5
Dockworkers Dead
In
the last six months there have been five fatalities among International Longshore
and Warehouse Union (ILWU) waterfront workers, each more horrific than the last.
On Sept. 3
ILWU Local 26 watchman Rudy Acosta was run over and killed by a top handler at
the Pacific Container Terminal operated by SSA in Long Beach
On July
23 Richie Lopez, Jr. of ILWU Local 46 in
Port Hueneme
was run over by a heavy forklift.
On June 1
ILWU Local 14 member Dick Peters was checking the hatches of a ship being loaded
in the
Port
of
Eureka
. No one saw what happened, but apparently the
ship-board gantry crane swung and crushed Peters against the ship itself.
On March
15, Mario Gonzalez, a member of ILWU Local 26, was operating a huge mill that
shreds cars into scrap metal at Hugo Neu-Pr
ole
rs’ facility at the
Port
of
Los Angeles
. The machine jammed and Gonzalez went in to fix it.
But the hydraulic-powered, several-ton door closed on his chest, killing him.
A day
earlier on March 14 foreman John Prohoroff of ILWU
Local 94 was routinely preparing a ship to be worked at SSA’s
Long Beach
terminal. The line on one of the ship’s cranes broke, dropping a 3,000-pound
metal ring 30 feet and hitting Prohoroff. He was
rushed to the hospital where he was pronounced dead.
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