Dockworker

Stevedores on a New York dock loading barrels of corn syrup onto a barge on the Hudson River. Photograph by Lewis Hine, c.1912

"Docker" redirects here. For other uses, see Docker (disambiguation).

Stevedore, docker, dock labourer and longshoreman can have various waterfront-related meanings concerning loading and unloading ships, according to place and country.

The word stevedore originated in Spain or Portugal, and entered the English language through its use by sailors. It started as a phonetic spelling of Spanish estibador or Portuguese estivador, meaning a man who stuffs, here in the sense of a man who loads ships, which was the original meaning of stevedore; compare Latin stīpāre meaning to stuff, as in to fill with stuffing. In the United Kingdom, men who load and unload ships are usually called dockers, while in the United States and Canada the term longshoreman, derived from man-along-the-shore, is used. (Before extensive use of container ships and shore-based handling machinery in the U.S., longshoremen referred exclusively to the dockworkers, while stevedors, in a separate trade union, worked on the ships, operating ship's cranes and moving cargo.) In Canada, the term stevedore has also been used, for example, in the name of the Western Stevedoring Company, Ltd., based in Vancouver, B.C. in the 1950s.

Stevedore has also become common as an appellation for a person who is over-muscular or foulmouthed.

Loading and unloading ships

Loading and unloading ships requires knowledge of the operation of loading equipment, the proper techniques for lifting and stowing cargo, and correct handling of hazardous materials. In addition, workers must be physically strong and be able to follow orders.

In earlier days, men who load and unload ships had to tie down cargoes with rope. A type of stopper knot is called the stevedore knot. The methods of securely tying up parcels of goods is called stevedore lashing or stevedore knotting. While loading a general cargo vessel, they use dunnage, which are pieces of wood (or nowadays sometimes strong inflatable dunnage bags) set down to keep the cargo out of any water that might be lying in the hold or are placed as shims between cargo crates for load securing.

Today, the vast majority of non-bulk cargo is transported in Intermodal containers. The containers arrive at a port by truck, rail or another ship and are stacked in the port's storage area. When the ship that will be transporting them arrives, the containers that it is offloading are unloaded by a crane. The containers either leave the port by truck or rail or are put in the storage area until they are put on another ship. Once the ship is offloaded, the containers it is leaving with are brought to the dock by truck. A crane lifts the containers from the trucks into the ship. As the containers pile up in the ship, the workers connect them to the ship and to each other. The jobs involved include the crane operators, the workers who connect the containers to the ship and each other, the truck drivers that transport the containers from the dock and storage area, the workers who track the containers in the storage area and as they are loaded and unloaded, as well as various supervisors. Those workers at the port who handle and move the containers are likely to be considered stevedores or longshoremen.

Because they work outdoors in all types of weather, these workers adopted a type of cap that has a snug fit, is warm, and is easily put away in a pocket. These are a type of beanie or watch cap called variously stevedore's cap or stevedore's hat.

Before containerization, freight was often handled with a longshoreman’s hook, a tool which became emblematic of the profession (Mostly on the west coast of the United States and Canada).

Traditionally, stevedores would have no fixed job and turn up at the docks in the morning hoping to find someone willing to employ them for the day. London dockers called this practice "standing on the stones", while in the United States it was referred to as Shaping. In Britain, due to changes in employment laws, such jobs have either become permanent or have been converted to temporary jobs.

Dock workers have been a prominent part of the modern labor movement.

Usage

Australia

In Australia, stevedores or dockers were historically referred to as wharf labourers or waterside workers, and were colloquially called "wharfies". The Maritime Union of Australia has coverage of these workers, and fought a substantial industrial battle in the 1998 Australian waterfront dispute to prevent the contracting out of work to non-union contractors. The term "Docker" is in modern colloquial use, as evidenced by the port-based Fremantle Football Club's unofficial nickname of the "Freo Dockers".

New Zealand

New Zealand usage is highly similar to the Australian version; "waterside workers" are also known as "wharfies." The 1951 New Zealand waterfront dispute, involving New Zealand stevedores, was the largest and bitterest industrial dispute in the country's history.

United States

In usual present-day United States waterfront word usage, a stevedore is a man or a company who manages the operation of loading or unloading a ship. A stevedore typically owns equipment used in the loading or discharge operation and hires longshoremen who load and unload cargo under the direction of a stevedore superintendent.This type of work along the East Coast water front was characteristic for such port like New York, Boston, or Philadelphia. However, the port of Baltimore, unlike the ports of New York or Boston, which were dominated by Irish and German immigrants, hired mostly stevedores and longshoremen who were overwhelmingly Polish. In the 1930s, about eighty percent of the Baltimore's longshoremen were Polish or of Polish descent.. The port of Baltimore had an international reputation of fast cargo handling credited to the well-organized gang system that was nearly free of corruption, wildcat strikes, and constant work stoppages of its other East coast counterparts. In fact, the New York Anti-Crime Commission and the Waterfront Commission of New York looked upon the Baltimore system as the ideal one for all ports. The hiring of longshoremen in Baltimore by the gang system dates back to 1913, when the ILA was first formed. The Polish longshoremen began setting up the system by selecting the most skilled men to lead them. This newly formed gang would usually work for the same company, which would give the priority to the gang. During the times where there was no work within the particular company, the gang would work elsewhere, or even divide to aid other groups in their work, which would speed up the work and would make it more efficient In an environment as dangerous as a busy waterfront, the Baltimore's gangs always operated together as a unit, because the experience let them know what each member would do at any given time making a water front a much safer place. At the beginning of the Second World War Polish predominance in the Port of Baltimore would significantly diminish as many Poles left to fight the war.

It is common but inaccurate to use the terms “stevedore” and “longshoreman” interchangeably. However, even the U.S. Congress has done so in the Ship Mortgage Act, 46 app. U.S.C. section 31301(5)(C) which designates both "crew wages" and "stevedore wages" as preferred maritime liens. The intent of the statute was to give the wages of the seamen and longshoremen the same level of protection. Nevertheless, sometimes the word "stevedore" is still used to mean "man who loads and unloads a ship", as British "docker".

Today, a commercial stevedoring company also may contract with a terminal owner to manage all terminal operations. Many large container ship operators have established in-house stevedoring operations to handle cargo at their own terminals and to provide stevedoring services to other container carriers.

Two unions within the AFL-CIO represent longshoremen in the United States: the International Longshoremen's Association, which represents longshoremen on the East Coast, on the Great Lakes and connected waterways and along the Gulf of Mexico, and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, which represents longshoremen along the West Coast, in Hawaii and Alaska, and, through an affiliate, in Canada.

United Kingdom

In the United Kingdom, the definition of a stevedore varies from port to port. In some ports, only the highly skilled master of a loading gang is referred to as a "stevedore". "Docker" is the usual general term used in the UK for a man who loads or unloads ships and performs various other jobs required at a sea port.

19th century

In Two Years Before the Mast the author describes the steeving of a merchant sailing ship. This was the process of taking a mostly-full hold and cramming in more material. In this case, the hold was filled with hides from the California hide trade up to four feet below the ceiling. "Books" composed of 25-50 cattle skins folded into a bundle were prepared, and a small opening created in the middle of one of the existing stacks. Then the book was shoved in by use of a pair of thick strong pieces of wood called steeves. The steeves had one end shaped as a wedge which was placed into the middle of a book to shove it into the stack. The other ends were pushed on by means of block and tackle attached to the hull and overhead beams and hauled on by sailors.

Famous stevedores

A docker lashes down cargo aboard a container ship.

Famous former stevedores and longshoremen include:

• Frithjof Bergmann - philosopher
• Mestre Bimba - founder of the Afro-Brazilian martial art Capoeira
• Jerry Colonna - Movie actor/comedian.
• Murray Bookchin - American libertarian socialist, founder of social ecology
• James Braddock - heavyweight boxing champion from 1935 to 1937.
• Chief Dan George - Native American actor
• Eric Hoffer - author and philosopher
• Brian Jacques - author of the Redwall book series
• Mauno Koivisto - President of Finland from 1982 to 1994
• Artie Lange - comedian/radio personality, The Howard Stern Show
• Charles Manson - convicted murderer, worked as a longshoreman from 1954-1956
• Frank McCourt - noted Irish-American author
• Daniel Patrick Moynihan - sociologist, Ambassador to the United Nations and to India, U.S. Senator
• Charles Plymell - poet
• Joe Rollino - boxer and strongman
• Mark E. Smith - singer/songwriter of the British band The Fall
• Isaac Woodard - African-American victim of a notorious racist attack
• Jack Dash British Dock Workers Trade Union Leader
• J. S. Woodsworth - a founder of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation, the forerunner of the New Democratic Party of Canada

In popular media

• In 1949, reporter Malcolm Johnson was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for a 24-part investigative series titled Crime on the Waterfront published in the New York Sun. This material was fictionalized and used as a basis for the influential film, On the Waterfront, starring Marlon Brando as a longshoreman, and the working conditions on the docks figure significantly in the film's plot. Playwright Arthur Miller was involved in the early stages of the development of the film, and his play A View from the Bridge also deals with the troubled life of a longshoreman.

• In the HBO Series The Wire, the Stevedore Union and its members, particularly Frank Sobotka, working in Baltimore figure prominently in the second season's story arc.

See also

• Battle of Ballantyne Pier (Canada)
• Dockers' Union (UK)
• Admiralty law
• Dunnage
• Federated Ship Painters and Dockers Union
• International Longshore and Warehouse Union (United States)
• Liverpool Dockers' Strike (UK)
• Mersey Docks and Harbour Company
• National Union of Dock Labourers
• Scottish Union of Dock Labourers
• Weeks Marine

External links

• MTL Dockers Strike (Ireland)
• Moynihan of the Moynihan Report
• DockWork.be,the Port of Antwerp in pictures, maritime website with portpictures taken by an Antwerp dockworker.