Page 22 - Port of Baltimore - Issue 1 - 2023

CARGO
Top: Local 333 member Jarvies Page Jr. (5th wheel). Above: Local 333 member Barry Moore (marine super).
Unloading
the Cargo
Loading and unloading vessels is the responsibility of the longshoremen of ILA Local 333. “For export cargo, we load it off the trucks and
handle it in the yard before it goes onto the vessel,” Cowan said. “For import cargo, we take it off the vessel that’s coming into this country and load it onto trucks.”
In performing this work, members of Local 333 operate many kinds of specialized equipment, such as gantry cranes, forklifts and yard tractors. Workers also are trained to operate ro/ro cargo such as construction and agricultural machinery, in order to be able to pilot it safely off the vessel and through the yard.
Of course, how many workers are assigned to each job depends on the size of the vessel and the type of cargo. Taking a recent Maersk vessel as
an example, Schmidt explained: “We had 3,500 containers to discharge and load. About 100 to 105 workers were associated with that operation. The breakdown would be about 25 men in yard hustlers to move that cargo around and then we had four gangs of 60 members total, each gang associated with a crane. [Gang is a word commonly used to describe work crews of stevedores.] In addition, you have eight operators taking shifts on those crane moves, about 14 documentation clerks working in different capacities, and about five foremen to direct the labor and the clerking staff.”
Altogether, the job added up to 42 working hours, not including meal breaks and shift changes.
[20] The Port of Baltimore ■ ISSUE 1 / 2023