ILA President Calls for Meeting with B-State Governors to Press New York/New Jersey Port Authority to Conclude Lease Negotiations with Sea-Land and Maersk

    NEW YORK, April 9 /PRNewswire/ -- As a result of the Port Authority of New
 York and New Jersey's failure to bring Sea-Land Service/Maersk Line
 negotiations to a successful conclusion, John Bowers, President of the
 International Longshoremen's Association, AFL-CIO has called for an emergency
 joint meeting between New York Governor George E. Pataki and New Jersey
 Governor Christine Todd Whitman and leaders of ILA Locals from New York and
 New Jersey for 10 a.m. Monday, April 12, 1999 outside One World Trade Center
 in Lower Manhattan.
     The ILA president called for the emergency meeting after rank-and-file ILA
 members in New York and New Jersey told of their growing concern that the New
 York and New Jersey Governors were politicizing lease negotiations with two of
 the ILA's biggest employers -- Sea-Land Services and Maersk Line -- and the
 Port Authority of New York, thus jeopardizing more than 3,500 longshore jobs
 in this region.
     In an April 7th letter to Governors Whitman and Pataki, Mr. Bowers wrote
 that a proposal to Sea-Land and Maersk, expected by April 6, was not made
 because of issues unrelated to negotiations with the shipping lines.
 Mr. Bowers said ILA members want to know why their jobs and livelihoods are
 being used as a bargaining chip in negotiations between New York and New
 Jersey.
     The ILA was told to expect many of these longshore workers and their
 families to attend Monday's 10 a.m. meeting at One World Trade Center to
 demonstrate their concern for their jobs.  A crowd of over 1,000 people is
 expected.
     Several members of Congress, including Rep. Robert Menendez of New Jersey
 and other political leaders from the two states plan to attend Monday's
 meeting with the ILA.  "Everyone in this region should be concerned for the
 potential loss of jobs," Mr. Bowers said.  "Not just longshore jobs, but the
 tens of thousands of other jobs related to the movement of cargo into and out
 of this port."
 
 

SOURCE  International Longshoremen's Association, AFL-CIO