NEW YORK - Fear over the lack of job security at Universal Terminals in the Port of New York-New Jersey triggered a spontaneous walkout by union workers Tuesday that quickly spread to three other terminals, union officials said.
Maintenance and repair workers belonging to the International Longshoremen's Association walked off the job due to concerns over possible job consolidations by global partners Maersk Line and Sea-Land Service Inc., said a source at Local 1804-1 in North Bergen, N.J.
The illegal, wildcat strike erupted at about 10:30 a.m. at Maersk's Universal Terminals and quickly spread to other Port Newark terminals operated by Sea-Land, Maersk and Maher Terminals Inc. before it ended within about an hour, the local said.
"Some of the men weren't happy because Sea-Land and Maersk originally told us we would have job assurances by the middle of January and now they're pushed those assurances back to the end of the month," said a Local 1804 official, who requested anonymity. "It was a spur of the moment thing by a few of the men and we chased them back to work as soon as we heard about it."
Sea-Land and Maersk are negotiating with New York-New Jersey over the possibility of developing a 350-acre intermodal container hub at the port that could handle up to 700,000 containers per year. The ports of Baltimore and Halifax, Nova Scotia, are also involved in the bidding to attract the global partners' North Atlantic load center, however, and talks are now expected to continue into January.
Sea-Land and Maersk had initially said they expected to make a decision on awarding the container terminal by the end of the year or early January.
