Stevedore

Stowadores.

The work of discharging and loading cargoes other than coal is undertaken by master stevedores, who are employed by the shipowner.

The hatch foreman or gang boss supervises the longshore gang and directs their loading and discharge efforts. He assigns each member of the gang to a specific job, usually the same job each day or each shift; discusses operational problems with the stevedore superintendent who is in charge of the entire ship operation; inspects the stowage area; supervises the positioning and rigging of booms, etc. The stevedore superintendent and hatch foreman occupy strategic positions from a safety viewpoint.

Stevedores differed from most other strategically placed port workers in that they were to some extent mobile. […] A master stevedore would contract to load vessels for shipping-lines whose vessels might be berthed at a number of docks, or even in the river. In following up the work of their employers stevedores might be required to work sometimes at the Victoria Dock, sometimes at the East India Dock, and so on.

For the past several years the stevedore [footnote: The term "stevedore" commonly refers to the contractor who employs longshoremen, who physically load and unload ships' cargo], one of the newest members of the maritime family, has found himself drifting helplessly onto the rocks of legal peril. […] However, recent developments appear to offer the stevedore new hope that may in time result in judicial deliverance.

[T]he stevedore works for the account of he who has requested his services, and he is liable only to this person, who alone can bring an action as against him. Attempts to sidestep this statutory rule have been unsuccessful. For instance, a cargo owner tried to being a direct action as against a stevedore, who had been appointed by the sea carrier's agent in the port of loading and who had damaged the goods during loading. On the grounds that in appointing the stevedore this agent had acted on behalf of the cargo owner, the latter submitted that he had a direct contractual action ex lege as against the stevedore.

During the year 334,242 tons of cargo were stevedored and 933,092 tons were handled and transferred.

[I]n Barcelona, when he was stevedoring at the docks […]

I stevedored [railway] ties, a lot of those devils. In the holds of ships. I was in the bow because I was small to get in there. I loaded a lot of these ties that came out of Navarro and that layout.