up the plan he usually consults the master of the vessel and representatives from the freight department. His orginal plan may be deviated from, especially if certain freight should fail to arrive, but in the main his program is laid, and he begins to gather the necessary men and equipment.

THE STEVEDORE.

The term "stevedore" is properly applied only to a "master stevedore," one who is capable of formulating and carrying out a plan of stowage of a vessel. He is a man of wide knowledge of commodities, equipment, and ships; has great practicability and ability to secure quick results; and is a good organizer and director of men. Many stevedores are retired sea captains; others have risen by push of ambition and ability from the ranks of the longshoremen; almost all have in some way been associated with the shipping business for most of their lives.

Three types of stevedores are recognizable: 5

1. The contract stevedore, who is independent of steamship companies and may take contracts to load or unload any ship or commodity.

2. The limited-contract stevedore, who will take contracts to handle only certain commodities, such as coal, grain, or lumber, or who specializes in coastwise trade, local traffic, or sailing vessels.

3. The shipping-company stevedore or dock superintendent, who is engaged by a steamship company by the year to handle all its freight.

These types merge into one another. A stevedoring firm may be engaged by a steamship company and may also take contracts from other lines or individual ships. The limited-contract stevedore may go out of his specialized field at times.

Besides the dock superintendents, there are approximately 60 stevedores in New York City and 10 in Philadelphia. There is keen competition among those whose fields are similar. Even at ports where the stevedoring rates are published and are supposedly uniform, the bids submitted for a contract may differ widely, either by the actual cutting of rates or by the ability of some stevedores to cut down the extra charges. With the large amount of shipping business of recent years competition has not been so keen, because each stevedore has been able easily to secure enough business for him to handle.

6

LONGSHOREMEN.

The stevedore does his work through the foremen and longshoremen that he engages. The foremen are men of superior ability and experience, who may be permanently hired by the stevedore or called by him as needed or when available. Some foremen are specialists along certain lines, such as grain handling, and may find work from a number of stevedoring firms; others are superior leaders who are temporarily placed in charge of a gang of longshoremen.

The

5 See Barnes, C. B.: "The Longshoremen." A Russell Sage Foundation study. Survey Association, New York, 1915. An excellent study of the longshoremen with especial emphasis to New York, but with references to other American and European ports.

Longshoremen were defined by the National Adjustment Commission as all men who carry cargo to the hatch or to the ship's side, regardless of where they start. (Chairman's Report, National Adjustment Commission, p. 9. Government Printing Office, 1918.)

Very few of the longshoremen hold permanent positions; they move from pier to pier, ship to ship, stevedore to stevedore, and they work by the hour.

The method of hiring longshoremen differs in some respects from port to port or even from pier to pier. Essentially, however, it consists in the stevedore or his head foremen picking out men who are known or look to be best fitted from a group that gathers at a known place of hiring. In New York the group of prospective workers in most cases gather or "shape" at the entrance to a pier at which a vessel is scheduled to arrive. In Philadelphia the longshoremen meet at the "corner" of Front and Christian Streets. The foreman in need of men goes to the entrance of the pier or other gathering place, picks out the required number and hands each of these a numbered check. The timekeeper takes the check number and time of starting of each man. The men are formed in gangs and taken to their work. An individual or a gang may be released within an hour, or may be kept at work as long as that vessel is being discharged or loaded, or even may be kept continuously for weeks at work on different vessels.

A large part of the work of the longshoremen is semiskilled or skilled labor, and there are many classes of longshoremen, representing different degrees of skill or experience. The classes or divisions may be summarized as follows:

1. Classification based on kinds of traffic, (a) foreign freight, (b) coastwise freight, (c) harbor freight. The longshoremen handling foreign or "deep-sea" freight are of a superior class to those working on coastwise vessels, and these in turn are superior to the shenanagoes" who handle harbor freight.

2. Classification based on commodities or kind of packages. There are specialists in the handling of many varieties of commodities-grain, sugar, lumber, oil, explosives, etc. There is also a separate class of longshoremen who unload the fruit ships and are called "banana handlers" or "banana fiends"; this class is distinctive and is placed at the bottom of the scale of longshoremen. Only a few longshoremen are considered capable of stowing barrels, but this is about the only case where the kind of container serves as a dividing line.

3. Classification based on work performed.

In handling any commodity there are subdivisions of the work. There are longshore sailors who assist in docking or casting off the vessel; there are men who work on the pier, in the hold, or on the deck; there are winchmen and drum-end men and gangway men. In some cases the dividing lines are clear cut and recognized by all; in other places or lines of work there is little distinction made.

In hiring men, therefore, the foreman is guided by all these considerations and by his knowledge of the men. He must also consider the question of race and language. Some races will not work well together (Irish and Italians, for example), and men of some races, especially Negroes, are not often employed on certain sorts of work. The general type of men from whom he must pick is indicated in the following quotation:

In the loading of vessels the work was done by longshoremen (of whom there are 85,000 to 100,000 in this country), whose industrial standards prior to the 2085°-20

-2

war were so different from those of other skilled and semiskilled labor that for many years they had been compelled to live as a class somewhat apart from the general social life and thought of the country."

7

LONGSHORE UNIONS AND WAGES.

8

The history of the organization of the longshoremen is as long and as complicated as that in most fields of labor. No attempt will be made to discuss this problem. The following brief description is taken from a report by the Director of the Marine and Dock Industrial Relations Division, United States Shipping Board:

The International Longshoremen's Association was started on the Great Lakes some 30 years ago. It was at first restricted to men handling lumber. At the present time the association has grown to a point where it includes in its locals every type of labor connected with the loading and unloading of ships, and extends geographically over almost the entire country. Besides the men who actually load and unload vessels, it represents marine warehouse freight handlers, grain-elevator employees, dock and marine engineers, stationary dock hoisters, marine repairmen and firemen, licensed tugmen, tug firemen and line men, marine divers, helpers, tenders, and steam-pump operators, dredge engi neers and cranemen, drill-boat workers, dredge firemen and laborers on dredge scows, marine pile drivers, lumber inspectors, talleymen and lumber handlers, top-dock men, cotton and tobacco screw men, general cargo dock laborers, pooldeck hands, and fishermen.

The 377 locals of the association are located in 5 districts, as follows: TABLE 1.-MEMBERSHIP, BY DISTRICTS, OF INTERNATIONAL LONGSHOREMEN'S ASSOCIATION.

The association includes Canada as well as the United States, and is affiliated with the American Federation of Labor. As indicated above, it includes among its affiliated locals various unions of dock and even marine employees, which because of their large number are not listed in this report. The president is, T. V. O'Connor, of Buffalo. The secretary is John J. Joyce, also of Buffalo.9

The wages of longshoremen have been subject to wide fluctuations and have differed greatly between ports and classes of work. The International Longshoremen's Association was not affiliated with the American Federation of Labor until lately, and as an independent organization it was not especially successful in enforcing its demands. The greatest amount of work in coordinating and raising wages has been done within the last year or two, largely through the instrumentality of the National Adjustment Commission. This commission was created in August, 1917, the original parties to the agreement being the United States Shipping Board, the Secretary of War, the Secretary of Labor, the American Federation of Labor, the In

7.66 Marine and Dock Labor," p. 15. Report by the Director of the Marine and Dock Industrial Relations Division, United States Shipping Board. Government Printing Office, 1919.

8 See Barnes, op. cit., pp. 93-128.

9" Marine and Dock Labor," pp. 85-86. The membership figures shown in the above table should be accepted with some caution.

ternational Longshoremen's Association, and the principal shipping operators on the Atlantic and Gulf coasts. The shipping operators. on the Pacific coast and Great Lakes later adopted the agreement with some modifications. The commission had for its purpose adjustment and control of wages, hours, and conditions of labor in the loading and unloading of vessels." 10

66

the

At first the commission made only local awards in cases of dispute, but it soon felt the need of gaining uniformity of wage conditions, especially as the Government found it necessary to shift longshoremen from one section to another. Hearings were held, therefore, and uniform scales were established for longshore wages on coastwise and deep-sea vessels at south Atlantic ports, on deep-sea vessels at Gulf ports. and on deep-sea vessels at north Atlantic ports. Uniformity and betterment on the Pacific coast was obtained by independent action of the workmen and shipping operators.

11

The following tables show the scale of wages at present in force in the different districts and the increase since 1914. "In the case of the north Atlantic ports, these tables show the wage rates paid dock workers. In most instances they are also the rates paid holdmen. In the case of Norfolk and the south Atlantic ports, however, the tables give the wages of ship workers the rates paid the men on the docks having in most cases been considerably lower." 12

TABLE 2.-WAGES OF DEEPWATER LONGSHOREMEN: RATES IN CENTS PER HOUR FOR GENERAL CARGO WORK, JULY, 1914, AND IN SUBSEQUENT YEARS; ALSO PERCENTAGE INCREASE IN WAGES OVER JULY, 1914.

1 The 55-cent deep-water rate for Savannah has been appealed, but final decision has not yet been reached. The rate at Charleston will probably conform with the Savannah rate, whatever that may be.

2 According to the latest information, the condition on the Pacific coast was unsettled.

10 Chairman's Report, National Adjustment Commission, 1918, p. 1.

11 Ibid., p. 21.

12 Marine and Dock Labor," p. 138.

TABLE 3.-WAGES OF COASTWISE LONGSHOREMEN: RATES IN CENTS PER HOUR FOR GENERAL CARGO WORK, JULY, 1914, AND IN SUBSEQUENT YEARS; ALSO PERCENTAGE INCREASE IN WAGES OVER JULY, 1914.

1 According to latest information, the condition on the Pacific coast was unsettled.

These are the base wages, but there are differentials on some commodities, and these may be illustrated by the following examples:

By the Puget Sound longshore award, May 9, 1918, longshoremen are paid 10 cents more an hour for (1) loading sacks weighing 125 pounds or more; (2) soda ash, fertilizer, cement, plaster, gypsum, scrap tin, oriental oils, and fish oils; (3) ore in bulk, coal and coke when in quantities of 250 tons or more; (4) creosoted lumber and piles. They are paid 20 cents an hour more straight time on explosives. For handling cargo that has been damaged and made offensive, they receive overtime rates.13

By the Gulf deep-sea longshore award, November 2, 1918, longshoremen receive straight time differentials above and below the base rate of 65 cents as follows: (1) 5 cents more on coal; (2) 10 cents more on grain, creosoted lumber and other treated woods and their preservatives, cements, and on fitting ships with shifting boards, etc.; (3) 20 cents more on kerosene, gasoline, and naphtha; and (4) 10 cents less on bananas.11

The Galveston differentials were established by the deep-sea longshore award, September 22, 1917, as 10 cents more for fitting ship for cattle or grain and for handling timber, sulphur, phosphate, sacked cement, creosoted material, and fuller's earth, and as 10 cents less for handling bananas.15

13 Chairman's Report, National Adjustment Commission, p. 166.

14 Ibid., p. 98.

15 Ibid., p. 88.