Big J’s Longshore Weblog – Port of Vancouver British Columbia, Canada
My Journey to ILWU Local 500 Union MembershipDay Shift – Berth #1 VanWharves – Reddog Cleanup
4 of us OO’ers got a rare Monday day shift today. We thougth it was a true reddog shift, meaning respirators, shaved goatees etc. but luckily it was just cleanup after the ship was done unloading, or so I thought… Started off washing down the dock, no problem, right on the waterfront across from Stanley Park on a nice sunny day. BUT, after break we went up into the hopper, 100 feet up, to scrape it down. Well, this included going inside the hooper, 15 inch metal grate at the top and 24 inch pieces of plywood on top, not a good combo for a huge dood like me! I dont do well with heights and I was damn near paralyzed. Well I got some ballz and had at ‘er, scraping zinc concentrate off the hopper walls for an eternity. It was only a couple of hours but was for sure the hardest work I have done on the waterfront. The others on the gang had no problems and were walking on the grating itself, pscycos! * note-to-self: falling off/through train bridges as a kid doesnt pay off in the future!
Bomb Cart Training: Day #5 – Vanterm
My new trainer showed up right on time, a nice fellow by the name of Pino. He got us right in to production under dock gantry crane #3 and off we went. Now after the first day of driving around vanterm with Ron, I was apprehensive about radio dispatch and the tight vanterm yard. BUT, was I ever wrong, I found it way easier than centerm ops and the tightspots were never a problem. After lunch I went to the yard crew and we finished at 2:30. Pino passed me and my training is complete. All in all I seemed to like driving better than a lot of my fellow trainees and have no problem taking the work that comes as a result. By the way, I saw a cool accident where a bombcart ran over a civilian contractors pathfinder pu truck, ate the box up good. Pictures to follow.
Bomb Cart Training: Day #4 – Vanterm
Well Vanterm is a whole lot different from Centerm, to say the least. Way more congested, way tighter and an archaic way of numerating the layout. Oh yeah, and the all radio dispatch! Well, I lucked out and got a great trainer, Ron. He showed a a great deal of insight to the way things really work and was very indepth about the whole Vanterm operation. An unexpected pleasant surprise was getting to drive a railcar pusher. It is basically a giant front end loaded with a knuckle on the end for coupling to railcars. I had to push a train a few hundred feet, they dont stop so well… Ron is off to the dr’s on Friday so I will have a new trainer for my production day at Vanterm.
Bomb Cart Training: Day #3 – Centerm
Well there was a ship in today and I did bomb cart production all morning for the ship and all afternoon for the rail. The NAVIS computer system was up and down all day leading to a few times with radio dispatch, a good primer for the all radio-dispatch at Vanterm tomorrow…
Bomb Cart Training: Day #2 – Centerm
Day 2 of bomb cart training was rather interesting to say the least. Andrew showed up 45 minutes late and basically got fired from this round of training… Ravi was the trainer so it was just him and I all day. He is a funny guy too and is a real good trainer and seemed to be well liked by everyone at Centerm. Well my training was effected to the better by Andrews early departure. Instead of hands off driving in the afternoon, after break I was driving and after lunch I did in production driving all afternoon. It can be pretty stressfull as the place can be extremely dangerous if you dont use your brain. There has been a lot of fatalities in container operation around the world and there was one in January 2006 at Centerm when a fellow named Eppy Hernandez was run over and killed 2 months from retirement… Here are some pictures of the waterfront container operations and ships.
Bomb Cart Training: Lynn Term Training Centre
I started my 5 day bomb-cart training on Monday at Lynn Term’s Waterfront Traning Facility with Andrew. Big Pete was the trainer that showed us the ins and outs of driving a fully automatic “bomb cart” around in circles. It is all about “square corners” and “having your head in the game”, haha. I learned a lot and Pete had some great stories and tons of good tips on keeping safe on the waterfront. By the way, a bomb-cart, as pictured below, is also known as a “yard goat”. It is a semi tractor that is used to pull around ocean containers at container handling facilities.
Day Shift: Canada Place ms Volendam
The whole hall cleared this morning with a rumored 100+ bodies coming from the 502 in New West to help out. I got the Canada Place Berth #5 posting for the Holland America ms Volendam. I worked Forward Baggage onboard below deck all day, getting off at 4:00pm. We had a 502 foreman who was a nice guy who originally came from Chemainus and had some interesting stories about the various waterfront jobs throughout Vancouver Island. The day button started at 254 and cleared and stopped at 242 as a bunch of guys got out for the 7:00am Coastwise start.
Coleman started bomb cart training today and missed out on a shift as a result. Haven never showed again. I found out the the average hours for OO non-trade is just over 140, putting me above average after I start bomb cart traning on Monday Sept. 17th 8:00am at Lynn East training centre.
Talked to Jimmy today and he got callbacks all week so he wasn’t able to get anywhere with my lashing dilemna as of yet.
Missed Shift – Wedding Plans
Going to the Sheaves Mangat wedding today, as a result I had to miss a rare Sat. day shift… Button moved from 129 to 254
Big J’s Longshore Blog – My Journey to ILWU Local 500 Union Membership
Well being the “web guy” that I am, I thought It might be interesting to blog my journey at the ILWU Local 500 despatch hall. I will try to post all my hours here as a journal and someone might even find this interesting.
Day Shift – Berth #5 VanWharves – Sulphur Labour
Got skipped again for lashing due to ongoing woes with the BCMEA not reckognizing my lashing rating. Ended up on a hose washing down conveyor, Dave is a cool foreman at VW, let us go @ 3’ish. Button was at 136 for days cleared to 129. I see that the button moved bigtime on nightshift.
Big J's Longshore Weblog - Port of Vancouver British Columbia, Canada 