LONGSHOREMAN BY DAY, L.A. CLIPPERS CHEERLEADER BY NIGHT - http://ultimatecheerleaders.com

Working hard, this Summer

By Sasha

She Does What?
D.J. Foster
Los Angeles Clippers
7/21/2011

Staples Center has become sort of a second home for Clipper Fan Patrol member Summer over the past nine years. During every single Clippers home game, you can catch the longest tenured member of the Fan Patrol performing with the rest of the sqyad during breaks in the action. Gymnastics, dance, cheerleading – you name it, Summer and the Fan Patrol do it.

After about three hours chock-full of tumbling and stunting, Summer will make the drive back home. With her adrenaline pumping and her heart still going a million miles per hour, she tries to force herself to sleep because she knows what’s in store for her in the morning.

Summer is a Fan Patrol veteran.

[Photo Gallery: Summer]

The turnaround is so fast that her costume swap would make the “quick change” halftime act look pedestrian by comparison.

Bright and early with just a few hours of shut eye under her belt, Summer swaps out her red and blue Clippers vest for a bright yellow reflective one. She kicks her white cheerleading shoes to the side and puts some steel-toe boots on her feet. The skirt gets tossed for a pair of jeans. And the hair she spent so much time getting just right last night? It gets a big hardhat plopped right on top of it.

And with that, her transformation is complete – performer in front of 19,000 by night…longshoreman on the docks at the various ports around Los Angeles by day.

“A lot of people are surprised to see me down there sometimes, “ Summer said. “Other people on the team are from around the area and know about the job. So they know what goes on down there.”

What goes on down there, simply put, is some real backbreaking manual labor. For Summer, her two jobs – Fan Patrol and Longshoreman – truly are like night and day.

“It’s completely different,” Summer said. “The Clippers Fan Patrol is more of my fun job where I get to dress up and interact with fans and be part of a team. The longshoreman job is a lot of physical work. It’s lifting heavy things, lifting heavy equipment.”

[Photo Gallery: Summer's Day Job]

“Sometimes I’ll be keeping track of the containers that come on and off the ship, and sometimes I’ll be driving a semi-truck with a 40-foot container attached to it,” Summer said.

If it seems like a questionable job for a highly talented gymnast with a Master’s Degree from Cal State Fullerton to fall into, you would be right. But down at the docks, Summer is about as comfortable as one could be hauling 30-pound containers repeatedly.

“I do really like it,” Summer said. “It’s different every time I go down there. It keeps you on your toes. It’s a pretty interesting job.”

The job is made a little more interesting when you consider how small Summer is compared to the rest of her coworkers.

“It’s pretty tough work, especially because I’m so short,” Summer said. “That doesn’t work in my favor. When I’m driving the semi-truck it’s kind of hard to reach the pedals.

“A lot of the guys down there are so big — it’s kind of a big man’s job. We have to lift the connectors to the containers, and they get pretty heavy after a while.”

But that hasn’t stopped Summer . The blue-collar work ethic is so instilled in her that she can’t take a break. She works because she can’t imagine not working.

It is easy to see where Summer gets that attitude from. Her grandfather, Charles, worked at the docks for many years. Her brother and uncle work there with her now, as does her father, Steve, who has worked as a longshoreman for over 25 years.

“He didn’t push me to do the job, but he kind of recommended it,” Summer said of her dad. “He thought it would be something good to fall back on even if I didn’t want to do it forever because I was still going to school.”

You get the impression talking to Summer that there is nothing that could stop her from doing what she sets her mind on. Since she was five years old, Summer knew that she wanted to do gymnastics and cheer , and she has successfully made that dream a reality, even if it has meant working somewhere a little outside of the box during the day.

Since the 2001-02 season, Summer has lived her dream and entertained the Clipper faithful, and if they ever need her to do something else for squad – something typically reserved for someone twice her size like being a base – it should be no surprise given her day job that she would be up for the challenge.

“Yeah,” Summer laughed. “I could do that.”

CLICK TO SEE MORE PICTURES OF SUMMER "ON THE WATERFRONT"

ALJ ROSENOW (COVINGTON) FINDS CLAIMANT WHO WORKED 4 MONTH ON AND THEN 4 MONTHS OFF TO BE ENTITLED TO DISABILITY EVEN DURING "OFF" MONTHS

Full Decision Pitts vs. Spectre Group International

Excerpt

                                                        Analysis
Employer’s argument that Claimant drifted in and out of total disability, depending on
what his work schedule would have been in the absence of his injury, misapprehends the
fundamental policies that underlie the Act and interpreting case law.  The calculation of the
average weekly wage accounts for pre-injury work schedules.  In this case, the annual wage was
$229,500.  The record shows that he was only paid for periods that he worked, which was, on
average, half of each year. That would have resulted in an effective annual wage of $114,740.
That figure, divided by 52, yields an average weekly wage of $2,206.73, which in turn, results in
a total compensation rate greater than the maximum of $1,256.84 which was stipulated to by
Employer.  Thus, the fact that Claimant had every other four months off is reflected in the
average weekly wage.

Employer’s observation that during the off-duty periods Claimant had no duties that he
was required to perform and was therefore not disabled, may be accurate from a very basic
logical perspective, but fails to take into account the full legal context.  Because of his covered
injury, he could no longer do the job for which he was hired.  That there were times he had no
tasks that he was unable to perform is not significant.  There is no indication that during his
four months off, he was not free to engage in other employment.  Until such time as Employer
establishes suitable alternative employment, Claimant remains just as totally disabled during
what would have been his off duty periods as he is during the balance of the year.

ON REMAND, ALJ GEE (SAN FRANCISCO) FINDS THAT CLAIMANT SUSTAINED AN INJURY AT WORK AND IS ENTITLED TO BENEFITS

Read Full Decision - Wakeley vs. Knutsen Towboat Company

Excerpt, p 33..

The Respondents further question the Claimant’s credibility because he did not mention
the accident to anyone until almost a week later. ((See Respondents’ Closing Brief, pp. 22-23;
HT, p. 181 (did not tell supervisor Mr. Ketchum or Mr. Knutson about his accident the last week
he worked); CX 7, pp. 21H, 21K (did not tell coworker Mr. King).) Mr. King and Mr. Ketchum
might even have asked the Claimant if he was hurt, but the Claimant did not take those
opportunities to mention a problem with the man lift. (CX 7, pp. 21H, 21N-21O; HT, p. 181.)
Instead the Claimant finished his workweek before seeking medical treatment and filing a report
of injury. (EX 42, p. 70; CX 6, p. 11; EX 68, p. 180.) Finally, it appears odd, to say the least, that
the Claimant withdrew his state injury claim in early August, after having filed for benefits two
weeks earlier. (See EX 40, p. 66; CX 4, p. 6.)

A lot of energy was also put towards trying to prove that the man lift was not capable of
moving in the  way the Claimant claimed and, thus, could not have injured him. (See
Respondents’ Closing Brief, pp. 22-23.)  Beyond closely cross-examining the Claimant, the
Respondents produced four witnesses at the hearing who testified, in some cases primarily, about
how the man lift worked: John Knutson; Scott Lee Roberts, Roger Ketchum; and Gene Cole.
(HT, pp. 204, 215, 276, 394.) The Respondents shot and submitted a video of the man lift in
operation as well. (EX 69.) Mr. Knutson testified that the basket of the man  lift was
“purposefully set up to move very slowly,” without “rapid movements,” and that he had not had
success trying to start the machine from the basket unless it had already been running that day.
(HT, pp. 395-96.) Mr. Roberts also insisted that he had “never been able to get the man lift going
without two people,” since starting it always required squirting starting aid in a compartment at
the back of the machine. (Id. at 279-81.) While Mr. Ketchum testified at the state hearing that the
machine could be jerky, at this hearing he said that was never a problem unless the boom was
extended. (Id. at 226, 229.) Presumably if the Claimant could not have started the man lift on his
own and if the man lift could not have shaken the Claimant, that would be evidence that the
Claimant made up the entire story.


In addition, the Respondents advanced theories that the true source of the Claimant’s
trouble was his documented preexisting back problems. (See Respondents’ Closing Brief, p. 25;
Respondents’ Reply Brief, p. 5.) They made much of the fact that the Claimant did not mention,
and claimed not to remember, seeing Dr. Jany with back problems in 2005. (See Respondents’
Closing Brief, p. 24; HT, pp. 194-95, 200; EX 84, p. 274.) There was a further suggestion that
the MRIs did not show any acute change since 2000, and, therefore, that the Claimant had not
been injured; that the protrusion at L4-5 was not a herniation, but a lump of scar tissue. (See
Respondents’ Closing Brief, pp. 24-25; EX 84, pp. 256-57, 259 (Dr. Arbeene says dye should
have been used in the MRI to distinguish whether the protrusion was scar tissue or a herniation).)
Yet the Respondents also argued, to discredit Dr. Curcin, that there could be no scar tissue at L4-
5 because there had been no previous surgery at that site. (See Respondents’ Closing Brief, pp.
24-25; EX 84, pp. 276-78 (Dr. Arbeene insists no prior surgery at L4-5, thus, “incorrect” that
scarring was found there).)

The Respondents do not seem to have thought these claims through all the way. To avoid
compensability under the Longshore Act, their argument would need to be that the Claimant’s
disability was only the result of the natural progression of his preexisting problems, not just that
those prior problems were a prerequisite for the minor man lift accident to produce such a great
increase in symptoms.  It is not clear that the Respondents made such an argument, or that it
would have been plausible had they tried.  Natural progressions of disorders seldom result in
sudden and severe onsets of symptoms after several years of apparent stability. Likewise, I
question the legal wisdom of Knutson emphasizing the idea that the Claimant’s back might have
already been aggravated in 2005, when he was involved in a fully documented accident while
working at Knutson. The Respondents cannot use Dr. Jany’s report of back symptoms to
damage the Claimant’s credibility, without helping to establish that employment at Knutson had
already taken its toll on the Claimant’s back, even before 2006.  If the Claimant’s work at
Knutson had already aggravated his back once, it is all the more plausible that the injury in 2006,
was a result of the Claimant’s work conditions. In the same way, in the absence of a third
explanation for what the protrusion at L4-5 was, the Respondents’ argument that it could not be
scar tissue, if believed, rebounds to support the Claimant’s claim that it was an acute
herniation.

On the issue of compensability, the Respondents appear to have thrown every
potential argument at the wall to see what stuck, rather than presenting a coherent rebuttal that
might add up to something substantial.

ALJ BERGSTROM (NORFOLK) FINDS CLAIMANT UNABLE TO RETURN TO FULL DUTY IN LIGHT OF MEDICAL EVIDENCE

READ FULL DECISION - WOOD vs. CERES TERMINALS

GRANDMA LONGSHOREMAN HOPES SHE'S MADE DOCKS A BETTER PLACE - Ventura County Star

PHOTO BY ANTHONY PLASCENCIA, VENTURA COUNTY STAR // BUY THIS PHOTO

ABOVE: Janet Ritza looks out from the cab of a top handler as trucks line up with empty shipping containers for her to stack. ANTHONY PLASCENCIA/THE STAR

PHOTO BY ANTHONY PLASCENCIA, VENTURA COUNTY STAR

ANTHONY PLASCENCIA/THE STAR Ritza operates a top handler to stack empty shipping containers.

Janet Ritza sits in the cab of a whirley crane aboard a ship docked at the Port of Hueneme. She carefully maneuvers the crane to lift unwieldy metal containers weighing several tons onto the backs of trucks waiting on the docks below.

Watching her operate that massive machinery, you might never know she’s a woman, except that she might be wearing a pink hat.

Ritza, 55, prefers to be called a longshoreman when it comes to work. At home, however, she’s called “grandma” by her two grandsons, who love her chicken dumpling soup and have been taught to appreciate Brussels sprouts. Ritza is also a homebody who gardens and prides herself on finding deals at thrift stores.

“If it’s not on sale, we don’t buy it,” she says.

It’s that kind of nose-to-the-grindstone, shoulder-to-the-wheel determination that she’s also applied on the job for the past 33 years as she worked to become a certified crane operator, a job once reserved for men. Not only is Ritza certified to operate the whirley pedestal cranes on the ships, she’s also one of just three women certified to operate the Port of Hueneme’s computerized mobile crane, known as “the big blue.” Ritza is, however, the only one of the three who would speak about what it’s like to be a woman working cranes on the docks.

Some longshoremen still aren’t keen on having women around, but Ritza describes working at the Port of Hueneme as a “whole different world” than when she started in 1980. “Now we do have a lot of women,” she says.

Ritza started working at the port as a casual worker in an apprentice-type position and in 1992 was elevated to a fully-registered member of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union. The casuals, as they’re known on the docks, aren’t union members.

PHOTO BY JOSEPH A. GARCIA, VENTURA COUNTY STAR

BELOW: Janet Ritza (center), who works as a longshoreman at the Port of Hueneme, spends some time with her grandchildren Mike (left) and John Kurten at her home. JOSEPH A. GARCIA/THE STAR

Members of the ILWU can earn an average of up to $162,878, and the average earnings for clerks and foremen was up to $217,786 in 2011, according to the Pacific Maritime Association, the largest shipping organization on the West Coast. ILWU benefits packages include health care coverage, a pension plan, a 401(k) savings plan, up to six weeks of vacation pay, and 13 paid holidays. The pension plan’s maximum yearly retirement benefit is $71,040, according to the PMA.

Ritza is one of 85 women who work on the docks, or 24 percent of the 354 dockworkers, according to the Oxnard Harbor District. Of the women, 60 are casuals and 25 are union dockworkers. While that may not seem like many, it’s on par with the goals women were striving for at the end of the 20th century, when women were still battling to gain better access to the coveted longshore work.

PHOTO BY ANTHONY PLASCENCIA, VENTURA COUNTY STAR

ANTHONY PLASCENCIA/THE STAR Siupolu Belaustegui, 56, of Oxnard, connects an empty shipping container to the utility tractor rig that she operates as dockworkers prepare for an incoming shipment of Chiquita bananas on Wednesday.$RETURN$$RETURN$

The integration of women at the Port of Hueneme

gradually happened, Ritza said, after a group of women in Los Angeles complained they were being unfairly denied positions and sued the ILWU and the PMA. They got a federal court in 1983 to issue hiring goals in what was known as the “Golden Decree,” named for one of the original plaintiffs, Deborah Golden. It required that membership in the marine clerk and longshore locals be 20 percent female.

A federal judge allowed the decree to lapse in 1999. Nonetheless, the women got their point across and demographics on the docks changed.

When longshoreman Jess Ramirez came to the port in 1986, six women were bona fide union members and it was clear they were not wanted on the docks, he said. He remembers telling them they’d better stick together.

“There was a lot of risk when women came in,” he said.

They’ve since assimilated, Ramirez said. “Women are no different than men. There are men who can do the job and men who can’t. Women are the same way. I make it a policy to get along with everyone.”

Still, Ramirez says he’s “old school” and does not want his four daughters working as longshoremen.

“We are definitely stronger than women and I’ve seen where women have gotten hurt on the job trying to lift heavy stuff and obviously they can’t do it,” he said. “That would be my only cautionary advice to women.”

Oxnard Harbor Commissioner Jason Hodge said technology has opened the work up to more women.

PHOTO BY ROB VARELA, VENTURA COUNTY STAR

LEFT: Ritza operates a pedestal crane to unload a container from a ship at the Port of Hueneme. ROB VARELA/THE STAR

“I think the entire shipping industry has seen a large influx of women from the dock levels up to management,” he said, pointing out that the Port of Hueneme now has its first woman at the helm, Executive Director Kristin Decas.

Ritza said it can indeed be dangerous on the docks, but said now that shipped goods are loaded on pallets workers are able to use forklifts so they don’t have to throw heavy boxes around.

Getting one of the longshore jobs isn’t as simple as applying, however.

Port Hueneme resident Monica Knox put her name in a recent lottery when 60 positions came open at the port. She said thousands of people applied for the jobs and her name wasn’t drawn.

“I’d give an arm and a leg to work down at the docks, even as a casual,” she said.

Ritza plans to spend around five more years working at the Port of Hueneme. When she retires she hopes she’ll have done her part to leave the place a little more welcoming to women.

“I’m happy to move on and let someone else take the cranes and all the work,” she said.

Read more: http://www.vcstar.com/news/2013/feb/02/pioneer-hopes-shes-made-docks-a-better-place-for/#ixzz2Jnz2bl1C
- vcstar.com 

Federal mediator: Ports, longshoremen avert strike - PilotOneline.com

Federal mediator: Ports, longshoremen avert strike

The Virginia Port Authority's cargo terminals in Hampton Roads. (Stephen M. Katz | Virginian-Pilot file photo)

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By Robert McCabe
The Virginian-Pilot
© February 2, 2013

NORFOLK

Negotiators for East and Gulf coast dockworkers and port employers have reached a tentative deal on a new contract, "avoiding a potential work stoppage," according to federal mediators.

"I am extremely pleased to announce that the parties have reached a tentative agreement," said George H. Cohen, director of the Washington-based Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, in a statement late Friday.

"The tentative agreement is subject to the ratification procedures of both parties and, as well, to agreements being achieved in a number of local union negotiations."

The existing "master contract" between the International Longshoremen's Association and the United States Maritime Alliance Ltd., which represents employers in ports including Hampton Roads, has been in place since Oct. 1, 2004.

It has been extended three times, most recently right after Christmas, averting a strike set to start Dec. 30. The extension was set to expire at midnight Wednesday, again raising the threat of a strike or lockout at 14 affected ports.

The announcement means that a new contract affecting about 15,000 dockworkers from Maine to Texas, including roughly 1,700 in Hampton Roads, is on track, though it's subject to formal approval processes.

The top labor negotiator for Hampton Roads port employers responded Saturday with a firm "no" when asked if a strike still could occur.

"We've got a contingency agreement on the master contract, based on the local ports getting their contracts," said Roger Giesinger, president and chief negotiator of the Hampton Roads Shipping Association.

Every longshoreman in union locals along the East and Gulf coasts gets to vote on the proposed deal.

"The majority rules," Giesinger said, adding that he expected that process, as well as the talks about local contracts, to play out over the next "25 to 30 days."

Even with the "tentative" qualifier on the agreement, port insiders were breathing a lot easier after the announcement.

"We anticipate working with no strike," a source familiar with the talks said Saturday. "That's absolutely what we're hearing."

While the two sides have been working on the larger, comprehensive contract affecting the movement of containers and "roll-on, roll-off" cargo, they also have been negotiating local contracts for each of the ports.

Partly because of the ratification processes, Cohen said his agency would not release details about the "substantive provisions that have been reached."

Even port insiders were coming up empty-handed in their attempts to find out more about the deal.

"I've seen zero for details yet," the industry source close to the discussions said.

Robert McCabe, 757-446-2327, robert.mccabe@pilotonline.com

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