In this paper, as an anti-sway control strategy of container cranes, we investigate a variable structure control in which the moving load follows a given trajectory, whereas both the trolley and hoist controllers achieve their positioning problems. It is crucial, in an automated container terminal, that collisions should be avoided during the transference of containers from one place to another. It is also necessary, in the case of a quay crane, to select suitable loading and unloading trajectories of containers, so that possible collisions with surrounding obstacles are avoided. After a brief introduction of the mathematical model, a robust control scheme (i.e., a second-order sliding mode control that guarantees a fast and precise transference and a suppression of the resulted swing) is presented. Despite model uncertainties and unmodeled actuators dynamics, the swing suppression from the given trajectory is obtained by constraining the system motion on suitable sliding surfaces, which include both the desired path and the swing angle. The proposed controller has been tested with a laboratory-size pilot crane. Experimental results are provided.