Virginia's Port Under Siege by Barbarians

Commentary

The barbarians – Rotterdam-based APM Terminals, a subsidiary of Danish-based shipping conglomerate AP-Moeller Maersk – are banging at the political gates of the port.

They are clamoring to take over the port, saying they have the secret formula to make the port profitable.

They want to kick out Virginia International Terminals Inc., the non-stock, non-profit company that has managed the state-owned ports for thirty years.

In truth, APM will make the profits and send them back to Rotterdam and AP-Moeller, whose stock is traded on the Copenhagen Exchange.

Give the port to APM or the private sector bidder – RREEF, a subsidiary of a German bank --- – and investors will decide how the port operates. (Private equity firm Carlyle Group has withdrawn its bid – what do they know that we don’t know? VIT also   submitted a bid, which has been challenged and dissected.)

The tax payers and the citizens of Virginia, via their legislators, will pay dearly to hand over the port to a private company, especially one headquartered in another country.

Virginia’s legislators are perplexed and bewildered – neither the first time, nor the last time.

They don’t know whether they should accept APM’s proposal or delay the bid process with more studies.

APM’s henchmen, Gov. Bob McDonnell and his transportation secretary, Sean Connaughton, are fighting with local maritime interests, the Virginia Maritime Association and the Coalition for Virginia’s Ports.

It’s a farce, perpetuated by political expediency and a drive by certain individuals, foreseeing a promotion and status, to undermine thirty years of port unity.

Secret forces are at work to sabotage the present structure.

They exist within state government and within the Virginia Port Authority.

Readers must ask who will benefit if VIT is dissolved and a private operator takes over management of the port.

 Jerry Bridges, the sometimes controversial and detached executive director of the VPA, has departed.

Who will benefit by his departure?

Jeff Keever, the Senior Deputy Director of the VPA, who was passed over for the position of executive director of the VPA, even though he was promised the job?

Word has it that Keever is intimate with Connaughton and his Deputy Secretary of Transportation and Chief Financial Officer, David Tyeryar.

Meanwhile, the VPA’s 11-member board dithers over the best course. Yet many on the board don’t have a clue.

Meanwhile, the waterfront union and employers are in a 90-day cooling off period on contract talks, which ends Dec. 30.  

The union has threatened to strike if employers – shipping lines and stevedores – don’t meet their demands.

Meanwhile, six of the country’s leading maritime labor organizations -- American Radio Association, Inlandboatmen’s Union, International Longshoremen’s Association, International Longshore & Warehouse Union, Marine Engineers’ Beneficial Association, and International Organization of Masters, Mates & Pilots – have formed a coalition called the Maritime Labor Alliance.

Their goal is to protect the interests of their members – in other words, their wages and benefits -- and I have no doubt in my mind that if one group strikes and shuts down the waterfront that the other groups will launch a protest, whether a work stoppage or a strike.

What many don’t understand, including many on the VPA board, is that the shipping lines, whose decision-makers are based in Europe or the Far East, control where the cargo is loaded or unloaded.

The port is a conduit. The managers and workers are there to move the freight.

Given the state of affairs in Virginia, I suspect that many shipping lines have established contingency plans in case APM takes over the port.

I also suspect that many shipping lines are loading and discharging freight at other ports.

But, hey, let the port burn while the politicians and state officials fiddle away, oblivious.