By James Spinosa

ILWU International President

The Dubai Ports World controversy demonstrated how very little the media and politicians know about how international trade operates. The volume of their outrage bordered on hysteria and nearly drowned out the few voices of reason. But the long-overdue focus on American ports’ vulnerability to terrorist attack has given the ILWU an opening to more widely address the issue of what port security really is and how it really is achieved.

Not that there aren’t some legitimate concerns raised about a foreign government company operating an American port terminal when the country in question has some suspicious ties to terrorist activity. But the situation was never as extreme as it was portrayed by the press and politicians.

Arabs never bought the ownership of U.S. ports. They couldn’t. The ports are owned by local government agencies. When DPW made a deal with British-owned Peninsular and Oriental Steamship Navigation Co. (P&O), all it bought were leases in six East Coast ports to operate a terminal in them. The leases are on terms the local port authorities negotiated with the British company. And by U.S. federal law, security matters are still dictated and enforced by the U.S. Coast Guard and the U.S. Customs Bureau.

But that is where the real issue lies: What are those laws? Are they adequate to provide real security? And who and how will they be enforced to be effective?

The Marine Transportation and Security Act of 2002 designated the Coast Guard as the lead enforcement agency for the nation’s port security program. In 2004 the Coast Guard issued comprehensive and detailed regulations to meet those goals. Unfortunately, due to business cost concerns overriding security concerns, many of the Coast Guard’s regulations have not been implemented. Still, the ILWU is pushing for some basic practices to be started as soon as possible.

• Maintaining and checking secure electronic seals on all containers to detect and deter tampering are the most essential parts any port security program. Most containers are sealed with mechanical bolts that can be cut and replaced or have doors that can be removed by dismantling the hinges. These containers come to American ports from all over the world on flag-of-convenience ships with ownership obscured by legal papers and crewed by sailors only they have reviewed. All this leaves our ports vulnerable. And yet fewer containers are inspected in West Coast ports now than before 9-11, and many terminal operators have made a policy of discontinuing such inspections because of the costs.

• All "empty" containers entering the ports, whether by ship, truck or rail, should be inspected to confirm they are truly empty. Since there is no requirement making anyone responsible for sealing empty containers, and since they may have traveled long distances for days or been parked on city streets or otherwise presented with opportunities for tampering or smuggling, inspection should be required. Besides, inspecting empties is relatively cheap and quick.

• All containers carrying dangerous cargo or hazardous materials should be properly documented and placarded and kept separate from others.

• Controlling access to port facilities needs tightening. Currently truck drivers are granted entry with little authentication of identity and no inspection of their "sleeper cabs." Once inside the terminal, these drivers have unlimited access to all areas without oversight or supervision. In the busiest terminals the drivers are the largest single group of workers there, often hundreds of them at a time.

• All port workers should be trained on the basic requirements of port facility security plans, the detection of security problems and the proper response and evacuation procedures during a security incident. Today most terminal operators refuse to share their security plans with dockworkers on the grounds of "confidentiality." But we cannot protect ourselves or our ports if we are excluded from security initiatives.

We have been making the point that port security is worker safety. Our lives and those of our families and communities around the ports are literally on the line. We are the ones who have the most to lose should the port security apparatus, currently full of holes, fail us.

So we have been taking the opportunity of this new-found interest in port security (and our newly mobilized public relations machinery) to focus on the real problems that need attention, not the intrusive background checks and screening much of the so-called security plans have been dealing with up until now.

ILWU Director of Port Security Mike Mitre presented testimony on our view of port security before the U.S. Senate’s Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee Feb. 28, and ILWU security liaison Gary Brown of Local 23 did likewise in the House of Representatives’ Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation Subcommittee March 9. Mitre’s testimony was broadcast on C-SPAN and Brown’s was covered in the Tacoma News-Tribune.

Millions of viewers also heard our message on a couple of CNN news shows, including one in which I was interviewed. Peter Peyton, co-chair of the ILWU’s Coast Legislative Action Committee, appeared on MSNBC’s Hardball with Chris Matthews program. Other local radio and print media picked up on our position too.

While we have made inroads into the port security debate, we have not yet succeeded in moving policy and legislation to conform to our positions. There are still some proposals kicking around Congress that would require all terminals in U.S. ports be run by American-based companies, a near impossibility since some 80 percent of them at major ports are not. Such a scenario is not necessarily desirable from the ILWU’s standpoint. The largest American terminal operator is Stevedoring Services of America (SSA), the company that was the most anti-ILWU in the 2002 contract struggle and has been busting longshore unions in ports it works all over the world.

We have established the ILWU as a major player in the national debate on port security and we will continue to press our position to protect our jobs, ourselves and our communities.