LWU Longshoreman has kept cargo moving for 56 years

LWU Longshoreman has kept cargo moving for 56 years

Edward Guthmann
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/05/29/DD671OI9NK.DTL

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

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Siana Hristova / The Chronicle
Johnie Thomas greets Rose Faaola as her shift starts at the Port of Oakland.

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When he started on the Stockton docks in 1956, Johnie Thomas was 23. When he retires this coming August from the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, he will have worked 56 years on the waterfront.
Thomas, 79, was born and reared in Stockton. He lives in Piedmont with his wife, Margaret. He has three children, 10 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
 
I've spent my entire working life at one career and loved every bit of it. When I started on the waterfront in 1956, they didn't have containers. It was all "hand jive" - boxes, sacks, loose cargo, you name it.
You had a big longshoreman's hook that you carried in your back pocket, and also a sack hook for carrying 100-pound burlap bags. Rice, sugar, coffee. I lost my fingerprints from working burlap every day. We didn't wear gloves.
I can remember working in the hold of the ship with all my buddies. Eight men in the hold, stacking sacks. I look back on it fondly, the days before containers. I don't miss it, because it was hard work. Hardest work I've ever done.
I left the port in Stockton and came to the Bay Area in 1969 because I wanted to learn to drive equipment. Containerized shipping was just beginning and the longshore operations were becoming more mechanized. I learned to drive the cranes you see when you drive over the Bay Bridge. I drove top pickers, strads, forklifts, heavy lifts. All kinds of equipment to handle enormous cargo.
I earned my nickname, "Bubblegum," while driving the cranes. I chewed bubblegum constantly, blowing bubbles. The guys couldn't see my face, only the bubble, so that's how the name stuck. To this day, some of my brothers on the waterfront don't know me by any other name.
I became a walking boss in 1986. I coordinate the night-ship operations with 30 to 40 union members working hard to load and unload ships. I'm usually there between 5 p.m. and 6 p.m. to prep the job, earlier if there's a new ship arriving.
I've always worked nights. It started as a way to escape the summer heat in Stockton and then I just stuck with it. I work from eight to 12 hours, sometimes until 5 or 6 a.m. No problem. My longest stretch without time off is 36 nights straight. I'm one of the hungry bosses.
Now I'm dealing with drugs and all kinds of stuff that's hard for me to deal with. You're smoking grass or sniffing whatever, you're fired. Get out of here, go on home.
It's a very small percentage doing drugs. But I hope it doesn't get any worse. Because now you don't get hurt on the waterfront - you get killed. You're handling 25-, 30-ton equipment and you're going very fast. It's no place for somebody to be careless.
Oh, yeah. I knew (the late ILWU union leader) Harry Bridges. Most fantastic man I've ever met in regard to labor. He didn't care if he had holes in his shoes. He brought the rank and file together regardless of race or ethnicity, molded them like a family. That's all he was concerned about.
In the last 20 years, we've had women on the waterfront, driving equipment and becoming bosses. I'm right in their corner. Some bosses don't want nothing to do with them. But I don't deny them anything that's within their rights. I'm OK with women.
My daughter wrote me this note for my birthday and she says, "Dad, I know you're going to write that book about your history as a longshoreman. I want you to call it 'The Last Boss.' " I said, "That's good. That's an era that nobody hears about now."
It was always fun. It's still fun, but it's time for me to retire.
Edward Guthmann is a Bay Area freelance writer. Do you or someone you know have a work story to share? datebookletters@sfchronicle.com