILWU workers explain how they faced early retirements, and the layoffs that came with mechanization. Others tell how they received the guarantee of work for life and learned to work with the giant cranes and containers that were a part of the M & M process.
This agreement had a profound physical effect on the port communities of California. For example, the contrast is clear today, between San Francisco, where the old piers are now restaurants and farmers markets, and Oakland, with its lines of huge hammerhead cranes. The combined Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach now rank as the third largest in the world.
The agreement was also groundbreaking for the American labor movement, helping it fight for the rights of workers in the other industries that faced increased mechanization and subsequent job loses.
An understanding of the ways in which the ILWU dealt with this challenge, and it’s success and failure in protecting its membership, will help the workforce of today face their own challenges.
The importance of trade to the west coast today is clear, and if these men had voted the other way, which they could easily have done (the vote was 43% against the agreement), the California landscape and economy would be very different today. Even more important is the fact that globalization is dependent on the cheap and efficient transport of goods in containers. The M&M agreements are a vital part of the economic scenario that has made globalization possible. It is perhaps ironic that agreements seen as visionary for American industry have played a part in the movement of so much of that industry abroad. It is certainly ironic that today the longshore division of the ILWU, rather than facing the continued shrinking of it's workforce as feared in 1961, is expanding it's membership to handle the ever increasing work in the west coast ports.