Teamsters say deal threatens safety of US

(Correction: Because of a reporting error, a story in Saturday's City & Region section on local opposition to a proposed deal to sell the right to operate six US ports to a state-owned Dubai firm said the Bush administration was selling the ports. The administration approved the transaction.)

Local Teamsters and a congressman rallied at the Conley Terminal yesterday to protest the sale of six of the nation's ports to an Arab firm, saying it poses a threat to the safety of the American public.

''A foreign government will come in and actually control the front line of national security, our ports where you work everyday," US Representative Stephen F. Lynch, Democrat of South Boston, told about 75 workers at the rally. ''These ports are sacred ground. It is protected by the United States, and they should remain that way."

The ''Goodbye Dubai: Secure America's Ports" rally was part of a nationwide campaign to oppose the Bush administration's decision to sell for $6.8 billion the right to manage operations at ports in Baltimore, Miami, Newark, New Orleans, New York, and Philadelphia to Dubai Ports World, a state-owned business in the United Arab Emirates.

The Teamsters cheered Lynch.

''You outsource this, what's next?" said Sam Horvath, 51, a shop steward from Strafford, Conn., representing 300 maintenance workers.

Although Boston was not among the ports included in the deal, Lynch said, the acquisition would affect the city indirectly because Dubai is acquiring the port management from P&O Steam Navigation Co., a British firm that has an administrative presence in the Black Falcon Cruise Terminal in South Boston.