Maersk Line is expected to decide about whether to keep any of its business in the Port of Charleston within the next two weeks after it receives the final offer from the South Carolina State Ports Authority that was being discussed Monday afternoon in a teleconference among SPA board members. “Maersk is quickly closing in on exactly their business plan for the East Coast, and a large component of what they do depends on what happens in Charleston,” Sen. Larry Grooms, chairman of the South Carolina Transportation Committee, told the Charleston Regional Business Journal.
Grooms said he is confident a decision will come soon, perhaps in the next week or two.
The Republican lawmaker said his involvement has been to help “facilitate conversations that have gotten us to this point so far.”
“I think the ports authority is very close to a final offer,” Grooms said.
After months of discussions between the parties, the SPA executive team has a proposal that says, “This is it, we can’t do any better,” Grooms said.
The meeting was scheduled because the SPA executive team needs “board approval on a final offer,” Grooms said.
“That way the Maersk board knows this is not just management talking, and that they may or may not be able to back it up,” he said. “What’s taking place is the final steps as to whether Maersk stays in Charleston or whether they will leave. What they do here affects what they do up and down the East Coast.”
Grooms said how Maersk reacts to the offer will have a profound impact on the Port of Charleston for years go come. The economy is forcing shipping lines to retool their business strategies, and Grooms said he believes the outcome will be similar to what airlines did 10 years ago when they consolidated lines into a hub-and-spoke model.
The negotiations among the SPA, Maersk Line and APM Terminals, the company’s stevedoring arm, have been ongoing since late December.
On Dec. 18, Maersk Line, which accounts for 20 percent of the volumes handled by the Port of Charleston, announced that it would leave the port when its contract expires at the end of 2010.
At the time, Maersk blamed the International Longshoremen’s Association. The three local chapters of the ILA had voted late last year to deny Maersk’s request to operate from the Wando Welch Terminal’s common-user yard, a move that would have eliminated several dozen checker and clerk positions in exchange for work done by SPA employees.
Maersk is currently a licensed private operator, and that labor is therefore supplied by the ILA, according to an international labor agreement. Moving to the common-user yard would have been in violation of that agreement, ILA Local 1422 President Ken Riley had said. And the ILA’s national chapter issued a stinging rebuke of the company, saying it put workers “at the end of their corporate greed chain.”
Those acrimonious relationships seem to have dissipated. Riley said Monday that the ILA has “watched from the sidelines” and has every indication the negotiations “are moving in the right direction.”
Until this year, Maersk was making more than 400 ship calls annually to the Port of Charleston.
The company has already moved its South Atlantic Express to Wilmington, N.C. and combined its WestMed service with CMA CGM’s Amerigo Service in a vessel-sharing agreement that calls at Norfolk and Savannah instead of Charleston.
The loss of the two services represents a loss of five ship calls per week.
Grooms said he is confident a decision will come soon, perhaps in the next week or two.
The Republican lawmaker said his involvement has been to help “facilitate conversations that have gotten us to this point so far.”
“I think the ports authority is very close to a final offer,” Grooms said.
After months of discussions between the parties, the SPA executive team has a proposal that says, “This is it, we can’t do any better,” Grooms said.
The meeting was scheduled because the SPA executive team needs “board approval on a final offer,” Grooms said.
“That way the Maersk board knows this is not just management talking, and that they may or may not be able to back it up,” he said. “What’s taking place is the final steps as to whether Maersk stays in Charleston or whether they will leave. What they do here affects what they do up and down the East Coast.”
Grooms said how Maersk reacts to the offer will have a profound impact on the Port of Charleston for years go come. The economy is forcing shipping lines to retool their business strategies, and Grooms said he believes the outcome will be similar to what airlines did 10 years ago when they consolidated lines into a hub-and-spoke model.
The negotiations among the SPA, Maersk Line and APM Terminals, the company’s stevedoring arm, have been ongoing since late December.
On Dec. 18, Maersk Line, which accounts for 20 percent of the volumes handled by the Port of Charleston, announced that it would leave the port when its contract expires at the end of 2010.
At the time, Maersk blamed the International Longshoremen’s Association. The three local chapters of the ILA had voted late last year to deny Maersk’s request to operate from the Wando Welch Terminal’s common-user yard, a move that would have eliminated several dozen checker and clerk positions in exchange for work done by SPA employees.
Maersk is currently a licensed private operator, and that labor is therefore supplied by the ILA, according to an international labor agreement. Moving to the common-user yard would have been in violation of that agreement, ILA Local 1422 President Ken Riley had said. And the ILA’s national chapter issued a stinging rebuke of the company, saying it put workers “at the end of their corporate greed chain.”
Those acrimonious relationships seem to have dissipated. Riley said Monday that the ILA has “watched from the sidelines” and has every indication the negotiations “are moving in the right direction.”
Until this year, Maersk was making more than 400 ship calls annually to the Port of Charleston.
The company has already moved its South Atlantic Express to Wilmington, N.C. and combined its WestMed service with CMA CGM’s Amerigo Service in a vessel-sharing agreement that calls at Norfolk and Savannah instead of Charleston.
The loss of the two services represents a loss of five ship calls per week.