Cranes at the Port of Baltimore’s Seagirt Marine Terminal in a file photo from 2021. File photo by Bruce DePuyt.
Gov. Wes Moore named two new members to the Maryland Port Commission on Wednesday, at what Moore called a “critical time for the Port of Baltimore.”
The appointments of John D. Brewer Jr. and Adam J. Neuman come at a troubling time for the port: It was shut down for almost two months this spring by the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge and, while it reopened in late June, it could face another shutdown at the end of this month from a longshoremen’s strike.
International Longshoremen’s Association delegates on Thursday agreed to call for a “coastwide strike at ports from Maine to Texas on October 1, 2024,” unless a new multiyear contract is in hand with the United States Maritime Alliance, which represents shipping companies. ILA President Harold Daggett said in a video message Wednesday that a strike is not an idle threat.
“Mark my words, we’ll shut them down Oct. 1 if we don’t get the kind of wages we deserve,” Daggett said in the video, where he said the union is also fighting for container royalty payments, better health care and a prohibition on automation or semi-automation of terminals.
The Maritime Alliance said in a statement Thursday that it has offered a continuation of health benefits and automation protections as well as higher wages and retirement contributions, but that it is waiting for the union to continue negotiations.
The last strike by the ILA against Gulf Coast and East Coast ports was in 1977. The union on the West Coast signed a contract last year that calls for a 32% increase in wages over the six years of that contract.
If a strike happened, it would come a little more than six months after the Port of Baltimore was shut down by the collapse of the Key Bridge, which was struck by the container ship Dali on March 26 and plunged into Patapsco River, blocking shipping lanes in and out of the port. Besides trapping ships in the port, that shutdown threw thousands of workers off the job.
The channel was cleared and the port reopened in late June, but not before the state spent millions on assistance for workers and businesses that were affected by the shutdown. The Moore administration said it June, as it was starting to wind down those programs, that the state had provided $37.4 million in worker assistance since early April, and $22 million to support affected businesses in the Baltimore region.
The administration said 2,800 workers received direct financial assistance and it claimed that more than 3,000 jobs were protected from layoffs as a result of the business support.
The Port of Baltimore generates about 20,300 direct jobs, and another 273,000 jobs are linked to port activities, according to the governor’s office. It said the port ranked first in the nation in 2023 for volume of autos and light trucks, roll-on/roll-off heavy farm and construction machinery, imported sugar and imported gypsum. It ranked ninth among major U.S. ports for foreign cargo handled and ninth for total foreign cargo value.
Brewer and Neuman join the four existing members on the port commission whose job it is “to establish policies to improve the competitive position of the Helen Delich Bentley Port of Baltimore within the international maritime industry,” the governor’s announcement said.
“This is a critical time for the Port of Baltimore, and their vision and expertise will help us secure the future of the Port, grow Maryland’s economy, and come back stronger than ever,” Moore said in his statement.
Brewer is director of the office of insular affairs in the Department of the Interior, coordinating federal policy for U.S. territories and freely associated states. He has also worked at the departments of Agriculture, State, Defense the Treasury. He has bachelor’s degrees in history and English from Morehouse College and a master’s degree in international history from the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Neuman is chief of staff and special adviser to the president of the Baltimore Ravens, where he helps develop strategic initiatives and bridges football operations and corporate strategy, according to the announcement. He was previously chief of staff for the Big Ten Conference, helping guide it through the COVID-19 pandemic and working on the conference’s expansion this year from 14 to 18 institutions. An attorney, he attended Yeshiva University for his undergraduate degree and the University of Pennsylvania Law School.