Portuguese dockers air grievances
A pledge of support has been given to dockworkers in Lisbon by both the European Transport Workers’ Federation (ETF) and the International Dockworkers’ Council (IDC) in advance of a Europe-wide strike planned for next week.
– See more at: http://www.portstrategy.com/news101/world/europe/portugal-200-words#sthash.0oXzW1Wv.dpuf
– See more at: http://www.portstrategy.com/news101/world/europe/portugal-200-words#sthash.0oXzW1Wv.dpuf
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Members of Hava-Is, a Turkish affiliate of the International Transport Workers Federation (ITF), protest Turkish Airlines.
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For the center’s board of directors, the challenge was to find a suitable site within the Port of Wilmington and an affordable building that could be erected quickly and qualify for a grant from the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF).
Since 1980, the center has occupied part of a pre-World War II building on Port of Wilmington property, a building which in recent years has become inadequate to serve the needs of the about 3,000 officers and crew members who use the center’s services each year while their ships are in port.
Not only does the center provide computers and telephones to help connect seafarers with loved ones, but there are books, games and TVs for entertainment, chaplain services and transportation for those who want to go shopping or sightseeing in Wilmington.
Board president Ron Casterline said that the building’s age and condition necessitated a move to new quarters.
“There is more plywood on the windows here than there is glass,” he said.
While negotiating with the N.C. Ports Authority for property for a new facility, the board determined that a modular building was its best option for the new center. The board contacted three local modular home vendors; Clayton Homes scored the winning bid and embarked on its own voyage of discovery.
“Although Clayton Homes has done commercial buildings before, this is a first for our Wilmington store,” said James King, sales manager of the Wilmington location.
The process was painstaking. After responding affirmatively to the initial query from the Seamen’s Center board, King and other Clayton staff sat down with board members and the project engineer. As the Seamen’s Center representatives outlined specifications, King said, they were more concerned about making sure there would be rooms to house all the center’s functions rather than what size the building needed to be.
“We started out with about 2,300 square feet, then scaled back to 1,400-square feet building and ended up with a 1,600-square-foot structure,” he said. “We designed the building about three times until we came up with a final design. Then we sent it off for an estimate.”
It turned out that another factory, Harnett County-based Champion Homes, gave Clayton Homes a far lower cost estimate than did Clayton’s own factory in Tennessee. King sent that bid to the Seamen’s Center board and waited. In November, he learned his company’s bid was successful, but that the board did not have a site lease or the necessary funding.
Clayton staff waited again.
By April, the center had received its ITF grant, as well as donations from individuals and businesses, and had lined up support from the various area churches that support the center’s programs. Board members delivered a check to Clayton Homes’ Wilmington store. In May, center officials signed a 15-year lease with the Ports Authority, and the project was fully underway.
That’s when the local Clayton team’s learning curve got steeper, King said. Because the building was modular, rather than manufactured – another term for a mobile home – a different set of standards applied.
“Once a modular home is put into place, it is treated like a traditional site-built home, for purposes of a mortgage,” King said. “It is built to the state code. A mobile home, however, is regulated by HUD [the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development] codes. And because it was a commercial structure rather than residential, there were differences in the lumber we had to use, in the floor coverings. There were code differences in almost every aspect of the building.”
Those differences meant that the future Seamen’s Center building couldn’t benefit from the economies of scale that keep costs down when modular buildings are mass produced.
“The idea behind modular homes is that everything you need is in the factory. For this building, we had to order everything,” King said.
The finished modules arrived in town on Monday and were delivered to the site the following day, at which point workers began hooking up plumbing, electricity and HVAC.
Plans are to dedicate the new building and have all Seamen’s Center operations relocated by early September, Casterline said. The organization will be looking for funds as well as donations of labor and goods in preparation for heavier use of the new facility.