Article 3 ÛÓ No Title
Baltimore Harbor and its 145 miles of coal piers, .warehouses, marine ter-Iminals, rail yards and ' container wharves account for $3 billion in business a yearÛÓroughly 11 percent of MarylandÛªs gross productivity. The harbor business affects directly or indirectly 170,000 jobs. Even slight damage to piers, ships or tugboats can cost thousands of dollars in repairs and lost productivity. Tugboats that in the past were riveted with pieces of old Navy destroyers and derelict banana boats today cost an estimated $2 million to build..</br></br>ÛÏThereÛªs no little damage done when damage is done,Û says Francis Lukowski, 36, a captain who works for McAllister Brothers, a rival to Curtis Bay Towing. Lukowski is drinking beer in the CatÛªs Eye Pub, across from the McAllister and Curtis Bay piers in the Fells Point section of Baltimore. The CatÛªs Eye is dark, decorated in fishing nets, oars and sailorÛªs knots. It looks like the kind of bar that would ÛÏThere arenÛªt any fights in here,Û says Jerome Lukowski, FrancisÛª uncle and a first mate on a McAllister tug. In times past, when captains competed directly for harbor business, rival crews might mix things up. But now tugboat men share the same union (Seafarers International) and leave the bidding wars to be fought by their corporate bosses.</br></br>ÛÏItÛªs a very competitive business,Û says a Curtis Bay official standing high and dry on the eighth floor of BaltimoreÛªs 28-story World Trade Center. From the carpeted comfort of the Curtis Bay offices, one looks down on what was once the old Curtis Bay tugboat pier and the rusted waterfront that surrounded it; both have been replaced by the glass - and -chrome glitter of BaltimoreÛªs $50 million Inner Harbor.</br></br>If tugboat crews no longer battle one another in harbor bars, there is still a fair amount of conflict to be heard on the waterfront. But the modem barbs are aimed by tugboat men mostly at - their own managements. The complaints are the universal ones of the working class. Too many hours for not enough pay.</br></br>' tween labor and management,Û : says Henry Gamp, 33, a Curtis Bay captain who has a red beard, a tugboat painted on the hood of his Datsun pickup and a reputation with his bosses as ÛÏcontroversial.Û Gamp says the $10.67 an hour he makes as a captain is not equal to the rigors of the job.