Marxist Theory, the Globalisation of Port Development,
and the Role of LabourSimon Stratton
Labour Studies & Politics Department
The University of Adelaide
This paper seeks to ‘rethink’ the role
of Marxist theory in providing a useful reference point from which to
contemplate a number of issues pertaining to port development and the role of
labour within it. In examining what Harvey refers to as capital’s ‘flexible
accumulation’, the role of labour control, especially within the port
sector, becomes significant. However, this examination is based on Marx’s
theory of capital’s circulation through the ‘annihilation of space by
time’, the impetus for increasing capital’s turnover time. The logical
progression of Marx’s theory of capital circulation reveals, however, the
necessity for capitalists to engage in a process of creative destruction driven
from temporal crises through the over-accumulation of fixed investments. This paper uses the three examples to illustrate the creative destruction of
the built environment of ports that reflect the temporal crises in capital
accumulation. Firstly, new technology in the form of containerisation from the
mid-1970s. Secondly, the realignment of ports globally due to takeovers from
both multi-national shipping lines and terminal operators. And, thirdly, the
spectacle of waterfront redevelopments. These examples illustrate that "the
wider processes of capital accumulation and maritime technological
transformation are ...the primary driving forces for change".1
However, given this situation, there remains an important role for labour within
this process in influencing the direction of port development internationally.
Globalisation and transport Globalisation refers to the
evolution of large firms becoming world-wide in the scope of their
operations.2 About one-quarter of all world trade now occurs within
global companies.3 The forces driving this globalisation process are
basically firms’ ambitions for growth and increased profitability in wider
markets.4 Such global firms exhibit certain characteristics that
have implications for the way in which the world economy operates, and, in
particular, for small and medium sized national economies. Globalisation is
therefore facilitated by the generally increasing, though not uniform, degree of
integration of the world economy, towards a single global market for each
product. However, Beuthe and Janelle argue that transportation is possibly the least
researched element in the complex of factors that make up the process of modern
globalisation.5 They cite Harvey’s work as one of the exceptions
to this rule. The notion of space-time compression processes is used by Harvey
to theoretically define globalisation, where reference to transportation is as
space-adjusting technologies and agents of globalisation. Beuthe and Janelle
argue: The transport industry is a
major beneficiary of recent technological developments and a central contributor
to this new economy. It acts as catalyst for reduced restrictions on
international trade, promotes new technologies and markets them on a global
basis, seeks both national and international policy measures to support expanded
transport investments, and often discourages regulatory measures to internalise
the negative social and environmental costs associated with transport practices.6 The importance of the space-adjusting technologies encompassed within
transportation is that it is fundamentally different from other forms of
production in that it produces flows linking places. This of course is necessary
to all forms of economic activity, in the import/export chain, between the
production and consumption of goods and services.7 However, this said, Harvey’s conception of transportation and its
linkages within the globalisation process follows from the more recent
characterisation of global capitalism: what he refers to as ‘flexible
accumulation’. Harvey's theory of time-space compression can be understood
through capitalist flexible accumulation introducing new forms of labour control
through the coordination of more efficient forms of turn over time, coupled with
the ability to invest/disinvest or relocate production across spatial (that is,
locational or regional) barriers easily. The focus is therefore on labour
control as exercised under the theory of capitalist flexible accumulation, but
in particular, how this is utilised in the transportation sector. A key to the
dynamic of flexible accumulation’s utilisation in the transport sector is
how this increasingly globalised service industry interacts within the national,
regional and local setting. However, to account for this process in the
manifestations of port development in recent capitalism, a brief elaboration of
Harvey’s adaptation of Marx’s reflection on transports role in capital
accumulation is appropriate. ‘The annihilation of space by time’: Time-space compression
theory Harvey introduces the general theoretical propositions of
time and space around what Marx implies for capital's propensity to reduce
circulation time, especially in transport relations and exchange, encompassed in
the term the ‘annihilation of space by time’.9 A brief
explanation of these terms follows. For Marx, circulation encompassed both the physical movement of commodities
from the point of production to the point of consumption and the costs attached
to the time taken in the social mediations (for example, the chain of
wholesalers, retailers, banking operations) in order for the produced commodity
to find its ultimate user. Marx regarded the physical movement of commodities
as integral to the production process and considered it productive of
value.10 Marx also equated that the turnover time of a given capital
is equal to the production time plus the circulation time.11
Therefore, the longer the turnover time of a given capital, the smaller its
surplus value. Intensifying competition leads individual capitalists to accelerate the
turnover of their capital. Technological innovation that affects turnover time
is therefore not at a uniform rate. However, when catch-up in technological
innovation occurs, a consequence is over-accumulation, stagnation and periods of
crisis in profitability.13 A geographical consequence also results from minimising circulation costs as
well as turnover time: an agglomeration of production within a few large urban
centres occurs.14 The 'annihilation of space by time' is accomplished
here by a 'rational' location of activities so as to minimise the costs of
movement. This locational geographical rationalisation is in part dependent
upon the changing structure of transport facilities. Although Harvey, using
Marx, recognises: Since the structure of
transport facilities does not remain constant, we find "a shifting and
relocation of places of production and of markets as a result of the changes in
their relative positions caused by the transformation in transport facilities".
These transformations alter "the relative
distances of places of production from the larger markets: and consequently
bring about "the deterioration of old and the rise of new centres of production".15 A distinct spatial structure within capitalism is therefore contradictory,
since in order to 'annihilate space by time', "spatial structures are
created which themselves ultimately act as a barrier to further
accumulation"16. As spatial structures are represented as fixed
capital (as, for instance, immovable forms of transport facilities) they cannot
be moved without being destroyed or devalued. Thus: Capitalist development has
to negotiate a knife-edge path between preserving the values of past capital
investments in the built environment and destroying these investments in order
to open up fresh room for accumulation. ...Temporal crises in fixed capital
investment ...are therefore usually expressed as periodic re-shapings of the
geographic environment to adapt it to the needs of further
accumulation.17 Three empirical examples of this theoretical proposition in the built
environment of ports have become manifest since the 1970s. These examples
include the mediation of crisis in the 1970's due to the impact of
containerisation, the globalisation of shipping and terminal operators’
investments in ports, and waterfront redevelopments. Internationally these have
taken varied forms depending on the circumstances of locations' built
environments and social forces. What Harvey defines as ‘flexible accumulation’ shaped the mediation
of the crisis in capital accumulation, which was brought on through the impact
of this new technology (containers, container shipping, container terminals and
so on). Harvey uses the term to signal a continuation of change in capital
accumulation’s attempt to overcome its contradictions which lead to crises.
Harvey states: Flexible accumulation ...is
marked by a direct confrontation with the rigidity's of Fordism. It rests on
flexibility with respect to labour processes, labour markets, products, and
patterns of consumption. It is characterised by the emergence of entirely new
sectors of production, new ways of providing financial services, new markets,
and above all, greatly intensified rates of commercial, technological, and
organisational innovation. It [also] has entrained rapid shifts in the
patterning of uneven development, both between sectors and between geographical
regions.18 Notably, the adoption of flexible accumulation as an attempt for capital to
overcome crisis has taken on specific forms to enhance employers' forms of
labour control. Harvey sees that the current trend in labour markets is designed to
"reduce the number of 'core' workers and to rely increasingly upon a work
force that can quickly be taken on board and equally quickly and costlessly be
laid off when times get bad". This development is paralleled with another
transformation in labour market structure which increasingly relies on
"sub-contracting and older labour systems as domestic, artisanal, familial,
and paternalistic". The evidence is such with the proliferation of this
form of labour market structure that Harvey believes there is a "growing
convergence between 'third world' and advanced capitalist labour
systems".21 This suggests that flexibility can also encompass a
downward convergence of labour markets. These points will be developed upon below, though it is important to note
that flexibility in capital accumulation is still contradictory and subject to
crises. This is due to the fact that capitalist crisis is seen by Harvey as
periodic phases of over-accumulation in which idle capital and idle labour
supply exist side by side.22 It is in this context that the
adaptability and flexibility of workers become vital to capitalist development.
"The accelerated destruction and reconstruction of workers’ skills
have been ...a central feature in the turn from Fordist to flexible modes of
accumulation".23 The following examples expand on the core concepts discussed above to
illustrate their continuing relevance in understanding capital’s dynamics
within ports and their effect upon labour: what Harvey categorises as flexible
accumulation. The creative destruction of the built environment Smith argues that it is possible to identify the 'rhythm of accumulation'
whereby spatial and temporal patterns of uneven development characterise a
geography of capitalism.24 Uneven development exists in terms of the
selective functionality of port locations. For capital to achieve greater profit (or surplus value), there is a
continuous investment in the creation of a built environment for production. To
explain this process Harvey develops 'a cyclical model’ of investment in
the built environment based on Marx's (1886) theory of capitalist
crisis.25 Harvey suggests that one distinguish between primary,
secondary and tertiary circuits of the economy when examining capital
accumulation.26 Driving capital flows into three circuits enables a
focus on the dynamic and contradictory character of capital and formation,
devaluation and revitalisation of port structures.27 According to Harvey’s definition of the three circuits of capital, the
principal site of surplus value production, consumption and labour power
reproduction, is the primary circuit driven by capitalists to create surplus
value (or profit). This is accomplished either by increasing the length of the
working day (absolute surplus value), or by reorganising the work process with
the intention of raising the productivity of labour power (relative to surplus
value). The capitalist "captures relative surplus value from the
organisation of cooperation and division of labour within the work process or by
the application of fixed capital (machinery)".28 Yet, in their
efforts to sustain accumulation, individual capitalists find themselves faced by
over-accumulation of capital with few opportunities to utilise that capital.
Herein lies the internal contradiction that exists within the primary
circuit. This tendency toward overaccumulation is temporarily
overcome, and a crisis averted, by switching capital into the secondary and
tertiary circuits (both of which are interrelated). A wide variety of investment
options are open to capital within these circuits. They include fixed capital,
consumption fund formation, and in the case of the tertiary circuit, investment
in science, technology and 'human capital'.29 Once there is a
surplus of both capital and labour which exceeds the needs of current production
and consumption, capital will flow into the formation of long-term (or fixed)
assets. 30 Investing in the built environment (or secondary circuit), capitalists
essentially create a physical landscape for purposes of production, circulation,
exchange and consumption. Because fixed capital in the built environment is
immobile in space, the value incorporated in it cannot be moved without being
destroyed. However, by switching circuits "the tendency towards
over-accumulation is not eliminated".31 Rather, it is altered,
"into a pervasive tendency toward over-investment in the secondary and
tertiary circuits". Eventually, capitalists are faced with a crisis of over-accumulation of
capital in the built environment, in what Harvey calls 'switching crises',
whereby capital flows are reorganised and restructured in order to open up new
channels for productive investment. This is achieved either by 'switching' the
allocation of capital from one sector of the urban system (such as fixed
capital formation) to another (such as education), or by ‘geographical
switching’ the capital flow from one place to another. However, this poses
limitations on capital given that the built environment is 'long-lived,
difficult to alter and spatially immobile'.32 I argue below that spatial immobility is an important factor in the ability
of labour to influence the terms on which capital engages in the built
environment of ports. However, three examples of labour’s engagement in the
built environment are expanded upon below to illustrate capital flexible
accumulation. The impact of containerisation Internationally for the shipping industry, increasing turn around time is the
premium issue for shippers, importers/exporters and governments. These
pressures were manifest with the technological change introduced from the 1970s
through the proliferation of containers replacing break-bulk (palletised, bagged
and loose items) cargoes and the consequent global expansion of container
shipping. Since port terminals occupy a strategic position, both as key control points
in the logistics chain and in terms of their potential impact on national
competitiveness, stabilised industrial relations is of great importance in this
sector. Technological change, most dramatically seen with the introduction of
containerisation in the 1970s-1980s, appears driven through the global
imperative aimed at reducing stevedoring labour to a relatively small activity
in the overall movement of cargo in the harbour.33 In turn, the
process of containerisation was to fundamentally change the built environment of
port infrastructure and the inherently related labour process and wider
consumption and reproduction patterns of dock workers and their families
throughout the world. Table 1: Loss of jobs among dockers: an international
comparison34
It does so through briefly looking at the concept of
globalisation and the role of transport within this process. Not surprisingly,
the work of Marxist geographer David Harvey is useful in providing a basis from
which to examine a number of issues relating to the dynamics of capital. 
As such, speeding up the circulation of capital contributes to
the accumulation process. Under these conditions "even spatial distance
reduces itself to time: the important thing is not the market's distance in
space, but the speed ...with which it can be reached".12
The examples listed below illustrate these
differences. However, what is similar about all three examples can be described
in terms of what Harvey argues in The condition of postmodernity: that
they all fall within the processes of capital accumulation’s shift, which
emerged from the early 1970s, towards 'flexible accumulation'.
Harvey argues that the "disciplining of labour power to the
purposes of capital accumulation ...[is] a process ...[of] labour
control"19. Enhanced labour control occurs under flexible
accumulations powers of flexibility and mobility through "relatively high
levels of 'structural' ...unemployment, rapid destruction and reconstruction of
skills, modest (if any) gains in the real wage, ...and the roll-back of trade
union power". Important to this has been the "move away from regular
employment towards increasing reliance upon part-time, temporary or
sub-contracted work arrangements".20
This is determined both globally and
locally. The global viability of port infrastructure within given trades,
whether bulk, break-bulk or container port, is largely dependent on securing
economies of scale and scope. The local dimension infers the ability to
integrate into global maritime technologies to secure this trade through the
adequate provision of physical infrastructure and investment (that is, channel
depth, number of ship berths and so on).
| 1970 | 1985 | 1992 | |
| Britain | 70,000 | 20,000 | 8,500 |
| Hamburg | 17,265 | 7,666 | |
| Australia | 30,000 | 6,500 | 3,184 |
| South Africa | 8,000 | 2,500 |
Therefore it is an understatement to say that the advent of containerisation in the 1970s adversely affected the stevedoring industry. The focus of the stevedoring labour process shifted from labour-intensive loading/ unloading vessels, which employed large numbers, to capital-intensive machinery based on the shore. This process was coupled with the mechanisation of warehousing and transport from docks to final destination.35
However, as a world-wide phenomenon, containerisation also generally led to a process where retrenchments and the corresponding rise in militancy amongst dock workers was met by governments aiming to intervene to stabilise industrial relations in this essential link to international trade.36 And despite the onset of globally driven technological change in the industry, its adaptation has not been a uni-linear process. Rather, the process of the introduction of new technology in itself has meant that workers operating advanced equipment have had greater bargaining power.37
Tilly and Tilly argue in the case of longshore workers in the United States:
Although containerised cargo-handling has drastically changed routines and productivity on the waterfront, with a consequent decline in the total number of workers, it had actually sustained or enhanced some of the conditions that favour workers’ collective action: location in forms with substantial market power, high capital-labour ratios, extensive worker discretionary control over firm capital, high impact of workers performance on firm’s aggregate performance, and institutions confirming worker rights. The carryover of reputations and relations from the days of conventional handwork has given longshoremen additional advantages in asserting their rights.38
Waterman argues that as a consequence of this, internationally, transport workers have an increasingly strategic position: "In terms of capital accumulation as a whole, transportation is the weak link, representing a dead period between investment and realisation. The dead period for capital accumulation also represents a weak link in the control of labour".39 This argument will be returned to later in this paper. Firstly, however, in demonstrating a later pattern of capital accumulation within ports internationally that is more in line with what Harvey calls ‘flexible accumulation’, it is useful to examine the globalisation of port operators.
The globalisation of port terminal operators
The crisis within container liner shipping has been prevalent internationally for over a decade. This has occurred through the expansion of container shipping new builds which has led to an over-capacity in the world fleet and reduction in freight rates. Consequently the early 1990s has seen a series of global amalgamations towards the creation of global mega-carriers that consist of a number of liner conferences.40 An objective of the mega-carriers is to gain greater efficiencies in turn-over by increasing vessel size and limiting the number of port calls.
Due to the increasing fixed costs that arise from the deployment of larger vessels, as well as the development of hub and feeder systems, global shipping alliances are increasingly participating in container terminal operations. This is to guarantee quick turnaround of their expensive larger vessels as well as instant berth availability so that smooth mainline-feeder connections can be maintained. The trend is also towards their involvement in land based activities with the aim of controlling inter-modal interfaces to vertically integrate transport logistics so as to offer a door-to-door service to customers.41 Global shipping alliances are also developing commercial relationships which save costs by sharing equipment, terminal space, and even labour through using workers from neighbouring terminals.42
The major terminals operating shipping lines are Sea-Land, Maersk line,
Evergreen, Cosco, OOCL and NOL/APL. The trend in alliances between shipping
lines is also now extending into alliances and mergers between terminal
operators.43 
Multi-national port operators have themselves been in a
bidding war over the last decade or so to control strategic locations within
regions and the world maritime trade. P&O Ports Australia, Port of
Singapore Authority, Hutchison Port Holdings, Europe Combined Terminals and
Stevedoring Services of America, are but a few examples of these
multi-nationals. Each is constantly exploring new avenues from which to invest
and gain a foothold in ports globally. One key mechanism that facilitates this
process is through governments’ adoption of privatisation
policy.44 These ventures are made easier with the rapidly growing
competition between ports leading governments to seek foreign investment to fund
port development.45
Competition, spurred through an initial round of privatisation, is ironically feeding into another intensification of competition and compelling many public ports into a need to invest in extra-capacity to maintain competitiveness. This drive is of course leading cash-strapped governments into depending on the private sector to invest. Consequently, governments’ are compelled to create conditions attractive for private capital.46 The consequences for employees in the port environments is that they are now subject to private shareholders demands.
Whatever the merits of the degree of privatisation and competition on the efficiency of ports, one direct consequence of privatisation can be seen in its impact on labour standards and organisation.47
Dock labour has been a casualty of the growing competition between ports to capture a greater market share.
At the same time investments …in new port infra- and super-structures coincide with downward pressure on working conditions and employment in order to cut labour costs … . Deregulation, privitisation and growing competition are leading to this downward pressure and subsequently to the increasing use of non-union labour, casualisation of labour and flexibilisation of labour relations and working conditions.48
Further consequences for labour have included the repeal of legislation protecting workers’ rights as the ability to strike; the abolition of life-long employment guarantees; amendments to legislation enabling employers to dismiss workers more easily; the abolition of the legal basis for collective bargaining; the termination of collective agreements for working conditions; and forced acceptance of fixed term contract or replacement by casual workers.49 In many cases, public money is used to allow employers to dismiss dock labour and debilitate union organisation.50
Another challenge to labour as part of the privatisation process is the contracting out or out-sourcing of ‘non-core’ functions. Successful bidders usually gain the subcontract on the basis of cutting labour costs through employees not being covered by collective agreements. This often involves employing retrenched workers on lower rates.
Labour organisations as the International Transport Federation (ITF), however, are not directly opposed to privatisation per se. Rather, the ITF stress the implications of privatisation are negative if labour is not enabled to participate in restructuring. The ITF also acknowledges that the experience of privatisation varies from country to country.51 It is in sharing common experiences through consolidating labour networks in which an ability to influence the nature of privatisation has and continues to be sought. This argument is expanded upon below.
Waterfront spectacles
Harvey’s definition of switching crises through either moving between circuits or geographically switching capital from one place to another, inevitably results in place-specific devaluation of the built environment. This devaluation of the built environment does not necessarily destroy the use value of the physical resource. Rather, this physical resource can be used as ‘devalued capital’, and as such functions as a free good that can re-establish the basis of renewed accumulation in the form of further development or redevelopment. The devaluation of fixed capital accelerated by changes in transportation technology (a component of the third circuit of capital) can often lead a major phase of economic and spatial restructuring. According to Harvey, this can "be both an end and a means to continued capital accumulation".52
Older port areas incapable of accommodating new types and generations of
shipping, become prime targets for capitalists seeking to make a switch through
a spatial solution.53
This has occurred from the 1980s with the
globalisation of waterfront revitalisation, where often dilapidated wharf areas
become sites for transformation into "postmodern places of consumption and
spectacle". The globalisation of waterfront spectacles is a more recent
example of capital engaging within creative destruction building upon devalued
infrastructure that is dysfunctional in terms of maritime technology. Due to
the imperative of maritime technologies port areas have been relocated to
deepwater port areas and green-field sites. This process has also accelerated
large-scale redundancy and unemployment in traditional dockland areas".54
Australia has been one of a number of countries at the forefront of port renewal through the creation of waterfront spectacles. This can be in most ports across the country, but significantly a conflict has emerged between functional and commercial development in both Sydney and Melbourne.
In Melbourne the recent Docklands redevelopment of old warehousing areas for new residential housing will potentially debilitate the ability for the adjacent Webb dock to function and develop to full capacity. It has been estimated that Sydney’s Glebe Point, White Bay and Darling Harbour terminals have an approximate five-year life span in their current functional role as cargo terminals. Already a massive roll back of port land has occurred in Port Jackson for residential development in an ever-escalating real estate market. This issue was recently highlighted in August 1999 with an oil spill at Shell Australia’s Gore Cove oil terminal.
However, any further roll-back will pose potential problems for Port Botany because at present there is no real further capacity for roll-on/roll-off terminals and connected car stack bays. Plans for land reclamation and expansion in Port Botany have been hindered due to the New South Wales State government’s decision to focus on Newcastle as an alternative port to Botany. The viability of Newcastle and Illawarra (Port Kembla) as alternatives to Sydney are limited, however, to a number of trades due to shipping lines infrequency of berths, increased distance and the assumption of associated extra costs from both these features.
What both examples demonstrate is that the potential for conflict exists between commercial developments and established port-related land uses. Site specific social and functional realities come to the fore in these conflicts. Although a large number of dock workers have been made redundant from port areas and hinterlands over recent decades, the ability for organised labour to play an ongoing role in the nature and pace of redevelopments should not be discounted.
Conclusion: Labour ‘internationalism’ and port development
International solidarity is an important strategy for unions to go beyond national industrial relations legislation. As a result of this, international boycotts (specifically by dock workers) are increasingly targeted by states’ legislation which looks to undermine this powerful strategy for unions. In the case of Australia, the Coalition government's anti secondary-boycott legislation in the Trade Practices and Workplace Relations Acts have targeted the actions of the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA). Consequently, legislation is now in place that is circumscribing the ability for unions in Australia to co-ordinate campaigns, not only nationally, but internationally, as well.
However, the 1998 campaign of the MUA against Patrick stevedores, through the coordination of the ITF affiliates around the globe, aimed to inhibit the unloading of non-union stevedored cargo from Australia. The ITF demonstrated its ability to muster international solidarity to assist the MUA when the union was restricted by domestic legislation to campaign nationally. As such, the MUA is now largely dependent upon the ITF affiliates’ ability to engage in international solidarity campaigns on their behalf. Modern communication technologies (as the Internet) have facilitated this process of informing and igniting, almost instantaneously, international solidarity campaigns when necessary.
Indeed, the community support during the dispute on the picket-lines blocking the flow of goods through Patrick terminals around Australia demonstrated the high profile and accessibility of the dispute. The dispute revealed a high level of class consciousness within the general public, and may have symbolised for many people a ‘microcosm’ of wider class conflict within Australia. The dispute was perceived to be relevant not only in highly urbanised locations where it impacted on large numbers of people, but its influence was also felt more widely across other sectors of the economy and society.
It is in this way that the role of port labour has historically been seen as strategic, not only in the sense of the state and capital exercising forms of labour control, but in the sense that labour organisation within docks is somehow ‘incommensurate’ to other locations and trades. Indeed, this appears to be an ongoing challenge to working class formation: the battle for control of the waterfront. The three examples above illustrate this point, signalling an ongoing role for the organised labour within the era of capital flexible accumulation.
The theories discussed above, which are based on Marx’s earlier theories of the ‘annihilation of space by time’, and the process of ‘creative destruction’ used to facilitate surplus value, the imperative of capital, also point to the nature of this ongoing struggle for strategic position on the waterfront. Despite the onset of ‘flexible accumulation’, embodied above in the three examples of recent and fundamental change to the built environment which facilitates maritime trades, it is the same built environment that Harvey reminds us is "long-lived, difficult to alter and spatially immobile".55 It may be that ‘flexible accumulation’, at least in the maritime and dock sectors, is now again being met by organised labour embodied within the ITF. As the recent MUA-Patricks dispute illustrated, it is no longer merely adequate to rely on an incommensurate position in the economy to organise ‘place’, traditionally encompassed in a closed-shop across national port operations. Rather, if dock workers’ organisation is to remain incommensurate to other forms of labour organisation, it must now seek to organise across space, utilising new forms of solidarity networks globally to regain a strategic position vis-à-vis capital. However, as the Marxist theories discussed here suggest, this struggle for strategic position will be fought out on the built environment spurred by capitalist crises.
Photographs
1. Creative destruction:
Sydney Harbour faces increasing pressure to retain its role as a working port
in the face of increasing residential encroachment and waterfront
redevelopments.
2 - 8. Durban Harbours Point redevelopment aims to replicate the globalised waterfront spectacles, but confronts the fact that as Africa's largest container port, still houses dock workers accomodated within the old apartheid regimes migrant labour hostels.
1. Kilian, D. & Dodson, B. 1995, ‘The capital see-saw: understanding the rationale for the Victoria and Alfred redevelopment’, South African Geographical Journal, 77 (1), pp. 12-20; p.12.
2. The concept of the "global enterprise" appears to have been introduced by Clee of Mckinsey & Company in 1959. Clee wrote in terms of a homogeneous world market, with companies purchasing low cost materials from anywhere in the world, and producing in low labour cost countries, based on the concept of global optimisation. (Ohmae, K. 1990, The borderless world: Power and strategy in the interlinked economy, New York: Harper Perennial)
3. Davis, B. 1994, "Globalisation to take Australia to the world", Daily Commercial News, 20 October, p.16.
4. However, attempts to clarify the term ‘globalisation’ has led to distinctions being made between a global firm and an international or multinational firm, and between a global firm and a multidomestic firm. An international or multinational firm is one which, while it may operate in many countries, or indeed operate worldwide, has a corporate structure centred on its country of origin (BTCE, 1994, International aviation: trends and issues, Report 86, Canberra: Australian Government Publishing Service). The operations of a multidomestic firm, on the other hand, are sufficiently independent of head office to be considered as a domestic operator in each of its markets. In contrast, Porter defined a global industry as one in which "a firm's competitive position in one country is significantly affected by its position in other countries..." (Porter, M. (ed) 1986, Competition in global industries, Boston: Harvard Business School Press; p.18); whilst Dicken defined globalisation as "a more advanced and complex form of internationalization which implies a degree of functional integration between internationally dispersed economic activities" (Dicken, P. 1992, Global shift: The internationalization of economic activity, 2nd edition, London: Paul Chapman Publishing; p.1).
5. Beuthe, M. & Janelle, D. 1997, ‘Globalization and research issues in transportation’, Journal of Transport Geography, 5 (3), 199-206; p.199.
6. Beuthe & Janelle 1997, p. 200.
7.Beuthe & Janelle 1997, p. 200-201.
8. "The time of production together with the time of circulation of exchange make up the concept of ‘the turnover time of capital’. The faster the capital launched into circulation can be recuperated, the greater the profit will be. The definitions of ‘efficient spatial organisation’ and of ‘socially necessary turnover time’ are fundamental norms against which the search for profit is measured. And both are subject to change" (Harvey, D. 1990, The condition of postmodernity: an enquiry into the origins of cultural change, Oxford: Blackwell; p.229).
9. Harvey, D. 1975, ‘The geography of capitalist accumulation: a reconstruction of the Marxian theory’, Antipode, 7 (2), pp. 9-21.
10. Marx, K. 1967, Capital, (Three Volumes), New York: International Publishers; Vol.2 p.150; Marx, K. 1973, Grundrisse, Middlesex: Penguin; p.533-534; Harvey 1975, p.12.
11. Marx 1967, Vol.2 p.248.
12. Marx 1973, p.538. Further, "Turnover time - always one of the keys to capitalist profitability - stood to be reduced dramatically by deployment of the new technologies in production (automation, robots) and new organizational forms ... . But accelerating turnover time in production would have been useless unless the turnover time in consumption was also reduced" (Harvey 1990, p.156).
13. Harvey 1990, p.230.
14. Marx 1967, Vol.1 p.352; Marx 1973, p. 587.
15. Harvey 1975, pp.12-13.
16. Harvey 1975, p.13. Further, because the cost, speed and capacity of the transport system relates directly to accumulation (by decreasing the turnover time of capital), capitalists readily invest in transport technology to make it more efficient and effective. Therefore, innovation in transport is potentially productive for capital as it attempts to go beyond spatial barriers (Harvey, D. 1989, The urban experience, Oxford: Basil Blackwell; p.82). And it is herein that the contradiction lies, as ports, constructed to facilitate the production process through, among other things, the accommodation of water-borne vessels and the transfer of goods, are unable to adapt to innovations in shipping and cargo-handling.
17. Harvey 1975, p.13.
18. Harvey 1990, p.147.
19. Harvey 1990, p.124.
20. Harvey 1990, pp.150-151. Further, dual labour market theory provides an outline of how this trend within flexible accumulation has developed as the resultant labour market structure involves a core and peripheral workforce. The core consists of permanent employees central to the long term future of an organisation. Conversely, the periphery encompasses sub-groups. The first of which consists of skilled full-time employees that are readily available in the labour market and as such are characterised by a high turnover. The second peripheral group provides greater numerical flexibility with even less job security (this group includes part-timers, casuals, fixed term contract staff, temporaries, etc.).
21. Harvey 1990, p.152.
22. Harvey 1990, p.180.
23. Harvey 1990, pp.229-230.
24. Smith 1984.
25. Harvey 1989.
26. Harvey, D. 1982, Limits to capital, Oxford: Basil Blackwell; Harvey, D. 1985, The urbanisation of capital, Oxford: Basil Blackwell; Harvey 1989.
27. Kilian & Dodson 1995, p.12.
28. Harvey 1989, pp.61-62.
29. Harvey 1989, p.68.
30. Harvey (1989) distinguishes between fixed capital which is enclosed within the production process and that which functions as a physical framework for production (wharfs etc.) and consumption (houses).
31. Harvey 1989, pp.65,70.
32. Harvey 1989, pp.71,74.
33. Hemson, D. 1996, The global imperative? Containerisation and Durban’s docks, Durban: University of Durban—Westville; p.17.
34. Hemson 1996, p.6.
35. Hemson 1996, pp.2-3.
36. Hemson (1996, p.3) argues there have been two historical tendencies in dock work internationally in the adaptation to containerisation. Firstly, the formation of national unions for dock workers was often accompanied by the intervention of the state to provide a statutory institutional framework to resolve the contested interests of workers and employers. The combination of their strategic importance with the peculiarly casual nature of employment led governments to conclude intervention was necessary to both ensure reasonable working conditions and secure the docks from the periodic paralysis of strike action. Secondly, the trend towards rapid technological change led to an enormous reduction in the labour force. While the first process has been national in its orbit, the second propelled by global imperatives to a large extent independent of national control.
37. Hemson 1996, pp.23-24.
38. Tilly, Chris & Tilly, Charles 1998, Workers under capitalism, Boulder: Westview Press; p.251.
39. Waterman, P. 1990, International communication and international solidarity: the experience of the Coordinadora of Spanish dockworkers, The Hague, Netherlands: Institute for Social Studies; p.15.
40. Rimmer, P. 1998, ‘Impact of global shipping alliance on Pacific rim seaports’, Maritime Studies, January-February 1998.
41.Lawrance, D. 1998, ‘The development of bulk, neo-bulk and container port terminals in South Africa: road, rail and sea integration’, Paper Presented at the International Cargo Handling Co-ordination Association XXIV International Conference, 31 May — 4 June, Sydney; p.10.
42. Marges, K. 1996, ‘Global terminal operators and shipping alliance’, International Transport Workers Federation, Circular No. 176/d.34, 20 August 1996.
43. United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) 1998, Review of Maritime Transport 1998, United Nations, Geneva; pp.75, 77.
44. Woodbridge, C. 1999, ‘Global Players’, Containerisation International, March 1999, pp.97-101; pp. 97-9.
45. UNCTAD 1998, p.75.
46 Marges 1996.
47. Problems revolve around issues as the private monopolisation of strategic assets as natural deep-water ports with sufficient drafts and berths, the land-sea interface, linkages with other modes of transport as road and rail, the forgoing of public land and its use value.
48. Marges, K. 1997, ‘The impact of privatisation and other port reforms on employment, working conditions, labour relations and trade unions’ position in the port industry’, Paper Presented at the International Transport Workers Federation 14th International Port Training Conference, le Havre, 25-28 May 1997.
49. Marges 1997.
50. For example in Australia the Waterfront Industry Reform Authority redundancy program was estimated to cost $419 million between 1989 and 1992, whilst the 1998-99 Maritime Industry Finance Company redundancies and associated reforms are to cost between $300 million (BTCE 1994, p.1).
51. Marges, K. 1999, ‘Privatisation of seaports as a challenge for trade unions’, Paper presented at the Seaports under the conditions of globalisation and privatisation conference, Bremen, 25-26 June 1999.
52. Harvey 1982.
53. This is due mainly to the increased size of ships and the concomitant mismatch between the need for, and the provision of, handling facilities to accommodate those ships (Gilman, S. & Burn, S. 1983, ‘Dockland activities: technology and change’, in Gould, T. S. & Hodgkiss, A. G. (eds) The resources of Merseyside, Liverpool: University Press).
54. Kilian, D. & Dodson, B. 1996, ‘Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea: Functional conflicts in Cape Town’s Victoria and Alfred Waterfront’, Geoforum, 27 (4), pp. 495-507; pp.495, 496.
55. Harvey 1989, p.74.