CRANE MEN

THERE ARE CLUES that Chester "Butch" Bowman has spent a lifetime around big machines.

Two of them are at the ends of his arms. His hands are like baseball mitts, with thick fingers that look unsuited for anything delicate. His hands are what industrial engineers have in mind when they design the big knobs and switches of heavy machinery.

Then there are his pastimes - the disassembled semi-tractor parked behind his Lake City home, a beloved Harley-Davidson he used to ride into his living room to watch TV from its leather seat.

Even his mother doesn't call him Chester.

These days, Bowman commands some of the biggest machines around. He is a crane operator on the Seattle waterfront, one of an elite group of 76 longshoremen who drive the orange cranes that ring southern Elliott Bay like steel dinosaurs stretching for a drink.

The job is moving cargo containers from ship to shore, from shore to ship, a link in the network of commerce reaching from Tokyo to Toledo. In a year these 76 men - and they are all men - will together load and unload about 1.1 million containers and an average of 20 ships a week.

Cranes are the most visible part of Seattle's working waterfront, and the people who operate them are top-guns in the world of tattooed, thick-armed longshoremen. Bowman, some say, is one of the best.

Driving crane on the waterfront is not for the faint of heart, or stomach. You're strapped into a tilted chair facing a sharply sloped windshield. The floor of the cab is mostly glass, and you seem to float 100 feet above a ship and its colorful patchwork of cargo containers. The whole crane shakes and shudders, and working it is like a monster problem from a physics textbook - fulcrums and pulleys, angles and motion.

The crane operator has no way of knowing whether a container is filled with pingpong balls or lead weights. When one is moving full-speed, inertia is a force to be mastered. If it's not, cargo can crash into the ship, the crane, or worse, the bay, though most containers float, as several crane operators have been dismayed to discover.

If you don't suffer from claustrophobia or vertigo, you could learn crane basics in a day or two. Learning to work one quickly, in fluid, precise motions, could take a career.

On the waterfront, speed is everything. A crane driver finishes a work shift not when he has put in the required hours, but when he has moved the required amount of cargo between ship and shore. Down on the ground, gangs of semi-truck drivers and fork-lift operators can go home with full shift's pay after moving a specified number of containers, whether they've worked five hours or nine. On the night shift, working under a fast crane operator is the difference between catching the last half of Jay Leno or getting home just before sunrise.

The shipping companies notice who's sitting in the crane cab, too.

Estimates place the cost of a ship moored at port at $50,000 a day. If longshoremen don't finish their work on schedule, a vessel has to sail faster to make up time, burning extra fuel and money.

Warehousemen, train engineers and truck drivers all await cargo unloaded by the crane operator. Since many retailers keep inventories low, shopkeepers across the country restock their shelves with imported goods on a schedule determined, in part, by a crane operator in Seattle.

In the end, a lot of time, money and ego rides on who is operating a crane. And those concerns at times have collided with one of the powerful longshore union's most hallowed principles: All longshoremen are created equal, and jobs are available equally to all.

ON A WINTRY AFTERNOON, Bowman parks his minivan along East Marginal Way under the Alaskan Way viaduct and enters the Local 19 headquarters of the International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union (ILWU), under a mural that reads: "An injury to one is an injury to all."

It's the beginning of the night shift, and longshoremen gather on the second floor to get their job assignments. There's not a peacoat or watch cap in sight, but there are plenty of ILWU parkas and tattoos with the union insignia - a hand clenched with a hook, the kind of device used to grapple cargo in the days before containers.

If there is a heart and soul to the union hall, it is the pegboard, a plexiglass window drilled with neat holes, each beside the name of a longshoreman.

The board is where waterfront jobs meet waterfront workers. Shipping companies contract with a stevedoring service to arrange for labor. The stevedoring companies call the ILWU throughout the day with requests for gangs of workers performing a variety of jobs under ILWU jurisdiction.

The pegboard has one function: to determine, in total fairness, who gets work on the upcoming shift.

Longshoremen who want to work show up at the hall and slip a wooden peg into the hole by their name. There are eight pegboards for the different tasks on the waterfront - tasks classified by seniority, experience and pay.

Semi drivers and fork-lift operators peg in on the bull board. Ship laborers are selected from the stevedoring board. The trucker board is for dock and warehouse workers. The sling board is mostly for longshoremen who work cargo that can't fit into containers.

The philosophy behind the pegboard goes back to 1886, when a handful of rebels on the Seattle waterfront formed the Stevedores, Longshoremen and Riggers Union to wrest control from labor bosses who selected workers because of brawn or family connections.

In one of its first acts, the fledgling union created a record book of 88 members in good standing. The president dispatched workers in alphabetical order - cycling through the whole list, A to Z, then starting over - to assure equal opportunity.

Flash forward more than 100 years and things are much the same.

Twice a day, before the morning and night shifts, the union dispatcher doles out jobs to the men who have pegged in. He does this by moving a special peg down the rows of names, a little like a game of cribbage.

If a stevedoring company needs a gang of eight, the dispatcher advances his peg through the workers who are pegged in until he has eight. At the start of the next shift, the dispatcher will resume where he left off, counting through workers who have pegged in until all jobs are assigned. When he's run through the whole list he starts over at the top.

On a given job board, assignments are made without considering seniority or skill. That way, every union member gets the same chance.

Job control has remained the cardinal principle of Seattle waterfront unionism since the rebel faction rose up in 1886, according to Ronald Magden, local historian and author of several books on the waterfront.

But in the real world, principles apparently can bend.

Upstairs in the ILWU hall, Bowman puts a peg by his name. About a dozen others have pegged in on the crane board for the night shift. Given the number of ships in port - vessels' names are written in colored pen on a white board - Bowman is fairly certain he didn't waste a trip, and there will still be jobs to fill when the dispatcher gets to his name.

At 4:50 p.m. sharp the dispatcher moves through the names on the crane board.

Bowman is assigned to the freighter German Senator, along with five other crane operators. The job is so physically uncomfortable and mentally taxing that two crane operators split an eight-hour shift, 6 p.m. to 3 a.m. Bowman drives to Terminal 46, just south of the ferry terminal.

IN HIS HOMETOWN, Chanute, Kan., Bowman mastered his father's drag-line, a winch and bucket used to move gravel, when he was a sophomore in high school. He graduated in 1961, served a tour as a paratrooper in Vietnam, moved out West and became a Seattle longshoreman in 1969.

Within a few years, Bowman was trying his hand at the cranes. He was, some longshoremen remember, a natural, able to move cargo from ship to shore in a fast, smooth arc.

At the German Senator there will be three cranes working simultaneously to unload and reload the ship.

As Bowman, Bill Fairbanks and Kenny Taylor buckle into their seats and begin lifting containers, each is acutely aware of the others' pace, as are the gangs of truck drivers and fork-lift operators below. The starting lineup of Bowman, Fairbanks and Taylor is a little like a race between A.J. Foyt, Mario Andretti and Al Unser - each is an experienced, fast crane driver.

The unstated goal of all three crews is to be home by midnight. With no starting gun or checkered flag, the race begins.

A crane cab hangs under a boom that extends over the ship. The operator looks directly down to the hold or deck, controlling how fast the cab moves back and forth along the boom as he raises or lowers a rack that hangs beneath the cab.

To lift a container, the operator lowers the rack onto it. A light on the rack turns from red to green when automatic locks atop the container are secure, and the operator can begin hoisting.

Loading a vessel is more difficult than unloading one because the operator must delicately place containers deep into the holds. Loading two 20-foot containers in a hold designed for a single 40-foot container is considered the hardest maneuver, especially if the ship's bow is higher than the stern.

"You're continually learning in the crane," says Bowman. "To get it done in a timely manner takes finesse. It's surprisingly hard."

Finesse, and maybe a little craziness.

Max "Make a Deal" Wisner spent 30 years on the docks, much of it as a superintendent for Seattle-based Stevedoring Services of America (SSA).

Wisner is credited with devising the system that lets longshoremen go home after they have moved a specific amount of cargo in a shift. In an environment where time is money, the incentive for fast work turned out to be good for shippers, too.

Wisner, who retired two years ago, could write a business textbook with the lessons learned on the docks. The first chapter might be a description of the characters he says he learned to inspire and indulge but never, ever boss.

"You're not going to bully these guys to go to work," he says from an armchair in his living room on Bainbridge Island. "They'll slow down, they'll have (mechanical) breakdowns, they'll say there's something wrong with the cranes. And if labor doesn't work for you, you're screwed."

The more colorful guys at the dock had nicknames. "Pear-Shaped Smitty" was so named because of his weight; "6-Pac" enjoyed alcoholic beverages; "Shopping Bag" always carried a knife, gun and hatchet in a plastic bag.

One crane driver who was known for his speed and indelicate style Wisner nicknamed "Crash and Crunch, Out by Lunch."

"The whole union hall is one step away from being certifiable," he jokes. "You've got Ph.D.s and guys one step away from life in prison with a fourth-grade education and making $100,000 a year."

Iraqi-born Kandi Kandi is one of the more exotic characters these days, and wise in the physics of the crane.

Kandi traveled to Russia in 1961 and graduated from the University of Moscow with a chemical-engineering degree. In 1968, he moved to the U.S. and enrolled in graduate school at the University of Washington. His roommate worked nights at the waterfront and told Kandi about the good money and flexible hours. Within a few years, Kandi abandoned further education.

Work that may appear repetitive and dull is actually a brain-teaser, Kandi says.

"Depth perception is a property of the brain," he says. "You can think fast if you know geometry well. You need good reflexes. The first time you go up into a crane cab, you're overwhelmed by all these variables."

Kandi has two scars from the crane, one on his body, the other on his conscience.

He was unloading a Korean freighter when the end of the container caught for a moment in the hold. When it released, the jolt rippled through the crane cable, violently shaking the cab. Kandi's hands went numb, but he finished the ship. He later discovered the shaking had compressed three vertebrae, which are now fused permanently in his neck.

The other incident happened six years ago, when Kandi was working a vessel with an inexperienced foreman. Kandi was lifting ship supplies into the hold of the freighter, directed by the hand movements of the foreman below. The foreman waved Kandi to lower the pallet, keeping his eyes on the ship instead of the cargo coming down. He died instantly of a crushed skull.

The guilt was overwhelming, though Kandi was not at fault. "I was terrible for two months," he says.

MOST OF THE CURRENT generation of crane operators started working on the docks in the mid-1960s, and were relatives of union members. Bowman got his first job because his brother-in-law was a member of the ILWU.

Crane drivers are culled from union members with at least 20 years experience on the waterfront. Training is provided by the shipping companies.

There is a freedom to the job - if you don't want to work, just don't show up at the pegboard - and the money can't be beat.

A day-shift driver with two years' experience earns $31.22 an hour. The hourly rate for the night shift, from 6 p.m. to 3 a.m., is $41.63. On the "hoot-owl" shift, 3 a.m. to 8 a.m., it's $49.95 an hour.

With overtime, crane operators have been able to earn $110,000 annually and, some say, more with side-deals - controversial informal arrangements between individual operators and the stevedoring companies.

Talk of side-deals always leads to "Make a Deal" Wisner.

Wisner understood that the union parceled out jobs in what was supposed to be an even-handed way. But he also knew some workers were more skilled than others, and he says he knew how to make sure the good ones were working for him.

He had a copy of the dispatcher's pegboards in his SSA office. Before a shift began he would call the union hall to get an idea of who had pegged in.

Getting good crane operators was often his biggest concern, he says.

If an important shipment was coming in, Wisner says, he would tell a fast driver to pull his peg and put it on an alternate board designated for ships where work might begin later. Wisner would then call the union and tell them a ship was arriving unexpectedly, and he needed workers from the alternate board.

Wisner says he would reward the cooperating crane driver by telling SSA's payroll the driver had worked a few extra shifts - a classic side-deal.

There was another method: If Wisner knew he needed six workers but the seventh on the pegboard was a cracker-jack driver, he would request the additional longshoreman and make a switch. On more than one occasion, Bowman was the additional longshoreman.

"Once in a while, I'd get a bum as a crane operator. I'd say, `Hey, Butch, get that guy outta the crane and I'll take care of you later.' "

If a switch was made, Wisner says he would make sure everyone on the crew got paid for an extra hour or two.

The system worked for everybody, says Wisner - the union got an extra guy on the payroll, Stevedoring Services of America moved an immense amount of cargo, quickly - but it was nevertheless a sensitive matter with the union.

"The union leadership was dead set against it because you're breaking down their system, but I'd make it palatable by hiring more people than I needed, so they weren't getting nothing," he says.

As far as the union is concerned, side-deals don't exist today. They were officially banned four years ago in the union's contract with the Pacific Maritime Association, the bargaining agency for West Coast shippers. Local 19 President Scott Reid said he wouldn't comment on Wisner's descriptions and has no firsthand knowledge of any such arrangements.p

ON THE GERMAN SENATOR, the night shift is over. The race has been decided.

Bill Fairbanks moved 50 containers an hour, best on the shift. His crew finished its assigned work around 11 p.m. - five hours of work for a full shift's pay.

Bowman's tally for the night stood at 48 moves an hour. His crew also went home at 11 p.m.

The crew working the third crane stayed until midnight. Taylor moved 45 containers an hour at his peak.

Crane operators notice these numbers, but insist they don't mean much. Each assignment is different, they say, making comparisons almost meaningless.

Still, Bowman can't resist getting on the two-way radio in the crane cab and pointing out that he's leaving before some of the others.

"You get to gloat a little bit, but it's good-natured competition," he says. "It's hard to take too seriously because none of the operators is going to be first every time."

And yet, every time, someone will be first, which has made things interesting for the union. Though its history lies in treating its members even-handedly, a few longshoremen at times made tacit agreements with the stevedoring companies that, in the end, benefited them all: Higher productivity attracted ships to the Port of Seattle, which ensured plenty of work for the orange cranes. Even if, for someone like Bowman, it's not really work at all.

Back home after his shift, he'll watch TV for a while and try to relax so he can sleep. For fun, though, he'll return to the waterfront tomorrow, to drive crane.

"I love that crane," he says. "It's like an $8-million video game and they pay you to play it."

Alex Fryer is a Seattle Times staff reporter who has covered the Port of Seattle. Benjamin Benschneider is staff photographer for Pacific Northwest magazine.