SOCI 235 Lecture Notes - Lecture 16: Stevedore, Containerization, International Brotherhood Of Teamsters
10 Dec 2014
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Document Summary
The organization of work in the longshoring industry: factors shaping the nature of work, pre world war ii. They need to be unloaded, sorted for different destinations, and made ready for pick-up. Then the ship normally has to be reloaded with another type of good. There are different sorts of goods: i) bulk goods (oil, grain) that were always handled mechanically; ii) processed goods that required more protection (tea, flour, bags of compressed wool); iii) more fragile goods (electrical goods, automobile components). In the pre war port industry the latter two kinds of goods required a significant amount of labour intensive carrying and stacking. Ship arrival times were unpredictable because of weather and tides. Ship owners had and have an interest in a fast turnaround time. So, the work was labour intensive and there was a demand for labour that was highly variable. Stevedoring companies acted as labour hiring agents for shipping companies.
