PrintPrintFollowing more than a year of negotiations and a pullout threat, Maersk Line has inked an agreement with the S.C. State Ports Authority that will keep the world’s largest shipping line calling on Charleston until at least 2014. A Maersk exit could have crippled an already weak state economy. The Danish company accounts for about 20% of the SPA’s dwindling container business.
By Molly Parker
mparker@scbiznews.com
Published Oct. 22, 2009
Following more than a year of negotiations and a pullout threat, Maersk Line has inked an agreement with the S.C. State Ports Authority that will keep the world’s largest shipping line calling on Charleston until at least 2014.
A Maersk exit could have crippled an already weak state economy. The Danish company accounts for about 20% of the SPA’s dwindling container business. In December, Maersk announced it would be leaving Charleston, citing cost disadvantages.
“This allows us to maintain the services we have calling the Port of Charleston,” said Dana Magliola, spokesman for Maersk Line.
The announcement comes just in time for the SPA’s new CEO Jim Newsome’s first State of the Port address at tonight’s gala presented by the Propeller Club of Charleston.
Under the agreement, Maersk will remain a licensed user on the Wando Welch Terminal, but will occupy a smaller footprint, Magliola said. Until this year, Maersk called on the Port of Charleston eight times a week. But in early spring, that number dropped to five as Maersk pulled out two services, including one that called twice a week, and moved them to ports in Savannah, Ga., Wilmington, N.C., and Norfolk, Va.
Those services are not returning with this announcement.
“Maersk Line will maintain a competitive position within the Port of Charleston,” Magliola said. “This will allow us to continue to provide a reliable service for our valued customers in South Carolina, a benefit to the economy both in Charleston and throughout South Carolina.”
The contract agreement does not change Maersk’s operating structure.
Maersk has a license agreement with the SPA to operate its own dedicated terminal, largely with labor supplied by the International Longshoremen’s Association. Maersk had expressed a desire to move to the SPA’s common-user gate that is operated by SPA employees.
The company’s December pullout announcement came after the three local ILA chapters representing longshoremen, checkers and clerks voted against allowing Maersk to make that move. It would have cut union hours significantly, and violated the union’s contract with the world’s major shipping line, ILA leaders argued.
“The union situation doesn’t change for us with this agreement,” Magliola said. “We’ll continue to operate under the ILA master contract as before.”
Maersk credited the port leadership and state politicians for keeping talks alive.
“We have worked closely with the leadership of the South Carolina State Ports Authority since we initially voiced our concern about cost competitiveness for Maersk Line within the Port of Charleston,” said Gordon Dorsey, senior vice president of operations for Maersk Line in North America. “We are pleased to have reached an agreeable solution for both Maersk Line and the Port of Charleston.”
Reach Molly Parker at 843-849-3144.
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