We can resume the case lesson to "Administrative innovations need to be incorporated along with adopted manufacturing technologies in order to achieve success.".
The success of a technology depends on itself, the way it is used and the process used to its introduction. Especially innovation that involves changes in power within organizations needs a change management program to be successful.
The main cause of conflict in this case was the division of technology benefits between shippers and the union.
The game was being played in a lose-lose perspective. In one side the strike was costing very high to US and the shippers, on the other side the union was incurring in the risk of don't achieving any deal as it happened in the past .
The government intervention made the parts in dispute take more flexible positions, sometimes under the threat of extreme actions, and allowed a deal.
In the end apparently each part won, the workers in job security, health benefits and pensions, the shippers in a productivity raise of 50% promised by the new technology.
What caused the dockworker strike on the (U.S.) West Coast during the fall of 2002?.
The management planned to introduce information technology in the management of terminal space, which would reduce the number of people needed to operate. Pension benefits and Arbitration procedures were a major point of conflict with the union trying to get some of the benefits from the new technology.
What factors should be considered in predicting the outcomes of adopted technologies?.
There are two key issues that must be understood: First the impact of change and the need of a process that manages that change, providing for administrative measures and technology agreements. Second the power of unions and the eventual need of negotiate and divide the benefits of new technologies among employers and employees.
History teaches how in the past things happened, what were the motivations and factors that conditioned the final results.
