Word: longshoremens
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Explanations crusted the situation like barnacles on a foul bottom. The past record of the port was as smelly as its long, cobblestoned Fish Pier. Port officials said that union-labor rules delayed shiploading and unloading operations. A.F. of L. longshoremen refused to work nights. Union rules required double-time wages ($3.60 an hour) for work during meal hours: breakfast, 5 a.m.-8 a.m.; dinner, 5 p.m.-7 p.m. Because of a "lapse system" which allowed 20-minute rest periods, one operator figures that an average of only 17 out of a 20-man stevedore gang were ever...
...Francisco's longshoremen and their waterfront employers seldom agree. But last week they loudly agreed that cargo space was being wasted, that ships steamed out through the Golden Gate with precious freights of airplanes, munitions, food dangerously and improperly stowed, that loading of vital supplies for Pacific outposts was being delayed and badly managed, and that Army & Navy officials in Washington were to blame...
...Department colonel telephoned long distance from Washington, loudly demanded that one of the largest ships in the Pacific, which had arrived four hours earlier, be immediately discharged, reloaded, fueled and made ready by midnight of the following day to join a convoy. By working night & day longshoremen had the huge liner ready in eight days...
...Counted by longshoremen as time lost was time spent loading one vessel going to Batavia and Singapore with empty beer bottles consigned to a Dutch brewery...
Scott found that almost anyone could get aboard, longshoremen were hired by minor labor bosses who could be greased; Federal authorities made no checkups; there was no real surveillance; no fire drills; no fire stations had been assigned. In short, the Lafayette had been wide open to sabotage. PM said these facts had been reported to Captain Charles H. Zearfoss, the Maritime Commission's anti-sabotage chief, who denied the findings (said PM), merely replied: "Get your reporter out of there before he gets shot...