Through the system that was in place in ’89, I was lucky enough to come in as a “B” man. And many of us wanted all new people brought into the industry to be put on the B-list. As we all know this did not happen. It is a cost item, and the employer does not favor those items.
When I came in, the membership were mostly old timers,I learned a great deal about the job, and the history of the waterfront. Although, through example, not all of what I learned was on the positive side. When I first got my “A” book, some of that “I got mine” altitude, I am sorry to say, creeped into my behavior. That quickly changed, because it was simply not the right thing to do.
Yes, we all have to start somewhere and pay our dues coming up the ranks. Now with the ten short years that I have been on the ’front, we are slowly becoming the old-timers, as the many ot those people we learned from are leaving the industry. It is going to take a great deal more work to pass on what our predecessors left us. Without it nothing will remain for the rest that follow.
“Be kind to the people you meet on the way up, you’ll meet the same people on the way down” Jimmy Durante
James Long
Local 10
