Starting in March, workers at several ports will be required to apply for the cards. Within 18 months all port workers will be required to have them. The program will be implemented by the Transportation Security Administration and the U.S. Coast Guard, divisions of the DHS.

The Transportation Worker Identification Credential (TWIC) card would give unescorted access to truck drivers, longshore workers, and seamen to “secure” port areas and vessels.

Applicants will have to prove they have legal work documents and have not committed any of the crimes included on a long list under new rules drafted by the DHS.

Among the disqualifying convictions are those for spying, sedition or treason, as well as murder, improper transport of hazardous materials, or illegal possession or purchase of explosives. Workers will have to seek a waiver to obtain the identification card if they have been convicted of a crime in a long list that includes illegal possession of firearms, bribery, robbery, and extortion. Those who were previously ordered into a mental health center for drug or alcohol addiction treatment must prove they completed a rehabilitation program before receiving the ID card.

“The government is stopping people with felonies from going to work, after they have fixed their lives,” Carl Wilcox, a member of International Longshoremen’s Association Local 1416 at the Miami port, told the Militant. “Why take a man away from his job, holding against him something from the past?” Wilcox, a dock worker for six years, said the port bosses are going to take advantage of this measure “to get new workers and pay them less. It’s just another way to take our money.”

The AFL-CIO objected to the financial burden imposed by the application for the TWIC, saying it “repeats the security and criminal background checks already performed by the U.S. Coast Guard.” The union officials said, however, that they agreed with creating a biometric ID card for “transportation security.”

Seamen, longshore workers, and port truck drivers are already among the most regulated workforces. They must clear security and criminal background checks before they are issued licenses or documents to enter restricted areas and transport hazardous materials.

“It’s a hoax because it is conducted under false pretenses as a means of harassing workers,” ILA Local 1416 member Jimmy Florence told the Militant. “All day we are checked for ID and birth date, with each entry and exit from any building or area. They’re constantly checking. This is by the Metro Dade police officers,” he said.

The new measure will threaten the jobs of thousands of port drivers. Of the 110,000 truck drivers who pass through the country’s port terminals, a large proportion are Latino immigrants, many of them undocumented.

“A cut in the work force could be devastating, as a nationwide work-stoppage earlier this year demonstrated,” the Wall Street Journal noted October 17. “As few as 10 percent of all truckers at Los Angeles-Long Beach picked up containers on May 1, when pro-immigration groups called a ‘Day Without Immigrants.’ Freeways normally jammed with immigrant-driven rigs were virtually free of trucks.” Many port drivers in Houston, Miami, and New York-New Jersey will also be heavily affected.

The TWIC card is a component of the Maritime Transportation Security Act, passed by Congress in 2002 with solid bipartisan support. Homeland Security began introducing the new ID cards in November 2004 at 26 sites, including East and West Coast ports.

The new card will cost up to $159 and be valid for five years. It will hold an electronic photo and an integrated chip storing the holder’s fingerprints and other personal information.

The federal government plans to impose such an ID card much more broadly. “Ultimately, as many as 6 million transportation workers in rail yards, airports and seaports will have to buy the card to gain access to secure areas,” the Portland Press Herald reported January 4.

In addition, government agencies plan to bring some 8 million federal employees and contractors under a new, standardized identification card system by 2008.

Capitalist politicians have been pushing for even further “antiterrorist” measures in the transportation industry. Democratic senators Charles Schumer and Hillary Clinton have been demanding more stringent “port security” measures, accusing the Bush administration of not doing enough.

Ruth Robinett and Deborah Liatos in Miami contributed to this article.  
 
 
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