The Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor wants to see greater diversity in dockworkers so the now largely white workforce better reflects the neighborhoods around the docks. And now the bi-state commission wants to know why, after ordered by the commission to correct the problem, shipping companies that operate in the harbor could not find a single qualified black, Hispanic or Asian person to hire. The commission had early this year charged the New York Shipping Association with immediately addressing diversity and the shippers turned to the International Longshoremen’s Association – the union that still maintain a complete stranglehold over the Harbor’s labor pool. Asked by the shippers association to produce a diverse list of job candidates the union came up with 37 names and all but four were white men. The one black candidate did not even want a job on the docks and there were no Hispanics on the list. “Imagine our dismay that in a diversity program, the ILA would come up with an all-white slate of candidates,” Walter M. Arsenault, the executive director of the commission, said. “That’s an oxymoron.” In frustration the commission pulled together its own diverse list of qualified job candidates from area workforce center applicants, a group the ILA president had described as “garbage” compared to ILA union members, even when far better qualified. Fewer than 10 percent of commission’s candidates failed a physical examination, while the failure rate of the union’s candidates was about three times as high, mostly because of positive tests for drug use. Several other union candidates failed to qualify because they appeared to have ties to organized crime.
