Chapter 177: Cracks in HWS (8)

The next morning.

At a time when the dawn air was still cold, footsteps earlier than usual were continuing in the HWS dock area.

The thick smell of oil cutting between ships, the characteristic air mixed with metal and seawater pierced the tip of the nose.

Maria stood on the railing of the management building and looked down.

White safety helmets, fluorescent vests.

It seemed like the same landscape as yesterday, yet today everything felt different.

‘It starts from today.’

She repeated to herself as if talking to herself again in her mind.

In front, Kim Do-yun and Park Ki-hyun were holding tablets and blueprints.

Dock structure cross-sections, lower reinforcement locations, and temporary repair points were marked.

It was time to solve the problems passed over until now one by one.

Kim Do-yun checked the time and said.

“General Manager Maria, workers will gather soon. Will you do the briefing here?”

“Yes. From today, I will start here every morning.”

Maria picked up the megaphone installed next to the railing.

When the button was pressed, the characteristic mechanical sound spread out.

“All workers, please gather in front of Dock No. 2. Foremen and team leaders, please check the personnel and come up immediately.”

It was her first time doing such a thing, but Maria did it quite skillfully.

After a while, people began to flock below the dock.

From people coming with helmets tucked under their arms to people standing roughly crookedly with arms crossed.

Their expressions were mixed with fatigue and wariness.

Maria took a step forward toward the railing.

“From today, several HWS dock operation rules will be changed.”

Murmuring rose up slowly from here and there.

“First, work is completely suspended in the areas of Dock No. 2 and No. 3, which are currently operating in a state of temporary repair. No work is allowed until the structural inspection is finished and the reinforcement work is completed.”

Someone below the dock spat out.

“Then what about the schedule? Are you saying it is okay even if we cannot meet the schedule?”

Voices overlapped as if chiming in from here and there.

“I hope she is not telling us to work overtime?”

“This is why people who talk about safety are tiring. It seems only we will end up suffering.”

Hearing the grumbling spreading among the workers, Maria’s heart skipped a beat.

But this was all an expected reaction. 𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚

“I know.”

Maria deliberately paused for a moment.

Waiting for the murmuring to subside, she opened her mouth again.

“I know very well that the schedule may be pushed back immediately due to this measure. But as you know, if we continue to work in this state, an accident will surely happen someday.”

Below the dock railing, rusted railings and pillars came into sight.

The ends of the iron plates that looked dangerous as if blood would come out if scratched once were also the same.

“If an accident happens, we who are here are the ones who experience it.”

A few among the people who were grumbling until just now turned their eyes.

“Second, from today, all work cannot be started without a work permit. Welding, cutting, moving heavy objects, and entering the dock are all included. This is not just to increase paperwork. It is to clearly leave a record of where, what, who, and with what equipment it is done.”

A foreman in the back raised his hand high.

He was a man with a bushy beard.

“Then why are site foremen like us needed? A whole day will pass just writing permits every time.”

His tone was rough, but it was not wrong either.

Maria answered while nodding toward him.

“The people signing those documents are the foremen. It is not about waiting to get a stamp coming down from above, but to allow the site manager to make a judgment and start.”

She continued her words.

“Instead, the person who signs will become the person in charge. Do not sign just for the sake of signing, but only those who can check the site and say that it is truly okay to work should sign.”

The foreman closed his mouth.

Other foremen standing nearby also did not speak, but they seemed to have many thoughts.

They aimlessly fiddled with helmet straps or took off gloves while only looking down at the ground.

A silence flowed for a moment, but Maria caught her breath and opened her mouth.

“Do you know why I am saying this?”

At the voice echoing over the megaphone, the foremen raised their heads one by one.

The eyes that were mixed with fatigue and annoyance met her head-on this time.

“Honestly, until now, you must have thought that if a problem occurred, the higher-ups would block it. If an accident happened, a few pages of reports were circulated, a few pages of documents went back and forth, and it ended up fizzling out.”

A few faces were slightly distorted.

It seemed it was more bothersome because it was not wrong.

“I also thought that was the way of this company until I came here.”

Maria’s gaze returned from below the railing to the foremen’s faces.

“But from now on, that is not the case. The person who writes their name is the person in charge. If an accident happens, the name that goes at the top of the investigation document, on the first line of the report, will be your name.”

Small gasps were heard from here and there below the dock.

The mouths that were grumbling ‘Are you going on about documents again?’ until just now were instantly frozen.

Maria slowly nodded her head as if confirming that reaction.

“From now on, the signature a foreman makes is not just a procedure of stamping, but a promise that I will take responsibility and do it. Yes, I know it is a huge burden. Even for me, it would not be easy.”

Stopping her words for a moment, she continued in an even lower voice.

“But I have no intention of only telling you to take responsibility. If the responsibility grows, the authority and treatment must change accordingly. The moment you foremen sign, you will also take the authority to decide whether to start or stop the work. Even if the higher-ups said just do it, you must be able to stop at any time if you feel it is dangerous.”

The eyes of several foremen changed.

It meant that she would treat them as people who could make judgments, not just people who did it because they were told from above.

“And I will state this clearly. As much as you take responsibility, your salary and evaluation must also change. Once these safety rules are established, I will create a separate evaluation standard and allowance system for the foreman level. I am discussing that with the headquarters.”

This time, the murmuring grew even louder.

“We must not treat people who prevent danger just as people who have been on-site for a long time. From now on, I will consider the decision to prevent an accident and the circumstances of stopping the work, that judgment, as performance. I will make it a position where responsibility and rewards follow together, not a position that ends with only getting cursed at.”

Among the foremen who were standing at an angle with arms crossed, a few unconsciously uncrossed their arms and corrected their posture.

It was not an appearance of openly admitting it, but only now did they truly think of the weight of their position.

Maria looked at them for a moment and then opened her mouth again.

“So from now on, you must have a sense of responsibility according to what you are in charge of. It is not about finishing with just a signature, but you must personally go around the site and judge after seeing where and how the team members are working. The era of looking at drawings and reports in the office and thinking it will be okay is over.”

She finished by placing her palm once on the railing and then taking it off.

“Only when you foremen protect the site in the front can I protect you in the back. That is the way we take responsibility together from today.”

***

Around the time Maria’s voice subsided at the HWS dock, someone visited the 3rd floor of a commercial building in Northern Virginia.

Robert Hamilton stood in front of the door and tightened his tie again.

‘I did not know I would end up knocking on a politician’s office door at this age….’

Exhaling a short sigh, he turned the doorknob.

A young woman at the inner desk raised her head.

“May I help you?”

“I am Robert Hamilton. I have an appointment with Delegate Reed.”

Upon hearing the name, the woman’s expression softened a little.

“The Delegate told me to bring you in immediately. Please come this way.”

The woman rose from her seat and walked inside.

Robert followed her down the hallway while clearing his throat for a moment.

At the end of the hallway, a sign was attached to the glass door.

[VIRGINIA HOUSE OF DELEGATES - Thomas Reed]

The woman knocked on the door.

“Delegate, Mr. Robert Hamilton has arrived.”

A short answer was heard from inside.

“Have him enter.”

When the door opened, an office that was not large but well-organized came into sight.

Outside the full-length glass window, the cityscape of Northern Virginia between gray buildings was looked down upon.

A man wearing a dark-colored suit rose from his seat.

The impression of the man with neatly slicked-back hair and thin-rimmed glasses was sharp, if not to the point of being cold.

Although he was at a young age of around forty, he looked exactly like someone who had been in politics for a long time.

The man extended his hand first.

“General Manager Robert Hamilton, nice to meet you.”

When Thomas Reed, a member of the Virginia House of Delegates, spoke, Hamilton held it with both hands.

“Thank you for taking the time, Delegate.”

Reed gave a short smile and then naturally pointed to the sofa.

“Let’s sit down and talk. Whenever shipyard stories come up in this town, Mr. Hamilton’s name always follows, so it is an honor for me to meet you in person like this.”

When the two sat facing each other, the inside of the office became a little more quiet.

Hamilton caught his breath for a moment and handed over the envelope of documents he had brought.

“This is what is happening at HWS now.”

Reed opened the envelope and scanned through it.

Photos of the dock structure, copies of work logs, internal reporting documents, and schedules were inside.

As he turned the pages, his eyes narrowed a little more.

“I heard the headquarters went into restructuring, were you also fired?”

Hamilton’s face immediately became distorted.

“Yes. That is the case, so to speak. They chose one person in charge and sent them out.”

He gave a bitter smile.

“As you know, Delegate, I worked for over ten years in this company alone. I know everything related to this company. But suddenly, a person I have never seen or heard of intervened and started cutting the company into pieces!”

Thomas Reed put his elbow on the armrest and continued to look at Hamilton.

Inside him, a calculator was working hard.

Whether it was worth helping the person named Hamilton.

“So why did you come to find me, Mr. Hamilton. If you were only going to talk about being treated unfairly, you wouldn’t have had to come to me specifically.”

His tone was gentle, but every word was as sharp as a blade.

Robert swallowed his dry saliva for a moment.

“It is true that I am being treated unfairly, but that is not all. Delegate, aren’t you the one who knows better than anyone else what happens to local jobs if HWS is shaken?”

Reed’s gaze dropped slightly and then returned to Hamilton.

“Jobs….”

“Yes. Even if you only combine the people working at HWS, it is over a hundred people. If you combine family members, I don’t think I need to tell you how many voters there are.”

Hamilton said while tapping the documents placed on the table with his finger.

“The measures the new management is taking are outwardly to strengthen safety. It sounds good. However, it is no different from creating a structure where they can fold the line at any time for the reason that profitability does not match if the schedule is even slightly distorted. In that case, I think the Delegate would know better how many jobs would disappear all at once in this region.”

He said as if summarizing in one line.

“Foreign capital enters and indulges in restructuring, and as a result, local jobs become endangered.”

In fact, jobs were not a bad material politically.

Jobs were something good to use during election season.

Reed asked.

“What do you want instead?”