THE PRICE OF A STEVEDORE

But there are still areas of wide variation in some things like the price of labour, waterfront land, taxes and so forth. Any personal injury specialist working in a large international industrial insurance operation will also tell you that the liability compensation payable for death and injuries to shoreside personnel is fairly variable. One such guru was in your columnist’s office the other day, explaining the rules of thumb he applies to such accidents and fatalities.

A forty-year old stevedore who suffers a fairly quick death will be compensated variously in the world. In Long Beach in a Californian court, the liability settlement might be as high as $5m. It is described as having something of a game show quality, with juries anxious to do the right thing by the deceased. It can all be very unpredictable. In New Orleans the workmen’s compensation insurers would be the first to pay compensation (as in Long Beach) and a jury award in respect of the liability of carriers would consider such other things as the pain and suffering in the case, future earnings and medical and funeral costs. A suit against the ship might be looking for something in the $1-1.5m range.

In Japan with its well-entrenched waterfront, the scale of settlements might not be much less. Australia’s equally wellunionised worker might result in a settlement of some $500,000, the process in all probability financed by the union. In the British Isles, the highest settlements tend to be in Ireland, followed by Northern Ireland, England and Wales, and finally frugal Scotland. In South America reaching an agreement may take its own time. A $200,000 settlement might take years to negotiate given that the limitation period for such claims is 12 years in such places as Peru, Argentina or Brazil.

In some jurisdictions the amounts payable are quite small. In Manila the sum of $ 50,000 would be a big settlement. In China itself the plaintiff bar is still emerging but at any rate, the port authority will not let the ship go without first putting up a letter of security. In Bombay with its 100,000+ dock labourers, the employers often wait to see if a family presents itself to enquire as to the whereabouts of its breadwinner. Some weeks of wages and funeral costs are said to be payable in such instances. If no-one emerges to claim the body it is given a pauper’s funeral.

So notwithstanding the consolidation within the industry and for things in container operations to look more and more alike with each passing year, each legal system compensates for industrial injury or death according to the legal, commercial and industrial customs which have evolved over the last 100 years or so.

But it does not seem so far-fetched to imagine the container terminal industry evolving in the future in such a way that its extraordinarily low demand for labour, albeit highly skilled labour, will tend to follow a more international or corporate pattern with agreed standards covering even such gruesome contingencies as death in service. Under this scenario, the drivers of cranes might become as footloose and globe trotting as accountants lawyers and ship’s crew.