Thousands Rush to Apply for Part-Time Jobs at Local Ports

Thousands of job-seekers lined streets in three cities Friday morning, hoping to land jobs as longshoremen, some of the most coveted spots in the local labor market.

As word leaked out that the International Longshore and Warehouse Union had 1,000 openings for “casuals,” or part-time workers, more than 6,500 people jammed state employment offices in Long Beach, Compton and Torrance in a rush for job applications.

Many would-be longshoremen began camping out on the sidewalks at 7 p.m. Thursday, and latecomers knotted traffic around employment offices Friday morning. Swamped state employment officials opened their doors early, and by 8:30 a.m. Friday, they had distributed all the applications and turned away hundreds of people empty-handed.

After the employment offices ran out of applications, job-seekers flooded the Long Beach office of the Pacific Maritime Assn., an organization of waterfront employers. While the association’s phone rang incessantly, one man, who identified himself as a UCLA philosophy major, offered to buy an application from a current part-timer standing in the hallway.

Applicants made little secret of what drew them to seek waterfront work. The maritime organization’s 1996 annual report shows average earnings for a Los Angeles longshoreman as $76,149. And a union business agent said the starting pay for casual jobs is $18 per hour.

“Obviously, the money’s the big factor,” said Gerald Ferguson, 36, a Long Beach police records clerk, who used his lunch hour to seek an application at the association’s office. He was unsuccessful. “I’m a good worker and I want to be compensated,” he said.

Union officials said the last major effort to register new workers was about 10 years ago. In recent talks with the employers association, union leaders said, they agreed to hire new employees to handle the growing workload at the Los Angeles and Long Beach ports.