By Dan McCue
Staff Writer

To understand the issues that might lead to a work stoppage by International Longshoremen’s Association workers at the Port of Charleston, one first has to understand something about how an operating port functions.

Although a multitude of entities comprise the port—everything from private companies like Kinder Morgan and Shell Oil Corp. to public agencies like the U.S. Coast Guard and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement—three are central to the drama unfolding on the docks of Charleston and one simply provides the backdrop.

The passive participant in the contract dispute is the South Carolina State Ports Authority. Although its bustling cargo container terminals define the port in the minds of visitors and many lifelong residents alike, its entirely nonunion work force operates the facilities that others use to move containerized and non-containerized, or “break-bulk,” freight from place to place.

To fulfill this task, port employees operate all of the cranes and lifting equipment at the terminals and also operate half of the terminal gates.

Byron Miller, spokesman for the SPA, said given that none of its employees are covered by ILA contracts, the authority has taken no position, and will not comment, on the quarrel between another employer and its work force.

The other entities involved are the ocean carriers whose ships need to be loaded and unloaded, the stevedores they contract with to arrange for labor and handle other matters related to the port call, and the unionized workers who are employed on a ship-by-ship basis.

After being assigned a job through one of four stevedore operations here in Charleston—often less than a day in advance of a ship’s arrival—members of ILA Local 1422, the largest and best known of the unions on the waterfront, move cargo containers to and from dockside and staging area, and also serve on the “lash gangs” that tie and untie containers to the ships.

ILA Local 1771 members, a clerical union, serve as clerks and checkers at half of the port gates.

ILA Local 1422-A is a mechanics union whose members inspect vehicles and chassis before they leave the terminal and make repairs as necessary to assure the road worthiness of the vehicles.

“People who are not familiar with the inner workings of the port are often surprised when they learn these individuals don’t work directly for the ports authority,” said John Hassell, president of the Maritime Association of the Port of Charleston.

Officially, the dockworkers and clerks work for the individual stevedores—SSA-Cooper LLC, Ceres Marine Terminals Inc., MTC East or APM Terminals—while the mechanics work for private chassis repair firms.

For every cargo container ship that comes into the Port of Charleston, a stevedore will typically hire 15 Local 1422 members to serve on the loading gang, and seven additional members to secure and unsecure cargo.

The same ship will also require the hiring of three to five Local 1771 members.

The tradition of organized labor working the Port of Charleston goes back to 1869, when a group of former slaves who worked as longshoreman organized themselves to deal with wage, schedule and other labor issues.

They formally became members of the International Longshoremen’s Association early in the last century.

The stevedores formed the nonprofit, Mount Pleasant-based South Carolina Stevedores Association in order to bargain collectively, and more effectively, with the three local branches of the ILA, Hassell said.

Dan McCue is a staff writer for the Business Journal. E-mail him at dmccue@charlestonbusiness.com.

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