Like her father and grandfather before her, 30-year-old Emilei Noceti thought she would spend her career at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach as a longshoreman, lashing down cargo and driving utility trucks through the smell of diesel fumes.
There didn't seem much chance for advancement after the International Longshore and Warehouse Union ratified a contract in January 2003 that, because it gave shipping lines and terminal operators the right to use labor-saving technologies, was expected to eliminate hundreds of marine clerk positions, which can come with six-figure salaries.
But business at the ports has moved at such a furious pace that the union has gained 839 new members instead of losing the 600 or so it had feared it would. And the ranks of the marine clerks, who supervise the loading and unloading of ships, have, in fact, swelled.
Noceti became a clerk in November, giving her hope that one of the last upper-middle-income jobs that doesn't require a college degree will last long enough for her 16-year-old stepson to fulfill an unfinished dream.
"I would like him to go to college," said Noceti, who dropped out of the University of Washington at 19 and went to work at the ports to support her mother after her father, Nazario Crisostomo, died at the age of 49. "If he wants to work [at the ports] that's perfectly fine, but my plan for him is to have an education."
The odds could be in her favor.
At the port of Los Angeles, which used to trail its Long Beach neighbor in trade as recently as five years ago, traffic soared 90% from about 3.8 million 20-foot equivalent shipping containers in 1999 to about 7.2 million in 2003. This year, traffic is up 4% at Los Angeles and more than 14% at Long Beach.
"If the build-up continues, we may have to use additional 'contingency anchorages' located off Huntington Beach. We have also created 'drift boxes' that we can use to hold ships in, if necessary," Capt. M.H.K. "Manny" Aschemeyer, licensed master mariner and executive director of Marine Exchange of Southern California, said recently in his daily e-mail to port officials, referring to offshore locations where ships can wait until there is room for them to dock.
The explosion is largely attributed to an economic boom in China and its strong export trade. China also accounts for the lion's share of bulk shipments out of the ports. The Southern California docks also are major staging areas for military cargo bound for a buildup of U.S. forces in Guam.
