[Joe 6-pack]

"If the job is to unload ships in Lng Beach, how can that be outsourced,i.e., how can someone in India unload a ship in California?"

I don't know for sure, but since it's the clerical unit, I'm guessing it's an asset visibility /inventory management function they do, monitoring what's loaded and unloaded at the dock. With bar codes, scanners and computers, it's a job just as easily done from Mumbai as it is from an air conditioned office at the dock that the worker never leaves.

[1rudeboy]

That’s why this union fought the introduction of barcodes in the first place. I remember the stories on FR from the early 2000’s.