Bender Shipbuilding
Bender Shipbuilding is the second of the large drydock and shipbuilding concerns that were among the major employers in the city of Mobile, Alabama during World War II. Bender is a privately held corporation established in 1928. However, its renown as a deep water port facilities goes back as far as 1702. The uniqueness of the shipyard is the fact of its enormous deep water frontage on the Gulf of Mexico. Prior to 1980, it was known as Bender Welding and Machine Company. Bender Shipbuilding is known for drydock facilities, repair and conversion, new vessel building and surplus marine equipment sales.
Bender is one of only a handful of full-fledged shipbuilding facilities left in the United States. Its location on the Gulf of Mexico at Mobile, AL makes it the choice of thousands of boat owners over the years.
Bender facility is known for its dedicated workforce, which is operational nearly 24 hours daily. The shipyard workers are skilled in their ability to service and repair various ships efficiently and accurately. This ability has meant that Bender Shipbuilding is one of the most successful shipbuilding facilities ever. These vessels include tugboats, passenger vessels, riverboats, shrimp boats and push boats.
Because of the age of the facility and the type of work that is being done in the location, Bender Shipbuilding is one of the facilities that is being warned about the presence of asbestos and the diseases known as mesothelioma and lung cancers. Asbestos fibers were used in parts of ships such as steam pipes, boiler rooms and piping systems, Employees were prone to get the fibers into their lungs, whether they worked around the renovation of old worn out equipment or whether they installed new equipment as needed. It is estimated that workers exposed to asbestos fibers during the years of World War II died at almost the same rate as those killed in battles.
For a time, Bender was involved in a joint venture with Austal USA as a joint venture, but has since sold off its interest to Austal.
Bender built the famous Liberty ships during the years of World War II at an amazing rate. During the height of production, an entire ship was averaging about 43 days to built from the 'ground' up. Literally thousands of employees were included in the effort to replace the devastated British shipping fleet even before the United States entered the war officially. Not only was there the excitement of working and earning better wages than ever before, but the town of Mobile was working for a common goal. Not to say everything was blemish free, but labor issues and discrimination issues were set aside for the duration, sometimes by mutual agreement and sometimes by presidential edict. In many instances, the acrimony and dissatisfaction was simply pushed away from the surface, to arise later in the civil rights movement activities in Mobile during the 60's and beyond.
Thousands of men and women moved to Mobile in order to take advantage of the work opportunities with most facilities such as Bender hiring everyone they could find. It is a sad shame that so many of them became sick with mesothelioma due to the asbestos used in the manufacturing.
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