They work 24 hours a day, seven days a week, taking only four holidays a year. Theirs is the on-the-ground know-how and muscle that, in fiscal 2019, moved 4.5 million container units, wrestled with millions of tons of unwieldy break-bulk cargo and drove thousands of auto and machinery units on and off cavernous carriers.
Without them, Georgia’s busy ports would come to a standstill. They are the men and women of the International Longshoremen’s Association locals.
As Labor Day approaches, the men and women of Savannah’s three locals are top-of-mind for Georgia Port’s Executive Director Griff Lynch.
“Today, as always, we’d like to take a moment to thank our ILA partners for their dedication to keeping cargo moving on and off our docks,” Lynch said. “The excellent collaboration between GPA’s employees and the ILA is a key component of our port’s success.”
Each of the three locals has a specific and essential area of expertise.
Veteran longshoreman and well-known community leader Tim Mackey is president of ILA Deep Sea Local 1414, by far the largest local on the docks.
“Our local has grown from a group of 100 men in 1936 to an active and engaged workforce of well over 1,500 men and women today,” Mackey said. “Our members are some of the best qualified and trained – able to provide labor for all vessels at a moment’s notice.”
Local 1414 has come into its own as the port has grown, he said.
“We have provided consistent quality labor for more than 80 years on the piers of Savannah and certainly look forward to serving many more years in the future.”
To ensure that future, Mackey said his membership will remain actively and properly trained and dedicated to its critical role in Savannah’s maritime community.
“Labor Day means so much to our local as it embodies the passion and dignity of the work we seek to deliver every day,” he said.
Moving at the speed of commerce
Addressing port customers’ need to move cargo in and out in the fastest and most efficient manner possible often falls to ILA Clerks and Checkers Local 1475.
“We are responsible for making sure that the right cargo is reaching its destination every day,” said Frank Ryan, 1475 president.
“We pre-check and inspect containers coming in and out of the gates, on and off the vessels and the rail every day. We make sure that the right containers are loaded and discharged from the vessels that call our port.
“Our membership is made up of some of the best women and men who strive every day to ensure that the container lines have the confidence to send their cargo through our port. We take pride in our work. As the vessels and the move counts get larger, we provide the labor to work multiple shifts in all the weather elements,” he said.
Because orders fluctuate daily, depending on what ships are in port, 1475 has a 24-hour dispatch, making sure jobs are covered quickly and efficiently, Ryan said.
“It’s not uncommon for more than 12,000 containers a day to come into Garden City Terminal through our three main gates,” he said, adding that rail volume has increased 35.4% over the past three years with more than 507,000 intermodal lifts in the last fiscal year, a number he expects to increase with the completion of the Mason Mega Rail project.
“ILA Local 1475 is proud of the relationship that we have with our employers, the Georgia Port Authority and the entire shipping community,” Ryan said.
Keeping it running
With all the heavy equipment needed to run the ports - from the flatbed chassis that transport the containers to specially equipped refrigerated containers - it’s essential that everything is maintained in top working order. That’s the responsibility of the 400 members of the ILA Maintenance and Repair Local 2046.
Kerry Scott has been president of 2046 for nearly 36 years.
“It’s our job to maintain and repair every component on a chassis and container, including refrigerated containers, used in the maritime shipping industry,” he said, adding that his crews of mechanics, skilled maintenance workers and refrigeration technicians can be found all over the port’s container yards and docks as well as in specially designated off-port maintenance and repair areas.
Like Local 1414, most of this local’s work is physically demanding.
“We work inside containers where it can easily get to 120 degrees,” Scott said. “We do a lot of welding, a lot of crawling under chassis to inspect brakes. We pull bad tires on their rims and send them out to be replaced, then put the rims back on when they’re returned with new tires.
“We inspect every chassis that comes into the port. It’s physically exhausting and requires a lot of stamina.”
It also requires specific skills and ongoing training. For that, the local works closely with Savannah Technical College, according to Scott, who has logged 44 years with the ILA, most of them in leadership positions.
In addition to being the longest-serving local president in the ILA’s South Atlantic and Gulf Coast District, Scott was recently elected to a second four-year term as an international vice president.
But he isn’t Savannah’s only ILA representative on the national stage.
Longtime Local 1414 member and former president Willie Seymore is serving his third term as executive vice president on the union’s South Atlantic and Gulf Coast District Executive Board.
Echoing Lynch, Seymore credits the almost seamless working relationship between the ILA locals and the Georgia Ports Authority leadership for much of the growing ports’ success.
“There is no other port in the country that compares to the Ports of Savannah and Brunswick when it comes to communication and understanding between labor and management,” Seymore said.
“We consider GPA a true partner and they feel the same way about us. We have a long legacy of taking care of one another and it serves us well.”
