Port of New York execs say threat from mob is history

No other port in the country has an agency like the Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor.

That’s not exactly an achievement. No other port in the country had so much corruption and organized crime that it needed an agency like the waterfront commission.
For more than five decades, the commission has investigated mobsters, checked the backgrounds of all new longshoremen, even decided how many people the cargo terminals could hire. It oversees one of the world’s busiest ports, with its jurisdiction extending over a 25-mile radius from the Statue of Liberty, including the docks in Newark and Elizabeth.
“We believe the commission has done an excellent job keeping corruption out of the waterfront,” said Edward Kelly, executive director of the Maritime Association of the Port of New York and New Jersey.
In fact, New Jersey officials think the waterfront commission has done such a good job, they want to strip the agency of some of its power.
At the urging of maritime business leaders, the Assembly overwhelmingly passed a bill last month that would eliminate the commission’s authority to regulate the number of employees at shipping terminals. Instead, the bill would allow the terminal operators and the union to set the size of the work force themselves.
Advocates argue the change will produce more jobs and put the region’s ports in a better position to fend off increasing competition from terminals in Norfolk, Va., and Savannah, Ga. Moreover, they say, the regulations on work force size — designed to prevent organized crime from collecting kickbacks and other favors from dock workers eager for jobs — are no longer needed.
“It was set up when there were a lot of corrupt people down there. That simply doesn’t exist anymore,” said James Cobb, government affairs director for the New York Shipping Association, the group that represents terminal operators.
“We don’t want to change their law enforcement powers, and we want them to continue to do the background checks,” Cobb said. “We just want to be able to decide the size of our work force as other businesses are allowed to do.”
But critics insist there isn’t enough work for all the longshoremen currently at the ports and they warn the proposed change would give mobsters renewed power on the waterfront.

PortNews