Mayor Ras Baraka sent a letter to Secretary of Labor Thomas Perez and several other federal agencies complaining that too few minorities and women are being hired for dockworker positions at Port of Newark and Port Elizabeth in New Jersey.
The mayor of Newark, N.J., where some of the main marine terminals of the Port of New York and New Jersey are located, has called for a federal investigation into what he says is “severe racial, gender, and ethnic inequality in employment at Port Newark and Elizabeth and an apparent bias against the hiring of local residents” seeking jobs as longshore workers.
In a letter, Mayor Ras Baraka asked Thomas E. Perez, the secretary of the United States Department of Labor, and U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division Head Venita Gupta to thoroughly investigate the extent and causes of inequity in hiring for jobs at the Port of Newark and Port Elizabeth.
He also requested the U.S. Attorney General to investigate to determine whether any federal civil rights laws have been violated.
“Port jobs have an enormous potential to boost the economies of our cities presently struggling with high unemployment and underemployment,” Baraka wrote. “They also are an important source of well-paying middle class jobs.”
John Nardi, president of the New York Shipping Association (NYSA), which represents marine terminals and stevedores that hire members of the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) said that his group has been having discussions with Mayor Baraka’s office for about a year and has shown him that about 70 longshoremen added in recent years came from his city. He said since then Baraka’s office has provided additional referrals, and about a dozen have been hired, another dozen have been disqualified, and others are going through the hiring process.
“We don’t hire by town,” Nardi noted. But he said Newark makes up about 20 percent of the port and that about 20 percent of recent hires came from Essex County, the county in which Newark is located.
Baraka said of the 3,299 registered longshore workers at the port, only 299 (6.3 percent) had Newark addresses and that of the 3,299 workers, 2,055 are white, 787 black, 410 Hispanic, 17 Asian and 30 “others.” Only 302 are women.
Changing the composition of the workforce is a difficult challenge. Nardi noted the number of longshoremen in the port has shrunk dramatically in recent decades from 20,000 because of containerization and mechanized cargo handling.
The NYSA said that 568 new longhoremen were hired in 2014, and 287 were hired in 2015.
According to the NYSA, in recent hiring 51 percent of positions went to
veterans, 24 percent to candidates suggested by management and 25
percent were referred by the ILA. The NYSA said 41.4 percent were white, 34.6
percent were black or African American, and 20.8 percent were Hispanic
or Latino.
Nardi said terminals plan to add another 200 persons to their workforce and he expects employers will add minorities at a similar rate as in the past two years.
“We don’t hire people because they are minorities. They have to be qualified and have an interest in the job,” he said. “But we do hire 50 percent veterans and veterans are a very diverse work group so the hiring plan we have agreed to with the ILA….has resulted in a very diverse recruiting of the workforce.”
Baraka’s concerns are similar to those that have previously been raised by the Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor.
“We have, for years now, been advocating for fair and non-discriminatory hiring,” said Phoebe Sorial, the general counsel of the commission. She said the response of the NYSA and ILA “have either been litigation to challenge our statutory authority to do so or legislation to abolish the agency entirely.”
The Waterfront Commission was successful in 2014 in getting a U.S. District Court to dismiss a lawsuit by the ILA, NYSA and Metropolitan Marine Maintenance Contractors’ Association challenging the commission’s ability to amend hiring. That lawsuit is now before a federal appeals court, and while Sorial said a decision is expected in the near future, the commission expects the lower court decision to be upheld.
The commission, set up over 50 years ago, polices the waterfront and regulates the supply of labor in the port.
Sorial said the Waterfront Commission is supporting efforts of administrative agencies and elected officials who advocate “a fight for fair and non discriminatory hiring.”
Walter Arsenaualt, the executive director of the Waterfront Commission says the New York Division of Human Rights has a lawsuit pending since 2012 against ILA locals in New York and the NYSA for a “pattern of discriminatory hiring.”
Bills in the New Jersey Legislature (A2179 and S2042) seek to have the governor of New Jersey withdraw from the compact establishing to the Waterfront Commission, even though similar legislation was vetoed by Governor Chris Christie last year.
In his letter, Baraka complained that two of the locals in the port “remain strictly segregated despite years of attempts by the Waterfront Commission and civil rights organizations to desegregate them.” Baraka noted that of the 684 members in Local 1, a checkers union, only 37 are black and 49 are Hispanic and that of the 365 members of Local 1804-1, a mechanics union, only five are black and 46 are Hispanic.
Arsenault said that the hiring by those two port-wide locals, Local 1 and Local 1804-1, was “particularly concerning,” adding that their members are the highest earners in the port.
“When you look at their numbers, they’re distressing,” he said.
Baraka said most of the black longshoremen in the port belong to Local 1233 of the ILA, which is 90 percent black.
“We are still examining the numbers and we are examining their hiring practices, making sure that they are sticking to their hiring plan and making sure it is fair and nondiscriminatory,” said Sorial.
“We are not telling them they have to go out and hire minority workers,” she added. “We have always advocated for those who live in the area surrounding the port.”
“Our argument has been if you hire from those individuals, then the group that you hire will be organically diverse. Because they will represent the makeup of the port communities.”
Newark, N.J. mayor asks for federal investigation into longshore hiring
