In Baltimore and other ports, employers require our drivers to operate close to a continuous beam of radioactivity. Can this be safe?
The Mobile VACIS (Vehicle and Cargo Inspection System) is designed to find the unusual in a container. Workers drive their trucks through the machine and, they are assured, the beam only starts working once the driver’s cab is past it. Supposedly, this system makes the process safe.

The US Customs’ own report on the safety of the Mobile VACIS machine tells another story; “The radiation safety exclusion zone for mobile VACIS is 50 feet in length and 50 feet in width.”

After bringing these concerns to local union officers, the ILA Safety Officer, Dennis Daggett  and announcing it at our hiring hall, Baltimore management and ILA officials held a meeting and conference call with Richard Whitman, national radiation safety officer for the Customs Department, and Dr. John Cardarelli of the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). Both of these men claimed that Mobile VACIS is completely safe, the use of the terminology “safety exclusion zone” was an unfortunate error. The March 12th 2004 document was only a draft, they said.

Even after safety demonstrations, West Coast longshore workers line up their trucks and get out of their vehicles to stand 100 feet away while the Mobile VACIS does its job. The scatter effect of the Cesium and Cobalt 137 particles, which are the rays used in the Mobile VACIS, continues to concern West Coast union officials.

According to the May 2004 issue of the ILWU newspaper, The Dispatcher, the West Coast Safety Committee “continues to resist employer demands that longshore workers drive UTRs (also known as hustlers, yard tractors or mules) through the VACIS radiation beams to check containers. The committee maintains that long term exposure to gamma rays is unsafe.” The official position of the ILWU is that aside from naturally occurring background radiation, any radiation exposure is a health hazard, since it may lead to sterilization, birth defects, and/or increased risks of cancer.

Some Baltimore dockworkers resisted driving through the VACIS, but there is no organized union-wide response. While the International has been contacted about this, and dockworkers all along the East Coast are concerned, they have done little. Certainly we could organize to adopt a policy like the one followed on the West Coast.

ALERT: The Customs Department together with our employers have begun to test more powerful, potentially dangerous, X-Ray machines in ports up and down the coast.
Stevedoring companies are lobbying the government to change the Longshore Workers’ Compensation Act to avoid paying for medical costs from radiation exposure.