Marine Terminals, Labor Fear TWIC Delays

Federal plans to issue the first Transportation Worker Identification (TWIC) cards by the end of the year have U.S. terminal operators and labor unions worried about the downstream implications. The time to gain entry into a marine terminal for truckers could be lengthened from a few seconds to many minutes, they say. At a port like LA / Long Beach, which handles 3,000 trucks per day and literally millions of TEU’s in a year, the potential delays are very real. The TWIC card is a newly mandated biometric identification credential that transportation workers who require unescorted access to facilities such as marine terminals will eventually have to use.

Labor unions have also pointed out that the background checks that U.S. workers will undergo to qualify for TWIC cards are far more stringent than their foreign counterparts will endure. The government has almost unlimited ability to check into the criminal history of the U.S.-born Longshoremen and Merchant Mariners, but little or no access to background information on the foreign-born Merchant Mariners that work on 95 percent of the vessels that call U.S. ports. Beyond this, the background information on many immigrant truck drivers who work at the ports are usually not made available to U.S. authorities.

Industry executives have also expressed concern that the prototype TWIC cards produced by the U.S. Government may not stand up well against severe marine conditions; ashore and at sea. The marine industry is lobbying the government to review and, if necessary, change the process of background checks that will be necessary before issuing identification cards to as many as 750,000 Longshoremen, Merchant Mariners, harbor truck drivers and other transportation workers at the nation's ports.