[lelio]

You bet you have to have skill to lift loads that weigh tens of thousands of pounds and place them in the exact spot they're required

I think part of what people miss is that a job's pay can also be determined by how much money a company can loose if they screw up, ie you drop a box full of TVs and the Sony importer's going to file a complaint. Or harm they can do if swayed to the dark side -- in the longshoreman's case letting a couple of boxes walk off the yard.

[EagleMamaMT]

Not to mention the costs incurred by the company if said crane operator drops one of those containers on some of the dock workers!

My husband has never worked on the docks. He's always worked construction - building, bridge and road work. He does a lot of loading and unloading of equipment, however, and lifts a lot of steel beams, pours concrete with a crane-operated concrete bucket and also lifts the laborers and iron workers up and down in the man cages. His main job, though, is running the drill attachment to punch the holes for the support columns for bridges. That is grueling, hard labor - hard on the arms, legs and backs of the crane operators. Think of the drill auger as a giant jackhammer, but requiring a certain "feel" and skill for how fast to drill while also making sure the hole is kept absolutely straight.

As a testament to his safety record, most of the guys on the job prefer to have my husband manning the controls when they're riding the man cage. They trust him because they know he would never be pushed to disregard safety issues to save the company a buck or two.

After reading that post about dock workers making so much money out in California, maybe I need to encourage him to join the union and go out to California and get a job. That's certainly a lot more money than he makes here in the Midwest as a nonunion operator. :)