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WASHINGTON—The
first of 1 million US port workers will sign up this
week for criminal background checks and federal identity
cards under an anti-terrorism program created three
months after the September 11, 2001, attacks.
About
5,000 truck drivers, longshoremen and other workers at
the Port of Wilmington in Delaware will begin enrolling,
the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) said.
Employees are denied a card if they are illegal
immigrants, have terror links or committed crimes such
as murder, robbery or bomb threats.
“This
will help ensure the people entering the secure areas of
our ports have a business reason to be there,” Aaron
Ellis of the American Association of Port Authorities
said Monday.
The US
government is trying to extend to ports some security
protections added at airports following the terrorist
attacks. US ports and waterways move 61 percent of US
overseas trade by value, according to Ellis’s group.
More
than 1 million workers will enroll this year and in
2008, the security agency said in Arlington, Virginia.
The program, called Transportation Worker Identification
Credential, was delayed by technology and data-privacy
problems.
Lockheed
Martin Corp., the world’s largest defense contractor,
won a five-year, $70-million contract in January to set
up 147 centers to enroll port workers. Each worker must
pay $132.50 to have a card for five years.
The fee
“is another cost of doing business,” said Ellis,
spokesman for the Alexandria, Virginia-based trade
group, which represents 86 US authorities that manage
ports.
While
some ports and labor unions will cover the fee for
workers, “there’s going to be a lot of folks that end up
having to pay this cost on their own,” he said.
Port
operators don’t know how many workers will fail
background checks, said Chuck Carroll, executive
director of the National Association of Waterfront
Employers. A government spot check of 50 drivers serving
the Los Angeles and Long Beach ports showed the figure
may be as high as 15 percent there, he said.
“Could
we have serious problems? Sure we could,” said Carroll,
whose group is based in Washington. “We don’t have exact
figures.”
The
security agency will have an appeals process for people
who don’t believe their past should disqualify them,
said Maurine Fanguy, who directs the program for the TSA.
“It’s not our intention to keep people from going to
work,” she said.
Once
enrollment opens, it will be “several months” before the
Wilmington port operator begins checking cards, and the
US Coast Guard begins random examinations, Fanguy said.
Corpus Christi,
Texas,
is the next port that will begin enrolling workers,
early next month, according to the agency.
Those
slated for later in November are
Baton Rouge,
Louisiana;
Beaumont, Texas; Honolulu; Oakland, California; and
Tacoma, Washington, the agency said.
The
government has spent $92 million on the program since
2002 and expects it will be self-financing going forward
because of the fee, Fanguy said. ---Bloomberg |
