NYSA President John Nardi, At Industry Awards Event, Said ILA, Employers and New York-New Jersey Port Authority Heroically Answered Call To Keep Cargo Moving and Ports Open For Past Two Years As Covid Pandemic Claimed Lives and Threatened Nation’s Economy
John Nardi, President, New York Shipping Association received the 2022 Person of the Year Award from New York-New Jersey Foreign Freight Forwarders and Brokers Association. He is pictured here (bottom left) with ILA President Harold J. Daggett. In top photo, ILA President Harold Daggett (right) and ILA Executive Vice President Dennis A. Daggett (left) meet with Daniel B. Maffei, Chairman, Federal Maritime Commission. In photo, bottom right, ILA Secretary Treasurer Stephen Knott (left) enjoys time with Gary Cross, top executive at Maher Terminals.
NORTH BERGEN, NJ – (February 7, 2022) John Nardi, President, New York Shipping Association received the 2022 “Person of the Year Award” from the New York New Jersey Freight Forwarders and Brokers Association last week at an event in Jersey City, New Jersey, and told hundreds of port stakeholders that his member companies, and the ILA workforce they hire were heroes for staying on their jobs while a large part of America shut down.
“You need to keep working to keep the flow of PPE into the country open,” NYSA President Nardi said of the directive to the Port Community. “You need to work shoulder to shoulder to ensure the supply chain stays open to supply the foodstuff and goods to those who were isolating or quarantining.”
“Again, this was during a time when a case of Covid was viewed as a death sentence,” Nardi noted.
Despite this grave consequence, Nardi said the industry bravely answered the call: “We did what we always do when we have a challenge in NY&NJ. We came together and based on the mutual trust that we have developed here in this port, we collectively worked out solutions.”
In addition to the NYSA and ILA, Nardi cited Ocean Carriers, United States Maritime Alliance, Metropolitan Marine Maintenance Contractors Association and the Port Authority and New York and Jersey, as being part of the collective team that worked on solutions.
In his remarks at the New York-New Jersey Foreign Freight Forwarders and Brokers Dinner, Nardi paid tribute to the victims those affected by the COVID pandemic.
“People did die,” Nardi noted. “Long-time port workers, eight of them, and we still mourn them. Workers did get sick. To date, out of 3,600 NYSA-ILA longshore workers, 2,300 of them had to quarantine at one time or another and 12,00 tested Covid positive.”
“But we kept the supply chain open,” Nardi added. “The business was secure.”
ILA President Harold Daggett, who received the Foreign Freight Forwarders Person of the Year Award in 2019 was present at dinner, along with Stephen Knott, ILA Secretary-Treasurer; Dennis A. Daggett, ILA Executive Vice President; Alan Robb and Bill Williams, President and Secretary-Treasurer respectively of the ILA’s South Atlantic and Gulf Coast District; and James Stolpinski, Secretary-Treasurer, Atlantic Coast District.