At Port of Baltimore, Debate Hits The Docks

By Dana Hedgpeth and Neil Irwin
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, February 26, 2006

BALTIMORE -- Just before 7 a.m., a half-dozen burly men in bright orange jumpsuits and hard hats walked through the dense fog at the Maryland docks and into the heart of a debate over the security of America's ports.

Every day at the Port of Baltimore, ships flying the flags of Malaysia and Hong Kong, Liberia and Panama steam in and out carrying cars and timber, spices and grain, and who-knows-what-else. The men in the orange jumpsuits pluck the goods out of the bellies of the ships using giant cranes or roll them down ramps to the concrete tundra that is their workplace. Longshoremen are agents of global capitalism with only two goals: Keep the goods moving, and keep warm.

Most of the time, theirs is a world of steel ships and windswept piers, of diesel fuel and battered containers. And, in the past week, a debate echoing the ones on cable news channels: Should Dubai Ports World be allowed to buy terminal operations at Baltimore and five other U.S. ports from Britain-based Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Co.?

Mark Montgomery, who oversees P&O operations at the Baltimore port, said little would change after the purchase. The New Jersey native and his staff of 65 administrative employees who run the docks would remain in place, he said, same as the last time their corporate parentage changed, in 1999. He reports to bosses in New Jersey; they report to London; and after the deal, the Londoners will report to Dubai.

Out on the docks, the longshoremen have more varied opinions. "Given the situation with 9/11 and all the money that was channeled through the United Arab Emirates, and now you're selling a major port operation to them," Joe Fontaine, the senior dispatcher for the International Longshoremen's Association Local 333, said Thursday. "Uh-uh. That just doesn't sit well with me."

Charles "Chaz" DiGristine, who's been working the docks for eight years as a longshoreman, said his 64-year-old mother called him the other night, worried that they were "selling the Port of Baltimore to a Middle Eastern company."

"She was freaking out," DiGristine said. "I told her: 'Mama, nobody's selling the port. It's owned by the state. One company is buying another company. It's not that big a deal.' "

Ports such as Baltimore's serve as America's gateways to the rest of the world. Eight million tons of cargo cross Baltimore's piers a year, and the volume and numbers of people needed to move it make security a constant challenge. A day at the Port of Baltimore shows how these complexities play out on the ground.

The port, owned by the state of Maryland, has five major terminals that are leased to British, Danish, Japanese and American companies. Britain-based P&O operates the largest of them, the Seagirt Marine Terminal, where most cargo shipped in large containers is handled, along with part of the nearby Dundalk Marine Terminal, which handles mainly cars and construction machinery.

Early Thursday morning, as the sun was making an unsuccessful attempt to pierce the fog, 20 ships lay in wait at the P&O terminals. Some had arrived the day before. Others had sailed up the channel from the Chesapeake Bay during the night, with a local pilot guiding them to a berth. The American-owned Independence had come from Charleston, S.C., bound for the Middle East. The MSC Tasmania, Swiss-owned and sailing under the Malaysian flag, had come from South America, loaded with lumber, furniture and machinery, and would leave Baltimore for Charleston.

P&O is a stevedore, a company hired by shipping lines to oversee the loading and unloading of ships. And it is a terminal operating company, moving cargo on and off trucks and rail cars.

Its managers tell the longshoremen who perform the work under contract when and where to move what. Every day here in Baltimore, P&O takes care of an average of three ships and hires up to 900 longshoremen, sending out computer messages or calling the union hiring hall with job orders.

Thursday morning, 40 or so men were in the union hall, a drab building on South Oldham Street around the bend from the port, awaiting a call. At 6 a.m., a computer message arrived from P&O. It was up to Fontaine, the senior dispatcher for the International Longshoremen's Association Local 333, to fill the work orders.

"I need two lashers, one groundman and a Paceco," Fontaine boomed over his microphone to the men waiting in the gymnasium-like hall. P&O wanted two men to secure equipment with heavy chains, one to give directions as equipment is driven around and unloaded, and another to operate a Paceco crane.

Men who qualified filed past Fontaine, scanning their ID badges into his computer, which sorted them by seniority. Men's pictures popped up on the screen, and the computer spat out the names of the four guys who would get those jobs, with tickets for the docks.

They headed to the Dundalk terminal with a 44-year-old Harford County resident named Surrendor McKnight, a union member known as a gang carrier who oversees the crew on the ground.

"Gotta go, gotta hustle," said McKnight.

They drove off into the cold, dark morning, parking close to the ship.

"Men," Fontaine called out to them, "welcome to another day in paradise."

"That's it, Joe?" one man who was not picked yelled.

"Yeah," Fontaine answered as the men settled down to car magazines and chess, waiting for the next call, which would come a half-hour later.

Local 333, with 2,000 members in Baltimore, has six-year contracts with P&O (the current one expires in 2010) and the other terminal operators. The union allows only U.S. citizens to join, and security screening is required. Many are the sons and grandsons of longshoremen; they are racially diverse, and about 50 members are women.

"No one in this is guaranteed 40 a week," Fontaine said. Some men stay in the hall for 24 hours, waiting for jobs that pay $17 to $30 an hour, and while the money can be good, it is not easily earned.

"On any given day, you might not go home to your family," Fontaine said. "Guys have heart attacks out there. You're moving heavy equipment."

The workers said they give little thought to what is inside a container. They are thinking about the four-letter, seven-number code they type into a handheld computer that tells them where to put their load.

As seagulls swirled above the loading dock and the fog rolled in off the sea, the men began loading and unloading equipment from the Independence, a blue and white ship operated by American Roll-On Roll-Off Carrier LLC, based in Montvale, N.J. It would take almost a full day to load and arrange the cargo -- used SUVs, Mercury sedans and dump trucks -- before the ship left for the Saudi ports of Jeddah and Damman, and then Kuwait.

Over on the Seagirt pier, men waved directions to crane operators who were moving containers, which are generally lifted from the bowels of a ship to a train or barge without ever being unpacked.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers are responsible for seeing that loads match the manifest, to keep out illegal materials and make sure duties are paid.

They check some containers at random -- and any container deemed suspicious -- diverting it through a monstrous X-ray machine called "the Eagle," which can see through 14 inches of steel, and opening it for inspection if there is a discrepancy. Thursday morning the Eagle sat ready but unused.

Two checkpoints guard the port, and the other morning, as the ships were being unloaded, dozens of 18-wheelers bearing containers lined up at the gate, awaiting scrutiny by Securitas AB, a security firm employed by the Maryland port administration.

Maryland Transportation Administration Police, Baltimore Harbor Police and the U.S. Coast Guard also patrol the land and water around the port. They would not discuss staffing levels. Customs also has officials stationed at 42 ports around the world, looking for suspicious cargo.

Customs officials said their operations and records are entirely separate from those of companies such as P&O.

"P&O operators do not have access to that information," said Barry Morrissey, a spokesman for Customs and Border Protection.

Montgomery, the P&O senior vice president and an accountant by trade, said he does not even know what is inside the containers he is arranging to load and unload. From utilitarian offices a quarter-mile from the port, his employees occupy themselves with how many containers are arriving and where they must be placed, working by telephone and e-mail.

All but one (who is African) of the 65 P&O employees in Baltimore are U.S. citizens. What Dubai is buying is P&O's people and contracts.

"In this industry there's not a lot of people who are good in this field," Montgomery said. "A big part of what [Dubai Ports World] is buying are the people, the personnel. The expertise we bring to the industry."

But on the docks, change -- whether in ownership or technology -- occurs amid deep tradition.

"What used to take 20 men all day to do now takes 20 minutes," said Toby Valmas, a longshoreman whose Greek immigrant father preceded him on the docks. But for all the speed and innovation, the consolidation and ownership a world away, some things have not changed.

"It runs in families down here," Valmas said. "It's like passing the torch because you take pride in what you do."

Staff writer Ylan Q. Mui contributed to this report.