Reply #18: I'm not certain this is a case of outsourcing. Reports say same workers

[Wordie]

will keep their jobs. I can't vouch for the accuracy of the following, but it says the union workers will keep their jobs:

Arab Port Deal Distorted for Political Gain
by William Hughes Monday, Feb. 20, 2006 at 9:43 AM
[email protected]

...At a silly press conference, on Feb. 18, 2006, held at a waterfront site, next to blocks of ultra-luxurious condos, O’Malley, a Democratic candidate for governor of Maryland, ranted away to the TV cameras, about how it is “outrageous and irresponsible to turn over a port to any foreign government.” One of his political cronies, the pro-Iraqi War congressman, Rep. C.A. “Dutch” Ruppersberger (D-MD), was also present. According to the Baltimore Sun, O’Malley accused the UAE of being a “key transfer point for nuclear components on their way to North Korea, Libya and Iran.” (1) To his credit, O’Malley didn’t blast the UAE for hiding Osama bin Laden, preparing to launch WMD at the U.S., or causing the Baltimore Ravens' NFL team to miserably flop again last year.

Here's the crux of the problem: O’Malley doesn’t know what the hell he is talking about! Period! He also made a reference to the War of 1812-1814, and how the city had successfully defended itself against the British invasion and that somehow this proposed contract fits into that historic happening. That, too, is pure baloney! What O’Malley didn’t reveal at the press conference was that the organization presently in charge of much of the stevedoring operations in Baltimore is - a British-based, privately owned outfit - Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company, (P&O). It has been supervising “container cargo operations at the publicly owned Seagirt and Dundalk marine terminals” for the last few years. (1) This essential fact didn’t seem to bother O’Malley’s fragile psyche. Now, however, since, the P&O has recently been purchased by Dubai Ports World for $6.8 billion, he has chosen to go over the proverbial edge and use the incident to make a cheap political point or two. I hope the voters will see though this ploy.

The critical point is that Dubai Ports World won't be running the port of Baltimore, or any other U.S. port for that matter. What it would be doing, as ex-Rep. Helen Delich Bentley (R-MD), a respected expert on Maritime matters, explained in a Feb. 18th letter, to the “Baltimore Sun,” is hiring the longshoremen to load and unload the cargo from the vessels. The Maryland Port Authority, an agency of the state, she underscored, would continue to “run the port of Baltimore’s public terminals and be the spokesman for the port in general.” Bentley added that this transaction only means that the “UAE’s Dubai Ports World will be the firm bidding competitively for contracts to handle cargo coming off or loading on to ships in the six ports where P&O Ports has contracts. Baltimore is one of those ports.” (2)

It is also important to emphasize that the vast majority of the cargo handling in the six U.S. ports mentioned above is done by union labor, who are locally based workers. They are card carrying members of the International Longshorman's Association (AFL-CIO), which is headquartered in New York City. This is the same union, (Local 829 ILA), that this writer belonged to, in Baltimore, back in the late 1950s. The idea that the longshoremen will somehow not be able to do the same kind of highly professional stevedoring work for Dubai, which they did for the P&O company, and other stevedoring companies before them, just doesn't fly. For the ILA member, it will be just another day's work on the docks, irrespective of who's doing the hiring.

http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2006/02/1724847.php

I realize this article is critical of a Dem, but that's not the point of my posting it. The thing is, can we be sure that this deal will hurt US union workers? I've run across other reports that say that it won't as well.

Personally, I'm still on the fence about the deal, but I do think there may be an awful lot of misinformation floating around, which needs to be throughly researched before conclusions can reasonably be drawn.

I must say that I really do appreciate your good sense in wishing to get the focus off the arab UAE, and your recognition of the double standard being applied. Perhaps an even better focus and question to raise would be whether we should let contracts for critical infrastructure projects to any foreign government at all!