BALTIMORE — The hardworking longshoremen at the Port of Baltimore are “worried to death” about their livelihoods following the deadly collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge, which has brought work at the busy shipping channel to a standstill.
Scott Cowan, president of International Longshoremen’s Association Local No. 333 – Port of Baltimore, expressed those concerns to The Post on Wednesday, noting that longshoremen are hired daily, “so when there are no ships or cargo, there is no work.”
“As long as the shipping channel is closed, it’s going to be virtually no work for our people,” he said.
The longshoremen who unload and reload the ships daily will likely be laid off due to the lack of work after the 1.6-mile bridge crumbled and fell into the Patapsco River early Tuesday after being struck by a cargo ship.
No ships arrived at the once-bustling port on Wednesday, and only one was scheduled to arrive on the south side of the fallen bridge on Thursday.
“Anybody directly related to the port is going to get affected by this, but the longshoremen are on the front lines,” Cowan said.
The level of uncertainty has left the 2,400 members of Cowan’s union “petrified.” The Port of Baltimore is responsible for $80 billion in cargo and creates more than 15,300 jobs, with 140,000 jobs linked to the activity at the port.
“This is how they make their living,” he said, noting the career is a “sought-after, lucrative blue-collar job.”
“An anomaly happening like this changes the game,” he added.
“We worked all through the pandemic. We didn’t miss a beat. We made sure that those goods came through these ports and went to the consumer,” he said.
“Now it’s reversed. No goods are coming. The goods will come through another port and the consumers will still get them, but our longshore workers are not working.”
Cowan says he hopes some funding — at both the local and federal level — comes through to help the union members get by over the next several weeks while the bridge is repaired. Officials have warned that rebuilding the structure may take years.
Longtime longshoreman Anthony White said all he could think about when he heard the bridge collapse was, “Oh God, what am I going to do?”
White, a 56-year-old single dad of two adult daughters, is terrified of his bills piling up.
“I sit back and I worry about whether am I going to pay my mortgage bills, if I am going to pay my truck payment. Yeah, I’m worried. I’m worried to death,” he said Wednesday at the port, where he had been since 5:30 a.m. hoping to get some work.
“I don’t have seniority to go where I really want to go in the port, so right now I have to take whatever I can get, but at this point there is nothing to get. There is nothing to get. Nothing,” he said.
“People are now sitting around and don’t have nothing to do,” he said gesturing to a handful of nearby out-of-work longshoremen. “It’s going to get worse as the days go.”
According to White, many longshoremen who would load and discharge the vessels in the Port of Baltimore used to be street guys.
“Now they have a job they can look forward to and it’s a beautiful thing,” he said. “I would hate for guys to go back to the streets and do something wrong to protect their families and stuff like that.”
White, who estimates he made around $100,000 last year working seven days a week at the port, fears repairing the bridge will take much longer than any of the workers can withstand.
“It means everything to me,” he said of the work. “Without this job, there is no me.”
“Without this job, I can’t take care of my family.”
“Right now, we are in trouble. We are really in trouble here,” White added. “I just hope that President Biden decides that this will go federal … I hope he does something for the Port of Baltimore to help everybody down here.”
Biden has vowed to “move heaven and Earth” to help repair the bridge and help those employed at the port.
“We’re going to do everything we can to protect those jobs and help those workers,” the president said Tuesday.
The bridge’s collapse, which flung six construction workers who have not yet been accounted for into the river, will also be disastrous for the economy, officials have said.
The workers, remembered by loved ones as fathers and brothers, are presumed dead by authorities, who are working on recovery efforts.
Two people were pulled from the river by rescuers, one in serious condition.
