Casual longshore workers are the grunts of the local waterfront. They lack union status and keep odd, inconsistent hours moving cargo vital to the economy of the western United States. A week or 10 days can pass before they get a chance to earn a full day's pay. Their hiring hall isn't a hall at all, but a parking lot next to an auto dismantling yard in Wilmington. Dead bodies are sometimes found nearby, and bullet holes dot the dispatcher's small office. If you don't move fast enough in line when the day's work is parceled out, or you fumble your ID card at the dispatch window, too bad. You've "flopped." Come back next week.
The dispatcher just handed your precious chance to work eight hours to the next person in line. Longshore workers in the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles say the aggravation, hard work and personal sacrifice are worth it. Put in enough time as a casual and the brass ring will eventually come around--entry into Local 13 (Los Angeles) of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union and the prospect of landing what shipping industry officials call a "million-dollar job." "I don't regret one day of it," said Ramona M. Galindo of San Pedro, now a union member after seven years as a casual. "It really takes a considerable investment of your time. But that's just the dues you pay."
Today there are about 9,000 longshore workers in the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles. About 5,200 are members of the union and attached to longshore, marine clerk and dock boss locals. The organized labor is supplemented by at least 3,600 casuals--a pool of part-timers that has emerged over the last decade as a reliable source of trained Dockers. Without them, cargo would have been stranded in the county's ports far longer than it was during the merger of the Southern Pacific and Union Pacific railroads in late 1997.
