The Fight for Good Jobs Continues

Local 1588 has long advocated for the Maritime District on MOTBY to be used as a container port. The port would provide thousands of desperately needed high-paying jobs and millions of much needed revenue for the Bayonne. Our Local and the International Longshoremen’s Association continue to pursue this goal through all available means.

However, despite all the benefits of a container port, the BLRA has held strong to its insistence that the property be restricted to Ro-Ro operations. We adamantly oppose these restrictions, but as long as the BLRA insists on them and they withstand legal challenge, we believe there are compelling arguments to select the Port Authority to run these operations over Port America.

The Port Authority has pledged $86 million in important infrastructure investment, including building a dedicated access road to 440. Without these improvements, Bayonne may be plagued with the sort of overwhelming traffic problems everyone hopes to avoid. Ports America is well-respected operation with a good track record. They will run a solid operation. But they are not in a position to provide the overhaul of infrastructure that is necessary.

Most importantly, Bayonne stands to benefit substantially from a much greater boost in good jobs if the Port Authority gets the property. These good jobs will come not from the Ro-Ro and car processing work created at MOTBY – operations which will yield only a few hundred modest paying jobs, but rather from expanding container operations at Port Jersey just across the channel. If the Port Authority gets the property, they are likely to to relocate the Northeast Auto-Marine Terminal, which currently occupies half of the Port Jersey pier, to MOTBY, allowing the existing container operations to nearly double in capacity. This would create several hundred new high-paying blue collar jobs on the Port Jersey pier

Make no mistake, the number of good container-related jobs created at Port Jersey would be far fewer and far less diverse than if a new, separate container operation at MOTBY was created. But it would be a lot better than the few modest Ro-Ro jobs that will be created by a Ro-Ro operation that doesn’t permit for expansion on Port Jersey.

This might be a compromise to make all the conflicting groups happy: Those who insist (mistakenly, we believe) that the residential development cannot co-exist with a container operation would get their wish; the Maritime District would be turned over to a responsible public agency with deep resources to develop the necessary infrastructure to alleviate traffic, and a modest number of high-paying blue collar jobs would be created. Something for everyone.

For the struggling blue collar citizen of Bayonne looking for decent-paying work to support a family it wouldn’t be the home run our Local has been fighting for, but it would be a stand-up double.