Port of New London State Pier situation getting out of hand.

For further details on this story, go to: theday.com for an article written by David Collins under the title of:

"Longshoremen forced to sign nondisclosure agreement."

Not only has Gateway Terminal, the competing operator to which the Connecticut Port Authority has given control of the New London

port, already been diverting business to its own terminal in New Haven,
but it has tried to prevent longshoremen here from talking about their
lost work.

When the New Haven port owner took control of the New
London port in May, it made existing port workers, members of Local 1411
of the International Longshoremen's Association sign nondisclosure agreements prohibiting them from talking about their jobs, according to multiple sources.

The company already has been diverting ships to its own terminal in
New Haven, paying lower wages to its non-union employees there and none
of the New London port fees that would otherwise be due to the state.
through its agent, the port authority.

This makes the awarding of the New London management contract to Gateway of
New Haven by the scandal-ridden port authority just as suspect
as the contracts and deals that went on during that same time period to so
many authority cronies.

Also troubling are the political deal-making implications of the authority's
use of former Democratic U.S. Rep. Toby Moffett's Washington law firm
in negotiating the Gateway management deal, and Gateway's representation
by the Hartford lobbying firm of Jay Malcynsky, which also
represents the other major players in the pending wind deal for New
London, including Eversource, Bay State Wind, Eversource and Danish wind giant Ørsted.
Malcynsky seems to be a major force behind the closing of New London's
port to traditional cargo, to the benefit of his clients.

"We are not getting work," a longshoreman of Groton complained at Tuesday's
rally for the New London wind deal, introducing a sour note in a hearing in
which David Kooris of the state Department of Economic and Community Development and Gov. Lamont's designated chairman of the port authority board, served as wind deal enthusiast in
chief. Kooris, sang the praises of the deal while representatives of the companies that will profit handsomely all sat mum to let Kooris make their pitch for them.

Reports indicated that the decline in the number of ships for new London began
immediately after Gateway took over, and the shipments on the few that
have come were smaller and took less time to unload. He said he was
regularly making $3,000 to $4,000 a month, including lots of overtime,
with the last operator, and the work seems to be stopping completely.

The picture of a busy port, with three to four ships calling a month, a
rate that has apparently been increasing, is much different than the one
painted by Kooris, who described a port in decline, even projecting an
overhead image for the audience of a weed-strewn pier.

There were proposals, before Gateway was chosen to be New London port operator, to have a temporary floating work space to accommodate the wind turbine assembly while keeping the existing piers open for cargo. But the bidders with the lobbyist won, and jobs and port revenue already are draining from New London.

Why would anyone think it would be a good idea to turn over management of a revenue maker to its principal competitor? This is exactly what has happened.