Port Authority bans the hiring of convicted felons in port commerce jobs

Tuesday, March 13, 2012, 6:51 PM
By Steve Strunsky/The Star-Ledger

The Port Authority has banned its Port Commerce department from hiring convicted felons.

To help keep the region's docks free of organized crime, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey has barred its Port Commerce department from hiring convicted felons.

Port Authority Executive Director Patrick Foye said he has no reason to believe mob associates are submitting their resumes to the Port Authority, or that it has already been infiltrated. Rather, Foye called the new restriction "a precautionary step."

"The region's ports have had a sad legacy of organized crime influence in the past," said Foye, who was appointed by New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo last fall. "This is a prudent step to insure that newly hired employees of the Port Commerce Department are subject to the same standards as the Port Authority Police Department."

The Port Authority owns container, auto and bulk cargo ports in Newark, Elizabeth, Jersey City, Bayonne, Brooklyn and Staten Island, where it leases terminal space to private operators. The Port Commerce department has 170 employees who administer the leases, promote the shipping trade, and oversee port development projects.

Foye said he and Deputy Executive Director Bill Baroni, an appointee of Gov. Chris Christie, imposed the hiring restriction under their executive authority, without the need for board approval.

The hiring restriction is somewhat similar to a restriction by the Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor that bars members of the International Longshoremen?s Association union and others working on the waterfront from associating with organized crime figures. The commission can revoke the licenses of dockworkers found to have broken its rules.

The commission?s executive director, Walter Arsenault, said he hadn?t seen the new Port Authority rule and declined to comment on it.