Growth in cargo prompts request for first major expansion of labor pool in 30 years
NEW YORK - Booming business in the Port of New York and New Jersey is prompting waterfront employers and the International Longshoremen’s Association to seek approval to add several hundred dockworkers to the labor force.
The Waterfront Commission of New York harbor is considering a request by the New York Shipping Association-ILA Contract Board to add 481 longshoremen to the register.
The commission currently has some 2,700 dockworkers on the register. The increase would be the first significant addition to the longshore register in some 30 years, although some workers have been added through various special measures. New laws enacted in New York and New Jersey last September permit the expansion of the register.
The request marks a sharp turnaround from the decades when thousands of ILA members collected up to $40,000 a year without even working under a guaranteed annual income program. Management agreed to that program when containerization swept the shipping industry in the 1960s.
Today, the guaranteed income program costs the port less than $500,000 annually, compared with direct payments of $65 million in 1983, the peak year, according to Carmine Cardone, executive director of the Waterfront Commission.
At a hearing Thursday morning, James P. Melia, executive vice president of operations at the the New York Shipping Association, warned of labor shortages facing the port.
“These shortages, if allowed to continue, will jeopardize the port’s ability to handle the amount of cargo it presently handles. It will most certainly impact the port’s ability to meet any future growth in cargo movement because of the uncertainty of the port’s users that a sufficient labor pool will be available to meet their needs,” Melia said.
Of the 481 new jobs,131 workers already are employed on a temporary basis. Melia said he hoped to have all of them on board by mid-July.
Brian Maher, chairman of Maher Terminals Inc. , the port’s largest terminal operator, also said he supports the request.
Referring to a dispute between the governors that has prevented the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey from conducting any serious business for months, Maher said,“If the port authority ever gets back to business and leases get signed, we’ll have a lot of new investment in terminals. The growth that we’ve experienced and that we expect in the future requires more people.”
Cargo volume at the port rose 7.3% last year, and the port authority is projecting similar increases for the next several years.
The hearing took place at the Waterfront Commission offices in lower Manhattan. A similar hearing will be conducted on Wednesday at the Seamen’s Church Institute Chapel in Port Newark.
