Stevedoring and Cargo Handling Operations
The shore labour working a ship's cargo, the ship and shore interface, the responsibility split during cargo work, and the hazard profile of the operation.
Stevedoring is the work of loading and discharging a ship’s cargo, carried out by shore labour employed by a stevedoring contractor, a terminal operator or in some ports a labour pool. The stevedore works on the ship but is not of the ship, and that fact drives most of the safety, commercial and liability questions the activity raises.
The full article will set out the interface. Who controls the ship’s gear while shore labour is operating it, who is responsible for the safety of a hold access route, how a lift plan is agreed across the rail, and how the master’s authority to stop unsafe work sits alongside a terminal’s operational control. It will cover the contractual layer as well: the stevedore damage clause, the notice periods that preserve a claim, and the protection and indemnity cover that responds.
It will treat the hazard profile from named sources rather than generically. The published analysis of high-consequence incidents involving shore-side cargo-handling personnel puts crush by cargo first and vehicle or pedestrian impact second, with falls third, and finds the risk split almost evenly between work on the vessel and work ashore.