THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, October 1, 1995 TAG: 9509300298
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY CHRISTOPHER DINSMORE, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 172 lines
Dockworkers in the port of Hampton Roads haven't been on strike since 1977.
This period of labor peace has contributed to its unparalleled growth into the second-largest port on the East Coast.
Peaceful labor relations can be attributed largely to Ed Brown, International Longshoremen's Association vice president in Hampton Roads, and Johnnie Johnson, president and chief negotiator for the Hampton Roads Shipping Association. The association represents the terminals, shipping lines and stevedoring companies in the port.
On opposite sides of the negotiating table for nearly 30 years, Johnson and Brown built a relationship based on the mutual interest of moving more cargo across the piers, which meant more work for the workers and more business for the terminals.
The 70-year-old Johnson retired Saturday, but the labor peace he nurtured is likely to endure with some careful tending.
His retirement caps a 44-year career in the port during which he went from being a dock worker to the top level of port management.
An admitted workaholic, Johnson is known for being fair and direct, friends say. To listen to them, you'd think his only fault was that he never forgot the language of longshoremen.
A big man with strong hands, Johnson's thinning silver gray hair frames a fleshy, mottled face. Two gold rings and a gold bracelet mark his success.
The typical businessman's uniform of a dark gray suit, starched white shirt and rep tie adorn his barrel-chested frame. He speaks in a deep, gravelly rasp and holds your eye from behind his large glasses.
He recently completed a move into a small alcove next to his former large corner office in a small building on City Hall Avenue in downtown Norfolk.
Many framed honors lie boxed on the floor. But hanging on the wall above his desk is a glass box containing the tools of his first trade in the port, the dangerous-looking cargo hook, ruler, pencil and clipboard of a checker.
The Hampton Roads port has doubled in size in the time Johnson has overseen relations between port management and the labor that worked the terminals. Outpacing most other East Coast ports, general cargo tonnage soared to just under 8 million tons in 1994 from 4 million tons in 1985. Shipping lines moved more cargo through Hampton Roads, attracted by the port's deep water, good rail connections and the stability and reliability of its labor.
Colleagues and friends gathered Thursday at a Norfolk Yacht and Country Club luncheon to honor Johnson. Several senior port and labor executives spoke, extolling his contributions to the port. Johnson took it with aplomb and a few tears. It's hard for this man who made his life working in the port to leave it.
``You can't turn off a life, and this has been his life for almost 50 years,'' said Brown, Johnson's ILA counterpart. ``He'll be physically retired, but he'll never be mentally retired. He cares too much about the port of Hampton Roads.''
Johnson won't stop working for the port. The shipping association will retain him as a consultant, but the day-to-day responsibility for handling labor relations and negotiations falls to Roger Giesinger, who is taking Johnson's position.
So what does a workaholic who spent 44 years working on the waterfront do when he retires?
First off, he fulfills a promise to his wife of nearly 50 years. He's going to take her home early next year to the Isle of Capri, Italy, where they met and married after he was injured in World War II.
He was assigned to rear echelon duty on the idyllic resort island near Naples after being severely injured in combat in France's Voges mountains in October 1944. His unit was advancing when it got clobbered by mortar fire. Johnson's body was perforated with 19 pieces of shrapnel from his head down his back to his legs. He still carries one piece that doctors chose not to remove because it was too close to his spine. He was lucky.
``A lot of people got hit that morning,'' he said. ``They pretty nearly wiped my company out.''
When the war ended, he returned to his family home in Alexander City, Ala. Working as a weaver in a cotton mill, he earned his high school diploma going to night school.
Before the war, Johnson quit school to support his mother and sister after his father died. He earned $3 a week working for another farmer.
``Johnnie's the fulfillment of the American Dream,'' said Robert Bray, executive director of the Virginia Port Authority. ``He's gone from being an Alabama farm boy to where he is today.''
Johnson brought his wife, Pina, and a young son and daughter to Norfolk in 1951 after hearing there was good work to be had on the docks. He landed the job checking cargos against manifests at the Army piers, now the location of Norfolk International Terminals. He joined the ILA in 1952.
But Johnson soon moved into management. He became a warehouse foreman in 1953 and then pier superintendent, overseeing all the checkers. He worked for a series of stevedoring companies, which unload ships, until 1967, first in Norfolk, then in Portsmouth. During the '60s he also ran a business cleaning ships and providing other services in the port.
In 1967, the city-owned Portsmouth Marine Terminal opened and he went to work there as terminal manager. He worked at PMT until 1983 when the state created the Virginia Port Authority, which bought and unified the competing terminals in Hampton Roads.
A proponent of the unification, he became assistant general manager for Virginia International Terminals Inc., the company established to operate all the terminals for the port authority. He became general manager in 1986.
By the mid-80s he was also leading all the port's negotiations with labor as chairman of the shipping association's negotiating committee. In 1988 he went over to the shipping association full-time as president and chief negotiator.
He's been involved in the negotiations for six multiyear contracts and helped settle hundreds of everyday disputes. Recently he's lead the committee representing port management from Maine to Texas in the coast-wide container-handling contract talks with the ILA.
``I believe in being fair,'' Johnson said of his negotiating style. ``I believe in being positive. I keep a calm, cool head. When you become combative, you don't get anywhere. If things took a bad turn, I'd adjourn the meeting for a couple days and let everybody calm down.''
Times have changed since the 1970s when the ILA would strike during just about every contract negotiation. ``There's more emphasis on trying to avoid strikes and keep the peace than ever before,'' Johnson said.
Still, talks on local issues haven't been a walk in the park all the time for Johnson and Brown.
Last August, Hampton Roads longshoremen rejected a plan to reduce the wages of dockworkers unloading break-bulk cargo. Other East Coast ports such as Philadelphia and Wilmington, N.C., had been siphoning off key break-bulk cargos such as cocoa beans and rubber, which is shipped on pallets rather than in containers, with lower labor costs.
The hard-negotiated plan was junked in a day. It took Brown and Johnson nearly seven months to develop a new proposal to create an apprentice longshore program. The program, which didn't need a union vote, calls for newly-hired longshoremen to work break-bulk vessels at a lower wage rate.
Johnson is typically reluctant to discuss the details of contract talks. He takes a gentlemanly all's-well-that-ends-well approach to discussing such matters.
``Johnnie is an above-board type person,'' Brown said. ``He doesn't play a lot of games with the collective bargaining process. He's hard, but he's fair. You always get the impression that what he wants is what's best for the port.''
Even if the two didn't agree on something, they've always been able to find something that both management and labor could live with, Brown said.
Johnson says he succeeded by looking out for everyone's interest. ``I've always believed that if the employee makes a good wage to take home to educate his kids he will be a good employee, and a productive employee produces profits for the employer,'' he said.
Longshoremen are among the highest paid blue-collar workers anywhere. The wage for container handling is $21 an hour, well in excess of the average wage in Hampton Roads. And the benefits package is second-to-none, Brown said.
As he retires, Johnson is cautiously optimistic about the future of the port and the good labor relations he has nurtured. Both the port and the union are facing uncertainties.
The competition between ports will only get stiffer, putting pressure on costs across the board. Meanwhile employee health and welfare costs are growing fast. In other ports, non-union terminals are trying to take work from the union. And everywhere, technology is boosting port productivity.
``Ports don't need as many workers,'' Johnson said. ``Some jobs will eliminated, but the guys who survive will be skilled workers and they will be well paid.''
Training and education are key on the docks today, he said. ``The old days when everybody looked at the waterfront guy as a strong back and a weak mind are gone. Nowadays there's a lot of educated people out there, including college grads, who find they can make more on the docks than anywhere else.''
Despite threats, Johnson foresees a good future for Hampton Roads. ``This port is in an enviable position. It has good facilities and the support of the state. We will continue to expand and put in new facilities.''
But Johnson won't be as much a part of that ``we'' anymore.
When he's not consulting, he'll probably be out working in his yard. He never developed a hobby like golfing or fishing. He didn't have time for such diversions. ``I'm a workaholic,'' he said. ``I need to be working.''
But in the next breath this grandfather of five admits that while he's in great health, he's tired. ``I don't want to work like I've been doing. I'm 70 years old and it's time to look at the greener pastures.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
MOTOYA NAKAMURA/Staff
by CNB