Carrying a Lighter Load : Longshoremen’s Clout Ebbs as Port Use Tails Off

Joe Vinole likes to use newsprint--those giant rolls that end up on doorsteps as folded newspapers--to explain why longshoremen’s jobs are going the way of the ebbing tide on the San Diego waterfront.

Thirty-five years ago, longshoremen were required to go into a ship’s hold and send individual rolls of newsprint up to the dock on a winch. The big cylinders were then rolled one-at-a-time down a ramp and loaded onto two-wheeled carts.

One longshoreman then wheeled a 1,700-pound newsprint roll into a dockside warehouse.

“Newsprint was hand-handled in those days. The only machine you had was your back,” Vinole said.

16 Rolls at Once

Today, a vacuum machine can go into a ship’s hold and literally suck up 16 of the giant rolls at a time, lift them, and set them gingerly down on the dock. A smaller machine that also uses a vacuum process and is operated by a longshoreman picks up two rolls at once and wheels them into a warehouse.

The modern process not only minimizes damage to the rolls, but, more important, cuts the shippers’ and manufacturers’ costs by maximizing the amount of work that fewer men can do.

“It seems that, for every job we do these days, you need fewer and fewer men,” said Vinole, 66 and a veteran of 37 years on the waterfront.

Nobody denies that dockworkers’ jobs are disappearing, but Vinole and other longshoremen say technology is not the only culprit. The Port of San Diego is equally to blame, they say, arguing that, rather than promoting shipping, the port has chosen to lease land to hotels, restaurants and tourist attractions along the waterfront.

“The port would rather be a landlord and collect rent. . . . Why don’t we have any work in this port? Why aren’t there any cargo ships coming to San Diego?” asked Tim Chavez, president of the Longshoremen’s & Warehousemen’s International Union, Local 29.

Other Ports Envied

Chavez and his 78-member local look with envy up the coast to the bigger ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles, where longshoremen find work regularly. Comparisons with the two give a clear picture of San Diego’s decline as a major West Coast port.

* In 1988, 63.4 million metric tons of cargo passed through the Port of Long Beach on 5,483 ships.

* During the same period, the Port of Los Angeles recorded 60.8 million metric tons of cargo from about 3,500 ships.

* San Diego port officials said 1.3 million metric tons of cargo passed through the port in 1988 on about 350 ships, including passenger ships. Those figures are down from the 1.49 million metric tons reported for 1987.

As if to underscore the lack of activity on the docks, a giant crane stands idle at the 24th Street Pier in National City. The crane, the only one of its kind on the San Diego waterfront, has not been used in almost two years. It was used to handle copper concentrate until the state Regional Water Quality Control Board charged that the copper was polluting the bay.

By contrast, the Long Beach and Los Angeles ports each has dozens, if not hundreds, such cranes.

Inside the union hall near the foot of Broadway, longshoremen gather early Monday mornings to inquire about available jobs. “Registered” union members, who make $19.83 an hour, have first pick, and any leftover jobs are offered to “casuals,” or non-union members who patiently wait outside to be assigned to work gangs.

“In the old days, the dispatcher assigned all the jobs. Now, registered members are allowed to pick the jobs they want. Casuals get what they’re given,” said J. R. (Chayo) Colmenero, secretary-treasurer and dispatcher for the local.

Union regulations require longshoremen to work a minimum 800 hours a year to keep their health and welfare benefits. However, because of the shortage of cargo ships, the international union has classified San Diego as a “low work-opportunity” port and eased the number of hours that local members are required to work each year.

“Thirty years ago, when we loaded and unloaded cotton, cement and other bulk goods, there was a lot of work and guys were dying to get a day off. Now, they’re dying to work at least one day a week,” Chavez said.

According to Chavez, local longshoremen work an average of three days a week.

Colmenero explained that the local’s last registration for active membership occurred in 1969, when Local 29, which was chartered in 1937, had about 218 members. Union membership has dwindled to 78, and today registration can be obtained only by a surviving son or daughter of a member who was working when he died.

Used to Be ‘King Cotton’

Veteran longshoremen like Vinole remember the waterfront’s heyday, particularly when the port was “King Cotton” on the West Coast. Until the mid-1960s, cotton from Mexico and the Imperial Valley was shipped out of San Diego.

“Every bale was loaded by hand. . . . We had so much cotton and so much work. Cotton bales were stacked on both sides of Harbor Drive,” Vinole said.

But, in the mid 1960s, two events had a dramatic impact on both longshoremen and the port. First, the Mexican government decreed that all Mexican cotton had to be shipped from Ensenada.

Second, Imperial Valley growers began loading cotton bales in containers, sending them directly to port by rail. Unfortunately, because there was no direct rail connection to the port in San Diego, the cotton was sent to Long Beach, where it was shipped to points all over the world.

“That was the beginning of the downslide,” Chavez said. “After that, work got scarce. It seems like the port made no attempt to go after shipping. Instead, they went after restaurants, hotels and Seaport Village.”

‘It’s Simply Not True’

Bill Stonehouse, director of trade development for the San Diego Unified Port District, denies that the port is not interested in attracting shipping.

“It’s an old comment. It’s simply not true that we don’t want cargo. . . . Instead, we have to work on (attracting) specialized cargo. We have been working diligently to bring autos to San Diego. . . . But our biggest handicap is that the largest consuming area for autos is in Los Angeles.”

He said port commissioners have been “realistic” in developing the waterfront, and that San Diego is not a major port because it is hampered by the absence of a direct rail link with the Midwest and East and Gulf coasts; the fact that San Diego is not a “hub” port and the absence of a deep-water port for container ships that are growing increasingly bigger.

“The absence of a railroad line is the single most negative point we have when it comes to us being a container port,” Stonehouse said. “We simply can’t exist as a container port without a continental railroad line. That has never been viable in San Diego because of our geography and proximity to the Mexican border. . . . Plus, I don’t think that the citizenry would stand for mile-long trains constantly making their way in and out of downtown.”

Much of today’s cargo goods are shipped in giant metal containers that are stacked atop each other aboard ship. Container cargo is easier to ship and more cost-effective because it can be loaded and unloaded quickly by fewer men.

Containerization, which became widespread in the mid-1970s, had a dramatic effect on the shipping industry, particularly in San Diego, Stonehouse said.

A Radical Change

“Longshoremen are still thinking of the ships they used to unload before containerization. But containerization made a radical change in the business, which went from labor-intensive to capital-intensive.”

Before containerization, ships were smaller, and 16-man gangs, totaling five or six gangs, were commonly used to unload a ship, Stonehouse said. Today, six-man gangs, totaling only three to six gangs, are capable of handling cargo on the much bigger container ships, he said.

For containerization to be productive, a ship must be able to unload its cargo and steam away with a new load. In addition, a port must have “an excellent railroad connection,” Stonehouse said.

“You also have to have a large consumer population. San Diego has neither,” he said.

The only container ship that now docks in San Diego regularly is the Moana Pacific, which brings canned tuna from American Samoa and departs with empty cans. The ship comes in once a month and is in port for a couple of days.

Although the eventual demise of San Diego as a shipping port is frequently discussed, many of the older longshoremen discount that notion.

“You stand on the dock and look around you. What do you see? Hotels and restaurants, but no ships,” said Vince (Pelican) Torres, 73, the union’s oldest active member. “But, as long as there is an ocean and ships, there will always be longshoremen in San Diego.”