IMPORTANT NOTE FOR THE READER:

Before you begin reading, please keep in mind that "SIU Wages Vs. SUP Wages: A Dangerous Difference" is a work in progress--it's fluid, it's ever-changing.

Unless--or should I say until?--I'm murdered for writing this, I'll make changes to it daily, even hourly: spelling, mathematical, grammatical, historical, language, et cetera. Meaning, if you read it today, then come back to it a day or two from now, there ought to be plenty more insights to explore.

To encourage folks not normally interested the maritime industry to continue reading, I'll do my best to include personal accounts whenever possible. After all, if I can't grab your attention and hang onto it, what good will come of this?

By following this blog, what you're doing, really, is experiencing what it's like to read an expose while it's written in near real time. When appropriate, I intend to shoot it off to policy-makers, maritime Capital interests, maritime Labor interests, news agencies, federal law enforcement agencies--anyone and everyone--not for personal profit or public recognition, although both, I'm sure, will be widely disputed anyway, but to help forge a new relationship between maritime Capital and Labor interests here in America--one that, I hope, shall be advantageous to both parties in this increasingly fierce global economy.

Oh, and if I stop writing unexpectedly, chances are the bad guys got the drop on me.
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CAPITAL INTERESTS USE THE MAFIA TO UNDERMINE ORGANIZED LABOR
--NOAM CHOMSKY

"If you look into the history of the CIA, which means the US White House, its secret wars, clandestine warfare, the trail of drug production [and union-busting] follows. It started in France after the Second World War when the United States reconstituted the traditional social order, to rehabilitate Fascist collaborators, wipe out the Resistance and destroy unions.

The first thing US Capital interests did post WWII was reconstitute the Mafia, as strikebreakers. And the Mafia wasn't in the union-busting business for fun, you know--they were on the brink of extinction, which we'll get to in a moment--but they still wanted a payoff:

Essentially, US Capital interests made money and weapons available to the Mafia, which had been all but eradicated by the Fascists...[in exchange for undermining the French Organized Labor Movement, which was turning out to be too democratic for US Capital interests' liking, because if the French Organized Labor Movement succeeded, US workers just back from the War would have a model to look at and duplicate].

Again, the Fascists--Hitler and Mussolini--tended to run a pretty tight ship during their rise to power and throughout the war; they didn't like competition, so the first group they went after during their rise to power was the Mafia [because the Mafia posed a threat to their power, at least initially. Exterminate the threat--namely, armed dissenters, people who just might assassinate you, like the Mafia--and now you have all the power].

The whole operation was a huge success. The mafia was provided a new lease on life, with new orders, dictated by powerful US Capital Interests: Take control of unions here in America, render them powerless at the negotiation table, loot the pension funds all you like, we don't care, and we'll allow you to survive. But be forewarned: If you think for a moment about negotiating fairly on behalf of the Members, we'll use taxpayer funded agencies to finish you off--this time forever. The choice is yours.

Ever since decision time the mafia has been subservient to Capital's demands here in America--they know they're at the bottom of today's established social Order, and nobody of importance respects them in the least.

In the early 1980s, former Gambino Family Boss Paul Castellano was overheard saying, “Our job is to run the unions.”

Labor racketeering has become one of La Cosa Nostra’s fundamental sources of profit.

Labor unions provide a rich source for organized criminal groups to exploit: their pension, welfare, and health funds. There are approximately 75,000 union locals in the U.S., and many of them maintain their own benefit funds. In the mid-1980s, the Teamsters controlled more than 1,000 funds with total assets of more than $9 billion.

Labor racketeers attempt to control health, welfare, and pension plans by offering “sweetheart” contracts, peaceful labor relations, and relaxed work rules to the companies [they work for], or by rigging union elections.

Labor law violations occur primarily in large cities with both a strong industrial base and strong labor unions, like New York, Buffalo, Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, and Philadelphia. These cities also have a large presence of organized crime figures.

[The FBI has] several investigative techniques to root out labor law violations: electronic surveillance, undercover operations, confidential sources, and victim interviews. It also has numerous criminal and civil statutes to use at our disposal, primarily through the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization (RICO) Statute.

The civil provisions of the RICO statute have proven to be very powerful weapons, especially the consent decrees. They are often more productive because they attack the entire corrupt entity instead of imprisoning individuals, who can easily be replaced with other organized crime members or associates.

Consent decrees are most effective when there is long-term, systemic corruption at virtually every level of a labor union by criminal organizations. A civil RICO complaint and subsequent consent decree can restore democracy to a corrupt union by imposing civil remedies designed to eliminate such corruption and deter its re-emergence.

The Teamsters are the best example of how efficiently the civil RICO process can be used. For decades, the Teamsters has been substantially controlled by La Cosa Nostra. In recent years, four of eight Teamster presidents were indicted, yet the union continued to be controlled by organized crime elements. The government has been fairly successful at removing the extensive criminal influence from this 1.4 million-member union by using the civil process.

[The FBI] works closely with the Office of Labor Racketeering in the Department of Labor and with the U.S. Attorneys' offices in investigating violations of labor law.
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LABOR MANAGEMENT IN THE MARITIME INDUSTRY

Ask Dr. Jaime Veiga of the Seafarers' International Research Center, and he'll say, "The seafaring profession has always involved a different way of life. It is a diverse activity in which absence from family and friends and the inability to take part in activities available to other people [on the beach] has to be accepted.

"At different periods in history, the profession has been regarded in different ways. In ancient times seafaring meant involvement in commercial activities; at the time of the discoveries seafarers were at forefront of progress...

"Seafaring has always been a dangerous activity and many seafarers have lost their lives while making their contribution to the world economy. Consequently, it should be an occupation where safety is of paramount importance. But, as Richard Cahill, an historian of shipping, wrote in 1990: 'Safety has never ranked very high in the scale of priorities of those who own ships'."

Dr. Veiga would be among the first to recognize that this was particularly true during the 18th and 19th centuries, until the middle of the latter, when shipowners and their agents were not liable to criminal penalties for safety failure at sea. The law imposed no criminal liability on the ship-owner who failed to manage, refit or equip his vessel properly, or who sent it to sea overloaded or under-manned. Of course, things have changed now, he's said, implying that the industry had improved.

Some maritime Capital interests with bloodlines dating back to the British East India Company and the infamous Triangle Trade, disagree, suggesting that, contrary to popular believe, the industry, at present and as a whole, is back-peddling, and that it requires more than a few domestic changes to keep from tearing itself apart.

Now let's examine what sailors sailing with Sailors' Union of the Pacific earn, what non-union sailors earn, and what sailors sailing with Seafarer's International Union earn, explore work conditions as influenced by Labor Agreements, and you'll see why everyone on the coast, from property-owners in the Hamptons to ice cream vendors in Key West, as well as anyone who would ever like to take a swim in the ocean again, as opposed to a boiling, churning vat of crude oil that stretches from horizon to horizon and beyond, ought to take a hard look at what's taking place in the maritime industry today, and consider how one tanker driven by one inexperienced and/or incompetent sailor could bring every costal economy--correction: the entire American economy--to its knees tomorrow.

Since SIU Labor Agreements vary from Great Lakes to Deep Sea, company to company, even ship to ship within a given company, even salty SIU sailors have difficulties understanding exactly how they're paid--as they debark one ship, return to the Hiring Hall, "throw in" for another job aboard another ship, and start working for yet another Company under an entirely new Labor Agreement--but sailors who are new to the industry are especially vulnerable to exploitation.

Like many, I lay blame squarely on the SIU Leadership: Mike Sacco, Auggie Tellez, Nick Marrone, and the remainder of the "Titled Twelve."

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MIKE SACCO

Excellent Question: Why would 80,000 merchant mariners vote a Steward with next to no documented sea-time into office?

The answer is simple: they didn't (initially).

And from that point forward all you hear are nasty allegations of election tampering: from stuffing ballot boxes, at the very least, to hand-picked Bosns requiring crewmembers to fill out ballots in pencil, to patrolmen and port agents telling SIU Members who they are going to vote for, like it or not, while they're trying to vote, to illegitimate disqualifications of opponents running for office, and the list grinds on.

Whether Mike Sacco remembers it or not, I've spoken with him on a number of occasions, back in the early stages of my investigation, and therefore under very different circumstances than I would expect today. If you've been introduced, then you already know he's reasonably intelligent, someone who approaches life with a street-smart wit, a disarming sense of humor, enough charm to soothe even the fiercest of critics, at least temporarily. But what Mike's like on a personal level is irrelevant to what we're examining here.

As for Auggie Tellez and Nick Marrone, they're the same: nice guys, as you'd expect from people in their positions. They're both intelligent, especially Nick, who's known to be the brains of the operation, they're both engaging during conversation, and under different circumstances I might go on to compliment more of their personal traits and characteristics--but like I implied earlier, this isn't personal, it's professional.

Besides, when it comes to assessing the root cause of problems afflicting the maritime industry, it's not my opinions that count, but rather the SIU Memberships' opinions that count--how they view the SIU Leadership, and how their interaction affects the working relationship between maritime Capital and Labor here in America.
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MEET THE "TITLED TWELVE"

Michael Sacco, President

Augustin "Augie" Tellez, Executive Vice President

David W. Heindel, Secretary-Treasurer

George Tricker, Vice President Contracts

Dean Corgey, Vice President Gulf Coast

Kermett Mangram, Vice President Government Services

Tom Orzechowski, Vice President Lakes and Inland Waters

Nicholas J. Marrone, Vice President West Coast

Joseph T. Soresi, Vice President Atlantic Coast

John Spadaro, National Director, UIW

René Lioeanjie, Vice President at Large

Charles Stewart, Vice President at Large
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Indoctrination into Modern-day Slavery

An estimated 80% of SIU sailors who graduate from the year-long SIU Apprentice Program in Piney Point, MD, abandon the maritime industry after only two years.

I call them "turn-key" sailors: sailors who approach the industry optimistic and ready to work until they reach the fleet, contribute to SIU's billion dollar pension fund for a year or two, and then--once they realize how the system works, once they realize how many hours they toil per month and see how little they earn in return for their hard labor, once they crunch the numbers and realize there's an excellent chance they'll never retire, and finally, inevitably, conclude that they're being exploited both by the ship management companies they're working for and the SIU Leadership, they abandon the industry, disgusted, disillusioned, never to return. Less than ideal working conditions combined with slave wages is a great way to ensure a sustained, rapid-fire turnover of personnel who abandon the industry before they master their trade, politically and professionally.

NOTE: if I recall correctly, you're required to sail for five years before you're vested with SIU, while SUP sailors, on the other hand, are vested from day one; SIU-contracted companies contribute $7.00 per day toward the pension, while SUP-contracted companies deposit $25.00 per day into a 401K that you control; multiply that over the course of a forty-five year career.

Apprentices, like myself, since I, too, subjected myself to SIU's Apprenticeship Program voluntarily, learned to appreciate the joys of rabid exploitation from the moment they vanished from society, staggered deep into wilds of rural Maryland, and ran up against a sizable compound by any measure surrounded by fences topped with barbed wire. Since the barbed wire was installed pre 9-11, one had to wonder, was it installed to keep locals out, or to keep students in?

Welcome to the Paul Hall School of Maritime Training.

The Paul Hall School of Maritime Training was--and, of course, still is--an impressive facility for anyone allowed to pass through the security check-point and wind down the picturesque drive lined by sizable anchors, anchor chains, the Paul Drozak building surrounded by Norfolk pines off to the right, storage facilities off to the left, a sizable pond, The Hotel, as it's called, directly ahead, demanding immediate attention.

Inside the small buildings to your right were the compound's classrooms and simulators. For visitors, those who'd spent little if any time aboard a ship before, simulators were fun and exciting--definitely a main feature along the political parade route. They were also fantastically expensive, something like a hundred grand plus for what amounted to life-sized video games, one in which you stood in the middle of a mock Bridge surrounded by video screens displaying moving images of life aboard a ship transiting the Houston Ship Channel (or where ever). You saw ships on reciprocal courses booming toward you, you saw pretty lights, heard fog horns in surround sound, mashed lighted buttons, maybe spun the Helmsman's wheel--it was all very engaging.

But then, you weren't a visiting politician, but an Apprentice, so get ready to experience the School from the polar-opposite perspective.

As you continued on, you'd see the Library off to your right, across the pond, and the Chesapeake Bay beyond The Hotel, where Nancy Lynn Manni's body washed ashore. You'd see a crane, some trucks, fire-fighting equipment. It all looked impressive, very hands-on, and if you were there to investigate labor problems in the industry, like I was, you couldn't help but wonder: Who pays for all this, ship management companies that require an educated labor force, or the SIU's Membership?--because any way you look at it, this is one enormous burden, especially when compared to the smaller, faster, more stream-lined maritime training schools opening around the country.

While standing there grappling with my surroundings for the first time, I remember thinking: it wouldn't take a creative imagination to make lots of the Membership's money disappear in a place like this. Within the week I had heard about Mike Sacco's infamous "Ghost Room Scheme," which cost the SIU Membership millions: first, when he stole the money, then a second time when he'd given himself a $600,000 raise to pay a portion of it back.

Over the following week, I'd realize that for most, not all, of my classmates, the decision to sacrifice the next year bouncing between a prison-like learning environment, often called Piney Point, Prison Point, Piney Penitentiary, and an ever-changing variation thereof, and working in the world's most remote and unforgiving environment, one that will happily kill you, was less an act of courage than a last ditch effort to join the middle-class.

With little or no money to attend college, they had some options in life, but few of those offered much hope for a future. Many could either join the military--which, when alternative options exist, is an especially noble decision, in my opinion--remain in juvenile incarceration, like my friend Dave, or they could take their chances at sea.

When your options in life are that grim, you're ready to learn a lesson in voluntary servitude, but not before you're stripped of your wallet, and therefore your means of escape, your identity, and you're shoved face first into a dorm room setting where you'll spend your first week adjusting to jailhouse policy: might makes right.

Navy boot camp, as I recall, never promised to be much fun, but you didn't complain about it while you were there, mostly because you didn't have time to complain about it: you zipped through it in eight weeks (now it's only six), during which time drill instructors crammed a relatively huge amount of information into your head. Then you went on to A-school, which, for me, was in avoid-at-all-costs Millington, TN, and for the next four weeks even more instructors crammed even more information into your head. Point being, you were hustled off to the fleet to do your job so fast that the whole indoctrination process seemed little more than a blur.

All that was zippy about the SIU Apprenticeship Program were the uniforms you were required to purchase at top dollar. As I recall, each apprentice spent upwards of $600 for three sets of dungarees, two sets of khakis, hats, belts, ill-fitting boondockers, etc, none of which you'd be required to wear in the fleet. When you multiplied $600 by the number of Apprentices entering the Program each month--usually between 30 and 40, many of whom were scheduled to quit, though they didn't know it yet--you soon realized: Wow, somebody's raking in more than $18,000 per month selling Apprentices Dickies--which were made where? China?--and for how much, thirty or forty cents per uniform? (We'll explore the incentives to smuggle anything and everything out of China later.)

It was described as a quasi-military program. To this day, I don't pretend to know why. As a merchant mariner, you were, are, a civilian, free to come and go as you please, relatively speaking, at least once you reached the fleet, so there was no legitimate reason for hazing--which, despite the fact that it was illegal, was a common practice, largely because students, not trained professionals equal to drill instructors, were required to discipline themselves.

Nor was there any functional reason for shaving Apprentices' heads, screaming in their faces, humiliating them, making them march in formation, restricting them to the compound for three consecutive months plus change, much less requiring they spend upwards of $600 on uniforms--except, perhaps, to provide a false sense of military-like discipline for Washington outsiders who occasionally visited the School, hoping, no doubt, to exchange a photo opportunity for campaign contributions--and of course the SIU Leadership would pony us around in the more professional-looking khakis.

It would never be a question of if you could endure the abuse, because anyone could endure it. It was a question of necessity. It was also a question of function.

Throughout the course of your training, the process of "weeding out the weak" would be implemented, and it would undermine the Membership's position exceedingly well, from the Leadership's perspective.

The process of systematically undermining the Membership requires explanation. But before I provide one, I should begin by saying that attending a Big Ten and/or an Ivy League university doesn't necessarily mean someone who’s formally educated is more intelligent than, say, another guy who's straight out of the ghetto, and who's never attended college, more likely than not because he couldn't afford it. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Now, I might have grown up comfortable, for lack of a better word. Most would say way too comfortable. But between college, the navy, and my everyday life, I've come to appreciate all types of people, from those who were fantastically wealthy ten generations before they were born, who've attended the world's finest universities, to guys straight out of East St. Louis who grew up Third World poor right here in America, guys who never purchased a book in their lives, much less contemplated how to finance MIT's out-of-state tuition costs, yet some of whom had the mental capacity to strip down a jet engine, locate the problem, correct it, and put it all back together in time to make Flight Quarters the next morning.

Okay, so we've established that there's not always a direct correlation between college degrees and intelligence, but that doesn't mean it wouldn't benefit the SIU Membership to increase the number of guys running around holding degrees, either. They're out there, too, no question about it. From time to time, I've encountered SIU personnel who were far more educated than, say, the vessels' captains.

What's difficult for some people to understand is why, generally, these Unlicensed personnel tend to conceal their educational backgrounds rather than shed light upon them. For the most part, it has everything to do with the relationship between Licensed and Unlicensed personnel (officers and non-officers). When an Able-bodied seaman holds a degree from, say, Florida State, whereas the officer shouting orders graduated from a maritime academy, friction between personnel can and often does arise. Unlicensed personnel holding degrees know this. To reduce that friction, they simply keep their educational backgrounds tucked under their hats.

Of course, when you're an apprentice, when you're struggling to survive your present environment, it's difficult to see beyond graduation to the fleet, much less how the egotistical jerk holding a degree standing next to you might evolve into one of your strongest allies five years down the road.

Society places an emphasis on degrees for good reason. For example, if you ever need a malignant tumor sliced from your noodle, chances are you're going to ask the doctor performing the surgery if he (or she) graduated from a reputable Med. School well before you're twitching on the operating table, unconscious, and for obvious reasons: you don't want to jerk awake midway through surgery and see him reading directions on how to perform brain surgery from Martha Stewart's Thanksgiving cookbook.

Okay, so I'd studied at the University of Illinois (and elsewhere), survived military conflicts in Somalia, Bosnia and Haiti, plus I had very specific reasons for enrolling in the Apprenticeship Program, so my willingness to tolerate jailhouse policy was higher than most of my classmates' to begin with.

Others--that is to say, the minority, the handful of my classmates who'd also been to college--were immediately recognized by the majority as, let's say, different. So as the "weeding out the weak" process commenced, more often than not, those who were formally educated were typically singled out—-they were targeted, harassed, sometimes even assaulted--so before we even got to First Phase, before the real exploitation began, these guys were already packing their bags and hitting the road.

And I understand why they wanted to leave, too. Let's face the facts: right or wrong, a college degree opens lots of doors. It always has. It always will. So when you've got one, your tolerance for eighteen year old tough guys screaming in your face is reduced virtually nothing.

That's not to say they couldn't handle the situation, of course. They simply figured: "Why should I put up with this twerp when I can land an office job anywhere, hire a whiplash smart paralegal to make life easy, and make twice the money I could ever hope to make in the maritime industry? To hell with my dreams of sailing the seven seas aboard a commercial vessel--I'll buy a yacht. But first I gotta ditch this nightmare."

Generally speaking, as these guys made their decisions, and they retrieved their wallets from the Commandant, there was already a credit card or two inside, and they'd max the first one out, happily, because that's what was necessary to arrange for a taxi to rescue them from the wilderness and drive them two hours back to BWI, which was where they'd max out their second credit card, happily, because that’s what was necessary to arrange a flight home on a moment’s notice.

SIU's Leadership wasn't indifferent about seeing someone who's formally educated quit the program during those first few days. Quite the contrary. Regardless of what they might say publicly, if asked, now, they wanted those guys to leave. Subtly, they probably even encouraged their departures. Why? The SIU Leadership has played this game long enough to know formally educated people are prone to stirring up what they consider trouble in the industry. At some point, they'll pull rank, so to speak, they'll whip out that degree, that clout, and they'll demand the Leadership improves work conditions, as they're supposed to. To SIU's Leadership, that's trouble.

While someone of equal intelligence who couldn't afford college tuition might ask the tough questions, might read the fine print, might study and understand statistics, might understand the numbers game, might dabble in the political arena, and, if provoked, might mobilize the masses to engage the SIU Leadership--someone who's holding a degree has everything to gain by engaging SIU's Leadership head-on, and probably will, sooner or later, especially after they've developed a kinship with their union brothers--and that likelihood doesn't jive well with the way SIU's Leadership prefers to conduct business.

If I'm wrong to say that weeding out those who were formally educated was deliberate, why hadn't the Leadership adjusted policy to encourage more formally educated people to complete the Program long before our arrival? For example, forcing students to discipline students doesn't fly with those who are formally educated--and everyone knows that, it's common knowledge. Had the Titled Twelve simply eliminated that policy, it would have alleviated most tensions within the apprentice student body, and more people who were formally educated would ignore those they couldn't get along with, and they'd complete the Program. For proof, simply refer to the "Up-graders" side of the Hotel.

Up-graders, as they were called, were sailors out of the fleet. In the fleet, they were Bosuns, they were Able-bodied seamen, Q-meds, Pumpmen, Electricians, whatever, but while at Piney Point attending classes, they were students: Nobody could pull rank. Wouldn't you know it, but as students, for the most part, they attended classes, they get along, maybe they even celebrated graduation with a little beer and pizza with their union brothers.

Military academies, like King's Point, for example, implement hierarchies, and while they generally work, there, one has to keep in mind that students' experience-levels vary, and those students are enrolled for a prolonged period of time: four years. This, of course, means the student body is composed of freshmen, sophomores, juniors and seniors, with sea-time--that is to say, legitimate experience that students can validate amongst one another--interwoven into their perspectives of order. Also, King's Point, like the military, has trained professionals equal to Drill Instructors in place, apart from the student body, to maintain order from a perspective totally removed from the student body.

There were no legitimate differences in experience and seniority between one apprentice and another--so again I say implementing a hierarchal structure within the apprentice student body disrupted rather than encouraged unity, in this particular case.

This is not to say that those apprentices holding degrees were opposed to discipline--they had all the discipline the industry would ever require of them. What they didn't understand was why an eighteen year old tyrant straight out of juvenile detention had been slapped with a pin that read "Class Bosun" or "Chief Bosun" was granted authority to enforce policies he didn't likely understand himself. If apprentices were regarded as equal, those who couldn't get along would have ignored one another and gone about the business of learning their trade.

And so, to an outsider, establishing a hierarchy within the apprentice student body might have appeared to encourage stability, when in practice it pitted student against student, and therefore encouraged an anarchy even the SIU Leadership could barely control. Of course, that the School was "out of sight, out of mind," from society's perspective, which undoubtedly helped foster the Leadership's illusion of calm stability, that anarchy was contained, and therefore controlled, at least from the Leadership's perspective.

Within those first few days, we'd come to realize the Day Commandant and the Night Commandant hadn’t received training directly related to disciplinary matters at the School--and I have no reason to suspect policy has changed. Generally, they did their best, but their direct supervision was limited to accommodate their personal lives. If you say: "Well, apprentices are adults, and therefore they shouldn't need direct supervision," try to imagine the chaos we'd live in if America abolished the Judicial Branch of the government, and did away with policemen, state and federal judges--those sorts of people. America is loaded with adults, we're everywhere, but it would still reduce itself to smoldering rubble overnight if we eliminated certain checks and balances designed to maintain social order.

And so apprentices confined to their "side" of The Hotel were for the most part required to fend for themselves for extended periods of time, especially at night and on weekends, so violence and general mayhem more often than not superseded student-enforced regulatory policies.

Because it was a hassle to jump the barbed-wire fence surrounding the compound whenever we needed booze to stave off prolonged boredom and spirit-crushing depression, which was "strictly prohibited," we'd round up whatever cash hadn't been confiscated days earlier and send someone to track down Security: when two people are paid just over minimum wage to pacify a hundred or more apprentices suffering from a worst case scenario of cabin fever, policy is irrelevant, and a few extra bucks earned on the side meant the difference between mild hunger and dirt-eating starvation. Their willingness to risk their jobs was probably the deciding factor explaining why the apprentice side of The Hotel didn't host violence eruptions more often.

At some point during those first few days, I recall being summoned to observe something disturbing in the "Chief Bosn's" private suite on the third floor. It was pitch black, so I couldn't see anyone--not that it mattered, I didn't know anyone yet anyhow--but I could hear one of the "females" moaning and grunting on the floor, and there was a line of frighteningly quite young men waiting their turn. When someone asked if I had a condom, I said no, and returned to my lumpy bed, disturbed, nauseated, certain there would be repercussions if I spoke out. Needless to say, I'd soon come to realize that such acts were far from uncommon around the compound. Human beings are sexual creatures by nature, but under such conditions as those I'm doing my best to describe, consensual sex turns into something altogether different. It's primal, hostility is involved, self-loathing, anger, resentment, it can turn very ugly very fast, so when the lights are off, and the elements mentioned are institutionalized, there's little difference between the School and the Fleet (the "White Ships" in Hawaii--cruise ships).

This was only a rumor, but for what it's worth, I'd heard that the SIU Leadership dragged the Apprenticeship Program out to nine months for the same reason McDonald’s replaces their employees after ninety days whenever possible: after ninety days, according to Eric Schlosser, author of "Fast Food Nation," the McDonald's corporation demands the US Government hand over $2,400 for each unskilled laborer they train, thereby reducing their labor costs to near-nothing at taxpayer expense. The incentive, as you probably already realize, is to fire an employee after ninety days, only to find a new one to train, and to keep that cycle--that taxpayer money--rolling their way indefinitely. Meanwhile, Ray Kroc's widow earns an estimated 7 million dollars per day. Yeah--she's obviously living hand-to-mouth like her employees.

As the rumor went, the SIU Leadership was wise to the same scheme, which sounded somewhat plausible, and the reason I say plausible was because the entire Apprenticeship program was broken into blocks of ninety days.

The only reason I doubt that SIU collected federal funding was because, once an entity collects federal funds, they're subject to federal scrutiny--like nasty audits, for example--and the Titled Twelve were known to minimize governmental oversight--and to exclude it completely when it came to financial holdings. Unfortunately, right now, with Government and maritime Capital interests directly intertwined (John Snow), I can hardly fault their concerns.
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FIRST PHASE

--During First Phase, as it was called, you were required to waste your first three months at Piney Point learning next to nothing that couldn't be taught in three weeks.

When taken as a whole, Seafarers International Union had mustered some of the finest maritime training instructors in the world--so it was neither the equipment nor the instructors carving this abyss between Capital and Labor in the maritime industry.

Nothing would make me happier than to name names, to compliment instructors who deserve recognition for their extraordinary efforts, but, since they do not play in the political arena, it's also my responsibility as an investigator who happened to attend their classes to express my gratitude subtly in order to protect their fundamental rights to privacy.

What I soon came to realize during First Phase, was that, when approached with discretion, most secretaries, both at the School and SIU's headquarters in Camp Springs, could and would provide a wealth of inside political information, as would many of the instructors mentioned, since over the years they had all fought their battles with the SIU Leadership.

While this will likely sound redundant to professional journalists and federal investigators, personally, I'd feel more comfortable if I said it anyway before we move on: the people who can help you the most probably will, especially if they know you're there to help them in return, and feel that there's a high probability your efforts will succeed, but because they have their own interests to look after between investigation and action, and rural Maryland offers so few job opportunities, it's important that you employ a liberal dose of discretion during your investigations. Otherwise, you might inadvertently hurt the very people you're trying to help. Approaching them after work and far from it would probably be a wise decision.

As reported in "St. Mary's Today" on July 2, 1996, page 26--a newspaper critical of the SIU Leadership I encourage investigators to examine closely:

"...According to extensive interviews with retired and active Seafarers and employees of the (then Lundeberg) School of Seamanship, the Union is now applying the worst methods of Big Business to their own employees, including contracting to a favored bidder while laying off 30 instructors at the School two weeks ago.

The laid-off employees were told to apply to the new company with the contract for employing educational instruction at the training center. All but three were hired, say sources, but those three have families and homes and mortgages and now they have no jobs. Their former co-workers have diminished benefits and lost all of their seniority. The former employees of the [School] also have to join another union run by Seafarers boss Mike Sacco. This new union they are working for is called United Industrial Workers..."

The author goes on to state: "...In 1991, the FBI offered to put this writer into the federal witness protection program after they learned of a murder plot being hatched by Union officials. The preparations for murder took place after this writer and the FBI had learned of three alleged murders which reportedly had taken place at the School..."
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There might be a lot of reasons why someone wouldn't want to attend the Paul Hall School of Seamanship, but even now I don't think fear should be one of them. You might not like it, for whatever reason, but I'd say there's a 99.9999% chance you'll survive the fiasco. Point being, it's time to move on...

In my opinion, Fire-fighting, First Aid and Lifeboat--all of your '95 STCW classes--were the only classes we were required to take during First Phase worth our time; now you can take these classes at private maritime schools across the country at minimal cost, whereas with SIU you'll fund the enormous cost of the School year in and year out via involuntary paycheck contributions whether you spend what little time you can afford to get off a ship attending classes at the School or not.

Union Education, on the other hand, taught next to nothing regarding the history of the organized labor movement in the maritime industry, but instead focused on creating unrealistic expectations for apprentices new to the industry: "You're going to make more money than you've ever made in your lives! $6,000 per month, easy!" slick-talking Steve bellowed at my class repeatedly. But then, when you consider that the average age of my classmates was somewhere between 18 and 23, and their employment history alternated between McDonald's, Burger King, and the military, well, okay, yeah, sure, Steve wasn't exactly lying. He simply wasn't telling anyone that they could earn comparable money at Olive Garden if they were willing to work 360 hours per month, a fairly typical work-load for SIU sailors.

Interestingly enough, it was Steve (omitted) who haphazardly informed apprentices of SIU Leadership's ultimate goal: to eliminate SIU's "competition," as he put it. Meaning, of course, alternative maritime unions. How? By reducing labor costs at the Membership's expense. Surprised that he was willing to discuss such an anti-Labor agenda publicly, I asked, "By how much?" at which time he realized his mistake and dodged the question the only way a man of his caliber knows how: by ignoring it.

Historically, Old School maritime Capital interests and the Department of Defense have recognized the importance of supporting a limited variety of maritime Labor organizations. Quite simply, policy-makers identified and recognized the dangers of concentrating too much power in too few hands--they didn't want to put all their eggs in one basket, so to speak. This is a policy ship management companies relatively new to the market ought to consider, implement, and encourage, perhaps by diversifying fleets for a predetermined time limit while it's still possible, then signing long-term Labor Agreements with one Labor organization or the another based on cost-performance analysis.

ARA American Radio Association -MMP
GLLO Great Lakes Licensed Officers
IBU Inlandboatmen's Union of the Pacific
ILA International Longshoremen's Association
IND Independent Employees Association
MEBA 1 Licensed Division, District No. 1-MEBA
MFU Marine Firemen's Union
MMP Master, Mates & Pilots
MSO Marine Staff Officers
NMU Unlicensed Division, District No. 1-MEBA
ROU Radio Officers' Union--(MEBA District No. 3)
SIU Seafarers Internatinal Union, Atlantic, Gulf, Lakes and Inland Waters District
SMU Seafarers Maritime Union
SUP Sailors' Union of the Pacific
UMD United Marine Division, Local 333, ILA
USW United Steel Workers
AMO American Maritime Officers

Not surprisingly, Capital interests, government interests and even Labor interests--meaning Members, not necessarily Leaders--have benefited from moderately free forms of Labor Management.

From Capital's perspective, if, for whatever reason, Seafarer's International Union, for example, was unwilling to cooperate and negotiate fairly, or if they were unable to provide a quality workforce consistently--I'll say that again: consistently--then at present Capital interests still have the option of allowing present Labor Agreements to expire with the intention of tapping alternative, more suitable and cost effective labor organizations within the American labor market: Sailors Union of the Pacific and/or Marine Firemen Oilers and Watertenders, for example, or vice-versa.

From the Government's perspective, it's more of the same.

From Labor's perspective, when there's moderate competition between labor organizations, it's in one labor organization's own interest to negotiate competitive Labor Agreements on behalf of their Membership to avoid losing quality Members to alternative unions that offer better protection and/or higher pay.

At present SIU's Membership is able to obtain Labor Agreements from friends affiliated with Sailors Union of the Pacific and Marine Firemen Oilers and Watertenders Union in order to make those comparisons with regards to language and pay structure within their own Labor Agreements. George Orwell once said, essentially: "The poor don't know they're poor until they have someone to compare themselves to," and according to what Steve was implying, that comparison is precisely what SIU's Leadership intends to eliminate.

And therefore, as it stands, if through democratic means the SIU's Membership cannot replace the present SIU Leadership with a Leadership they feel approaches the negotiation process with their interests in mind, then, ironically, it's in the SIU Membership's interest to do whatever's necessary to keep SUP and MFOW both afloat and independent for the time-being, even if that effort includes withholding SPAD contributions from SIU to deliver to SUP and MFOW, to keep that pressure on, to keep that comparison possible, because if the SIU Leadership's "competition" is successfully eliminated, if they overpower and monopolize Labor interests here, Canada, and Puerto Rico, then I'm firmly convinced the SIU Membership, the SUP Membership, the MFOW Membership and, indirectly, Capital interests, will suffer all the more for it.

Why do I include Capital interests? We'll get to that in a moment.
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SECOND PHASE

--As an apprentice, you'll waste your next three months aboard a ship, where you'll be worked like a slave for one month in each of the three departments, Deck, Engine, and Steward's department, during which time you won't be protected by any of SIU's Labor Agreements, inadequate as they may be.

For years the SIU Membership has demanded the SIU Leadership provide apprentices protection against labor abuse aboard their "training ships," but the SIU Leadership and the Companies they work for already have a suitable arrangement to accommodate their needs: Fuck the apprentices and the Membership's call for apprentice-protections.

And so, year in and year out, hundreds of SIU apprentices are sent out into the fleet to fend for themselves with no legal protection whatsoever, except maybe verbal assurances that the SIU Boatswains aboard will look after their interests. (Yeah. Right. If he's "permanent," he'll likely be the crimp who exploits you first.)

I was paid, if I recall correctly, $24.00 dollars per day in exchange for an eight hour workday, and $8.00 per hour everyday for "mandatory overtime," which made sense: from the Company's perspective, I was so incredibly cheap to have around that making overtime mandatory was a logical decision. Hooray for the Company! Bad for me.

Some Captains don't exploit the apprentices as much as the SIU Leadership permits them to. The first Captain I worked for, for example, while aboard my training ship, was not a "Company bitch," as sailors often refer to blindly pro-Company captains--the kind who convince themselves they're Management (they're not; they're labor): he worked me like a dog, he expected me to perform every task the Able-bodied seaman aboard performed, which was a completely unrealistic expectation at the time, but at least he did me one favor: he based my pay upon a 40 hour work week.

Classmates of mine, however, were not so fortunate. They worked for Captains who were prepared to reduce their apprentices' already miniscule paychecks even further.

To do this, instead of basing apprentices' pay on a forty-hour workweek, these "Masters," as this sort demand to be called, opted for the more brutal of their two options--the fifty-six hour work week--because apprentices are not entitled to Vacation Pay (we'll ravage Vacation Pay shortly).

This eliminates sixteen hours of payable overtime per weekend from the payroll for every apprentice they have aboard (often times two apprentices per ship are furnished for exploitation). The apprentices are going to work those sixteen hours--I guarantee it. They're just not going to be paid overtime for those hours. They'll only be paid their daily base wage--again, $24.00 per eight hour workday--and four hours overtime after that, assuming they work the full twelve hour day.

Over the course of the three months apprentices are required to remain aboard before they're permitted to suffer through an additional three months at Piney Point, this decision alone reduces their pay by roughly 60 percent (one can safely assume these "Masters" require the apprentices to work twelve hours per day, every single day, for a minimum of three months straight), explaining why some apprentices earn $9,000 aboard their training ships, while the majority earn only $3,000.

If you're thinking, "That's illegal, that's less than minimum wage!" remember that ships operate under admiralty law--they're not bound by domestic labor laws--so those who operate them are not required to pay sailors anything at all, if you can believe that. Who works for free? Lots of people will, actually: the entire Third World. Why? Because on a ship you're typically provided some food--fish heads and rice, that's about it, if you're aboard a typical "flag of convenience," like Liberia, Panama, the Bahamas, Cyprus, Monrovia, even Mongolia. You're also provided some shelter. But here's the biggest incentive of all to work for free: the opportunity to jump ship in America!
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Cabotage Laws and The Jones Act

One role of the cabotage laws in the United States is to ensure that all companies operating in the transportation field compete under the same set of rules.

No U.S. industry could compete with foreign corporations in the domestic trades under the situation that would face the maritime industry if the Jones Act and other maritime cabotage laws were repealed.

Foreign-flag ships can operate outside much of U.S. law governing American ships, even when they are inside U.S. territory and using U.S. ports, and can avoid much of the economic impact of those U.S. laws.

This gives them an insurmountable competitive advantage over American ships subject to the full scope (and cost) of those laws.

No company in the United States, in any industry, could compete today in a market distorted by the advantages that foreign maritime companies would have, such as --

Freedom from U.S. federal and state corporate taxes.

Owners and builders of U.S.-flag vessels pay about $300 million annually in federal taxes, and $55 million annually in state taxes. On the other hand, the foreign-ship cruise industry, like Carnival Cruise Lines, Norwegian Cruise lines, and Royal Carribean, for example, operating out of U.S. ports earn an estimated 14 billion dollars per year from American consumers, yet pays no taxes on that income.

Freedom from personal taxes.

Foreign workers brought into our maritime trades would pay no federal or state income taxes, but American employees on Jones Act ships and related industries annually pay $1.1 billion in federal income taxes and $272 million in state taxes.

No minimum wage requirements.

No matter how reasonable the wage scale in a U.S. industry might be, it could not be competitive with wages of workers from Indonesia or Bangladesh if they were allowed to work here in the United States at those rates.

Freedom from the National Labor Relations Act, federal hours-of-service regulations, child-labor laws, Coast Guard safety regulations, U.S. Civil Rights laws, our national laws relating to health insurance, pension and other benefits or any other state or federal legal requirements, including the Occupational Safety and Health Act.

Receiving benefits of subsidies and other policies of their home governments -- such as limited or no national tax liability, government-provided health and retirement benefits, etc.; in fact, many foreign-flag vessels are actually owned by foreign governments or government-controlled corporations.

U.S. TRANSPORTATION MARKET -- A "LEVEL PLAYING FIELD"

When U.S. policy-makers advocate competition, they mean fair competition -- a level playing field where all companies compete under similar constraints and with similar responsibilities to their workers, their community, and to the country as a whole.

It would be impossible to achieve a level playing field between domestic and foreign waterborne carriers without subjecting foreign carriers to all the same rules, regulations and tax treatment that domestic carriers must meet.

Under the cabotage laws, foreign companies operating businesses in the United States are free to transport their own goods on their own ships -- provided they employ American workers to do so and use ships built in the United States to U.S. standards.
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MAERSK: ENSLAVING AMERICANS AT AMERICA'S EXPENSE

From Tradewinds (2005):

Denmark's AP Moeller-Maersk is leading a
behind-the-scenes drive to legalize "riding gangs" of
foreign workers on US-flag vessels, first in
HRR 889, and now in S-1280.
The move has drawn fire from the US Coast Guard (USCG)
and most labour unions. Seafarers International Union
and American Maritime Officers have yet
to oppose the effort publicly.

If Maersk gets their way, and they're able to marginalize the Jones Act, which is before the Senate now, they'll soon replace every non-Watchstanding American sailor with foreign nationals they've plucked from whatever labor market is cheapest--an unethical business practice which, by the way, SIU's Leadership has not opposed publicly, unlike every other American maritime Union. From what I gather from friends presently at Piney Point, the SIU Leadership hasn't even bothered to inform the SIU Membership what Maersk is up to via the "Seafarers Log" (Sounds to me like A.) somebody received a brown bag full of "hush money.", or B.) somebody's considering retirement, as they ought to be, and therefore couldn't care less what happens to the union after they're gone, or C.) Both A and B are correct. You decide.).

Let's not forget that while American-taxpayers are forced to watch their public school system collapse due to lack of federal funding--their tax dollars--they're still required to pay the labor costs for twenty-four Danish-owned vessels (Maersk and P&O Nedlloyd) via MARAD's Military Security Program.

The following article is from the Friday, December 17, 2004 edition of Tradewinds:

"MARAD," announces the author, "has made it known who the winners of $1.7 billion in subsidies are.

"Tradewinds has learned that US authorities have told ship operators this week who is likely to get $1.73 billion in vessel operating subsidies.

"Established players dominate the renewed Maritime Security Program (MSP). Only two new companies are joining the exclusive subsidy club, New Orleans-based Intermarine and Long Island's Liberty Maritime, with a single subsidized ship each.

"Of money provisionally allocated so far, some 80% will go to non-US shipowners.

"The subsidies run for ten years under the MSP and are meant to equalize US operating costs with those foreign competition so as to keep a fleet of commercial ships in international trade under the US flag.

"Over 10 years of subsidies are worth $29.8 million per ship. For the biggest participant, Maersk Lines Ltd, this equals well over a half-a-billion dollars.

NOTE: Remember that only 24 sailors crew one ship at any one time, so labor costs were minimal to begin with. Now, from Maersk's perspective, they're free. Of course free is a matter of perspective: The American taxpayer is required to foot labor costs for this Danish-owned company.

"US sources tell Tradewinds that the US Maritime Administration (MARAD) has told operators that all 47 ship slots currently in the MSP will be "grandfathered," or allowed to remain with the owners that hold them.

"In addition, eight dry-cargo vessels will be brought into the program.

"For the most part, MARAD is offering operator a good deal less than they were asking for, as a matter of arithmetical necessity. Some operators have indicated that they would turn down fewer than some minimum number of subsidy slots as insufficient to make US-flag operations worthwhile.

"Reports pieced together from Various sources indicate that MARAD is offering the following line-up: The operators keeping their current slots are Danish-owned Maersk Lines Ltd with 19 ships, [American President Lines] (Don't let the name fool you: it's not American-owned) with nine, P&O Nedlloyd (Maersk-owned) with five, and Overseas Shipholding Group (OSG) with one.

"Several participants will be increasing their participation. CP Ships (Lykes Line) will gain subsidy slots for two ships, making a total of five. International Shipholding Group (Central Gulf) will go from seven to eight. American Roll-On Roll-Off owned by Sweden's Wallenius and Norway's Wilhemsen, will double its present three slots to six.

"Newcomers Liberty Maritime and Intermarine will be granted one new slot each.

"US citizen owners account for only 11 of the 55 slots whose winners have been leaked.

"In addition, many of the US-owned participants are relying on foreign-partners for tonnage. Liberty Maritime is thought to be partnering Japan's Mitsui OSK Lines (MOL) and Tradewinds recently reported that International Shipholding is flagging in two P&O Nedlloyd containerships for charter back to the Dutch-owned company.

"No mention is being made of how the funds appropriated for five new building products tankers will be used. The US Congress has only appropriated construction subsidies enabling the building of the equivalent of one-and-a-half tankers.

"Predictably absent from the list is Charlotte, North Carolina-based United States Ship Management (USSM), which is locked in a court battle with Maersk over rights to operate 19 ships under the MSP."
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IMAGINARY SAVINGS

Maritime Capital fears capital flight when investors hear Management discussing wage adjustments--and this is a real possibility. But as we've seen time and time again, if it happens, it's more often than not short-lived. As soon as Labor costs re-stabilize, investment capital returns to pre wage-adjustment levels, and everyone lets out a sigh of relief. And we're talking moderate wage adjustments, people, not suiciding the Company.

In the final analysis, we're talking about modifying a system, removing redundant parts so that it functions properly. Overhauling this system is neither necessary nor advised.

More and more investment firms like Hodges Capital Management are taking what might be considered a progressive look at exactly how wages are structured. If a CEO's pay is out of sync with his (or her) work force, they hold back, fearing the next Enron implosion. To date, their investment philosophy seems to be serving them well, especially in the last three years:

Performance through 9-30-05:

1 Year
+35.87%
3 Year *
+38.98%

5 Year *
+9.63%

10 Year *
+12.26%

Inception **
+12.94%

Performance through 10-31-05:

1 Year
+29.52%
3 Year *
+36.74%

5 Year *
+10.13%

10 Year *
+12.58%

Inception **
+12.60%

Time and time again, as indicated in countless academic studies, short-sighted Mangers, especially in the retail industry, implement two specific labor management policies that cost Capital interests ridiculous sums of money: underpaying employees through union demolition (or undermining their interests via less conspicuous means).

Despite maritime Capital interests' most aggressive efforts to control lost man-hours, deliberately reduced productivity, frivolous lawsuits, delayed turn-around time during port visits, et cetera, they're losing that battle.

One reason they're losing that battle is because ship management companies charged with managing Capitals’ interests are allegedly signing substandard Labor Agreements everyone at the contract negotiations table know won’t work--and it's not difficult to imagine how and why this takes place: ship management companies' loyalties rest with themselves first, Capital's interests second, and so if front-end cash persuades them to sign substandard Labor Agreements with corrupt labor leaders who know they'll see their payoff on the back-end--well, that's likely to happen.

When taken at face value, signing substandard Labor Agreements is easy to justify, considering that ship management companies are able to return to their employers and say, “Look, boss, we reduced labor costs by applying this mechanism here, so you’ll save this many hundreds of thousands of dollars each year for the duration of these Agreements,” while those who grasp human nature know those savings will manifest elsewhere as costs: increased travel expenses, for example, reduced productivity, overtime paid but not necessarily worked, job-related injuries, lawsuits, damaged/lost equipment, and the list marches on.

Those who win: parasitic ship management personnel on the take, and corrupt labor leaders (I'm not cynical enough to believe that every single ship management company on the market is selling out maritime Capital interests, nor do I believe the entire SIU Leadership is corrupt--just the key players). Those who lose: sailors, in terms of pay and working conditions, investors and Capital interests--except that Capital interests and investors stand to lose the most: with 14-26 sailors crewing oil and chemical tankers, labor's cheap, but mishaps like spills and fires, for example, are fantastically expensive, especially when stock value takes a significant hit. Increasingly more common, when there are sailing time delays, these delays--these hidden costs--cost maritime Capital interests roughly $10,000 per hour for each tug made fast to the vessel, whatever port facility operators charge--and that's just the beginning of it.

(LARGE PORTION REMOVED FOR EDITTING AND RE-WRITING PURPOSES)

Since most ships carry a million dollar (or more) deductible on their insurance policies, unless I'm looking at one specific Company's financial records, there's limited data available to point to and say, "Look, if Capital eliminates current labor management mechanisms from the equation, you'll raise sailors' wages here, and if you allow them to work under Labor Agreements they perceive as fair, they’ll be content, they'll follow orders, they'll stick around, so you can expect to save X-amount of dollars annually, which will materialize here, here and here," so I'm incredibly frustrated at the moment, because those who will likely seek to crush reform efforts will describe my observations as unsubstantiated, baseless claims.

(continue working here: Go back and do a better job nailing specific examples of how disgruntled/underpaid/retaliatory sailors working under substandard Labor Agreements cost Horizon more money in hidden costs than they saved on labor costs. Once that's done, compare and contrast what you observed while aboard the President Grant, explain why morale was higher, how this increased productivity and virtually eliminated waste, so on and so forth).

THIRD PHASE

--then you're going to waste yet another three months back at School complaining about how much television you've watched since you're still not permitted to stroll off campus to admire all the pretty trailer parks rural Maryland has to offer whenever you're not screwing off in class.
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INDOCTRINATION INTO MODERN SLAVERY COMPLETE

--"Forth Phase," as they call it, is the exception: you must agree to be worked like a slave for just over minimum wage (shore side) for four months before the union will finance your airfare back to the School and provide accommodations while you "upgrade," from DEU to Oiler, if you decide to go into the Engine Department, from Ordinary Seaman to Able-bodied seaman, if you decide to go into the Deck Department, or from Steward's Assistant to Chief Cook, if you decide to go into the Steward's Department.

What's amazing is that 80% of SIU's sailors are willing to write-off a full year as a total loss within two years of completing the Program.

If that statistic alone doesn't tell you there something's going seriously wrong in the maritime industry, then you might as well stop reading now.
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Spending Big Money to Work

Sailors spend huge sums of money just getting a job, even more so now than they did twenty years ago, especially if they sail off the West Coast. Reason being, wages are falling, the cost of living is rising, so nowadays few SIU sailors can afford to live in, say, San Francisco, Los Angeles, or Seattle (three cities SIU maintains Hiring Halls).

According to California Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez: "The cost of living has gone up exponentially, but wages have been frozen, creating an underclass of working poor."

Fifteen and twenty years ago, sailors--more specifically, SUP sailors--could afford to buy a decent home in those cities. Not anymore. Not when a small home in the "worst" part of Compton can easily run upwards of $300,000. So, instead of residing in the United States, many sailors turn to the Philippines, Brazil and Venezuela are increasingly popular, as is Costa Rica--all of which are beautiful countries, but let's not entertain illusions: that more and more sailors are living abroad is not entirely by choice, but rather by necessity.

So, on top of the bills sailors have at home--mortgages, children, maybe a car or two, like everyone else--today's sailor also has to budget how much it will cost to fly from home to the whichever Hiring Hall they hope to ship out of. That's an expensive commute to work, because now, on top of paying their mortgages, their phones, electricity, water, whatever bills at home you can imagine, you also have to factor in the cost of a hotel room, tons of fast food, transportation, while "playing the hall," and this can easily go on for months, because here's the real problem: there might not be any jobs available in the Hiring Hall.

It's not unheard of for sailors to spend months living in a San Francisco flop house, surviving on a sandwich per day, maybe a pack of cigarettes to kill the hunger, making their way to and from the Hiring Hall on foot, hoping today will be the day they secure a job. Nor is it unheard of for sailors to spend themselves so far down a hole they can't afford their hotel room anymore, much less a meal, and can't afford to get home, either, so now they're really stuck. The maritime is a feast or famine industry, and the feast isn't all it's cracked up to be.

It's not a cycle anyone working on the beach can understand without suffering through it once themselves, and I strongly encourage you not to. Whatever numbers the SIU Leadership spoon-feeds the young and easily persuaded apprentices are straight up...well, let's just say they're not entirely truthful.

To put this into a monetary perspective, in 2003 and 2004, I was more the exception than the rule, in that I actually maintained a home in the United States, near Oak Brook, Illinois, where more than one shipping company is headquartered (I maintained it--paid for it--but I only got to live there a few weeks per year). In 2003, I spent $15,229 above and beyond my bills at home to ship out with SIU, according to financial records. In 2004, that number jumped to $19,917, partly because I was scared shittless SIU port agents in Houston might force me to take another job aboard a "gray hull" carrying military cargo back to the Middle East, so I sneaked off to the West Coast, where I had heard more jobs aboard commercial container vessels were available (you can't imagine how ruthless and cunning some of these ship management companies can be until you're at their complete and absolute mercy en route to the Middle East, but I'll detail the misery and rage involved with my experience aboard the Cape Ducato another time).

If you were earning, say, $35-40,000 per year at your job, but spending $19,000 per year on the commute, how long would it take you to realize it's time to find another job? Not long, I imagine. A minute, maybe two? But, in a way, sailors are akin to gamblers, and they always hope the next ship pays just a little bit better than the last. Most of the time they lose.
_____________________________________________________________________

SIU Labor Agreements were standardized, a long time ago, but not anymore, and part of that reason is because, I believe, the SIU Leadership couldn't "brown bag" labor negotiations as easily if the numbers involved were universal throughout the SIU fleet.

NOTE: Michael McKay, the president of American Maritime Officers, and close affiliate of Mike Sacco, the president of Seafarers International Union, was recently indicted for labor racketeering, along with a long list of other charges, as was his brother, Robert McKay, AMO's treasurer, which surprised absolutely no one in the maritime industry. So, prior to the indictments, do you think Michael McKay and Mike Sacco might have compared notes? Ask the Members of either union what they think, and I imagine the answer will be a resounding yes.

The problem with "brown bagging" one Labor Agreement negotiation, especially if it's early in your political career, is that everyone you'll negotiate with from that point forward has power over you--because it goes without saying that real Power in the maritime industry gets together and discusses business at, let's say, Pinehurst Resort and Country Club?

(To answer your question, Mr. Sacco: Yes, I'm quite familiar with Pinehurst's wealthiest long-term guest. She's a fascinating lady. Very, shall we say, insightful, exceptionally illuminating, too, especially if you're a charming young man who's happy to sit and talk politics every once in awhile).

In other words, if you've ever sold out the Membership, even once, you've signed your pact with the devil already: you're expected--required--by Capital interests to sell them out again.

If you don't, or if your services are deemed no longer necessary, one way or another, you'll be shown the door.

Let's hope you don't slam it on your way out.
_____________________________________________________________________
THE WRONG WAY

If you were seated aboard a 747, and, just before take off, the flight attendant announced: "Less than 20% of our pilots have been flying more than two years," would you sit still? Me neither. I'd jump up and sprint toward the door along with everyone else, because when pilots are inexperienced and/or incompetent, 747s go down, and hundreds of people die--and I wouldn't want to die with them. Worse yet, when ships go down, as documented later in this blog, those hundreds of dead people rapidly turn into thousands. Or they slam a ship full of, say, Benzene into the rocks while navigating through the narrow inlet at Long Beach, for example, and now the entire West Coast realizes just how bad the Exxon-Valdez disaster really was--excuse me: IS--and millions are affected, as one tourist-based economy after another collapses.

The point is: It's in our nation's best interest to ensure sailors responsible for the safe navigation of ships carrying some of the most lethal toxins known to man in and out of American ports are paid enough to justify a life at sea--and to have a vacation once in awhile.

Here's how it works while aboard a ship that's sailing deep sea:

While aboard ship, sailors are required to work a minimum of eight hours per day, seven days per week, thirty days per month--and that's what accounts for their daily base wage. If you're an Able-bodied seaman, the person directly responsible for driving the ship, for eight hours of work, you're going to earn--with SIU--a staggering $70-80 per day. Wow. Amazing. Hooray. That breaks down to a whopping ten bucks an hour (and consider the responsibility!). God knows John Snow would have bankrupt CSX had he bumped an ABs hourly wage up to, say, $30 per hour, which is what a Union plumber in Chicago earns. That's sarcasm, by the way.

Okay, so we've got your Base Pay covered. At the same time, if you're aboard one of SIU's "best" ships, like the Horizon Reliance, you'll also earn what's known as Vacation Pay: 14/30. That means, for every 30 days you're aboard the ship, you'll earn an additional 14 days base pay toward your vacation. While that might SOUND good, remember that it's only about $40.00 per day, divided by eight hours, so it's nothing to cheer about (Twenty years ago NMU Members were earning 20/30, so things are getting better--for the companies, not the sailors, thanks to SIU Leadership's eagerness to undermine functioning maritime unions by signing whatever Labor Agreements ship management companies toss in front of them).

When confronted, SIU's Leadership will argue that SIU sailors and SUP sailors earn essentially the same base pay (an SUP Able-bodied seaman earns roughly $3,330 per month), because SUP sailors work a fifty-six hour work week, whereas SIU sailors work a forty hour work week, so therefore mandatory weekend overtime makes up the difference.

Don't you believe them! It's a trick!--a numbers game! See, the name idea is to keep sailors' base pay as low as possible--in SIU's case: roughly $2,200 per month for an AB blue sailing deep sea (SUP AB: roughly $3,100 per month). Since your vacation pay is based upon your base pay, that's why SIU's Leadership agrees to the forty hour work week. If SIU sailors stick with the industry long enough to realize they're losing hundreds of dollars per month in vacation pay, they raise hell about it. The problem is, for the Membership, anyway, the SIU Leadership's not listening.

To better explain how much of a difference this arrangement between the ship management companies and SIU's Leadership makes, allow me to illustrate: thanks to the Invisible Hand, I worked aboard the M/V Sealand Florida (Maersk) for six months straight. The pay, when compared to other SIU ships, was great, but by any other standards besides "flags of convenience," it was awful: $2,100 base, $14.83 overtime, 14/30 vacation, $7.00 per day pension. Because it was little more than Third World pay, sailors that had come and gone long before me had refused to work overtime, and therefore the ship was a disaster waiting to happen. Finally, it did. A bunker line had wasted away, and we had a major oil spill in one of the holds. Try wallowing around in 1,500 gallons of bunker C with a bucket and a shovel deep down in a hold for Third World Wages. Your most immediate concern is the poor bastard standing next to you gives up completely and lights up a cigarette. People tend not to work very fast for a Company they feel screwed them long before they checked aboard, so the clean up process--that immediate fear--stretched itself out to a full week.

After I was discharged, I returned to the Hiring Hall and filed for my vacation check. Three weeks later, the check finally arrived: roughly $5,000. Talk about an anti-climax to a long and miserable experience.

Soon thereafter I abandoned SIU and joined SUP, a legitimate, functioning union, and took a job aboard the M/V President Grant for three months the very first day I joined the union (half the time I worked aboard the M/V Sealand Florida).

The day I was discharged from that ship, I returned to the Union Hall--not Hiring Hall--filed for my vacation check, and that afternoon I had it in hand: $5,000. Big difference, eh? Huge, I'd say. With money like that, a guy could actually afford to take a vacation instead of scrambling back to the Hiring Hall to look for another job, one that wouldn't likely be there.

A reliable "inside" source informed me that ship management companies actually did pay 30/30 for vacation, and that SIU (all unions, actually) held onto that money until the sailors were discharged from the ship and filed for their vacation checks.

In other words, sailors were providing unions interest-free loans while they were aboard ships. If those monies were invested while that sailor was overseas, and they turned a profit, the sailors who had provided funding for that loan without their knowledge did not benefit.

After they were "discharged," they'd return to the Hiring Halls and file for their vacation checks. While SUP sailors can pick up their vacation checks the same day they're discharged, SIU sailors must wait two to three weeks before SIU releases half the money or less (these checks are disbursed by the union, not the Company). SIU keeps the other half or more to finance the compound in Piney Point, MD, the 3,000 acre spread Mike Sacco lived on at Membership expense, not to mention SIU's "corporate headquarters" in Camp Springs, MD--so only God, the Titled 12, their attorneys and accountants can ever hope to keep up with how Union monies are distributed.

Unions cost money to operate, there's no way around that. Shortly after I began taking a look at how SUP sailors compared to sailors throughout the industry, I realized that, for the most part, SUP's Membership was in favor of contributing a portion of their pay to help support the Sailors' Union of the Pacific. While there will always be people critical of their Leaders, generally speaking, SUP Members were for the most part convinced that their Leadership--Gunnar Lundeberg and Dave Connolly, Andy, and everyone in-between--was negotiating and upholding fair Labor Agreements on behalf of the Company and the Union.

Every single time I worked aboard an SUP-contracted ship, and we pulled into port, the Union's vice president--again, Dave Connolly, in San Francisco--was right there, waiting on the pier to see what needed to be done to keep the peace. Since everyone--Management, the Captain and Chief Mate, and of course the crew--knew he'd be there waiting when we docked, friction between the Company and the Union was kept at an absolute minimum. Everyone had a Labor Agreement in hand, so everyone played by the rules, and it worked. So if the Union required a portion of the SUP Member's Vacation checks to operate smoothly, few complained, and fewer still complained consistently.

However, when I was basically forced to contribute half my vacation check to help finance a union that, I believe, was deliberately mismanaged, I had a huge problem with that. Again, according to my "inside" source, a Port Engineer with MSC, for every dollar I saw in my regular paycheck, Seafarers International Union took a dollar for themselves BEFORE I received my paycheck, he alleged. Exact figures are hard to come by in the maritime industry--Companies won't provide them to sailors, and the Titled Twelve aren't exactly eager to do so, either--so I have yet to confirm his allegations were true, but I tend to believe him, and I'm still determined to find that documentation. If his allegations prove truthful, then quarterly union dues are the least of a sailors' concerns. They're almost a non-issue.

Moving on. Just getting your hands on a Labor Agreement while you were still back in one of SIU's Hiring Halls, contemplating whether or not you wanted to "throw in" for a job, was next to impossible, while I was with SIU. You almost had to threaten to call the Secretary of Labor's office before the port agent behind the counter would attempt to obtain a copy of the Labor Agreement with that particular Company from SIU Headquarters, and then you could expect to wait for hours before someone back at Headquarters faxed one out to you.

Why won't SIU's Leadership keep Labor Agreements in stock? Cost, they say? That's bologna. There's no legitimate reason for it. The Dispatcher with SUP--Andy--will provide you with a brand new Labor Agreement each and every time you "throw in" for a job while preparing your paperwork. There are literally stacks of Labor Agreements around the Union Hall--they're everywhere. So why won't SIU's Leadership provide Members with Labor Agreements to protect themselves?

Here's why: Because it's not required. As usual, they provided themselves with one of their far-too-common loopholes when the people they work for wrote the Labor Agreements. As stated in the Standard Freightship Agreement between Seafarers International Union and Contracted Companies, in Section 67 on page 22, it says:

"Section 67. Copies of Agreement to be furnished. Copies of this Agreement shall be furnished to the Master, Chief Engineer, Ship's Committee and all Unlicensed Personnel, WHEN AVAILABLE and requested."

Here's just one of a thousand better ways to write it: "...all Unlicensed Personnel."

Of course, that's written in the Labor Agreement sailors standing in the Hiring Hall contemplating whether or not to throw in for a job are trying to see. If Labor Agreements are not readily available, chances are the majority of the Membership will rarely have one at their immediate disposal.

And from what I gathered during my investigation, SIU's Leadership didn't want everyone aboard to have a copy of the Agreement to examine while filling out overtime sheets, just the key players, most of whom were "permanent" crewmembers, loyal to the Company and the Titled Twelve who put them there, not the crew: The Chief Steward, the Bos'n, and the Delegate aboard would have one, but just one each, so the delegate wasn't likely to lend you his copy when you needed it most. Besides, if you asked to see his copy, chances are you were about to "rock the boat," making his life difficult--since the Chief Mate and the Delegate stand the 0400-0800 and the 1600-2000 watch together, day in and day out, for months on end, the last thing he wants to do is solve overtime disputes between you and the guy he's caged up with.

This is yet another reason why investigators will find blatent inconsistencies in the distribution of overtime hours between people working in the same department: some people have a copy of the Agreement to point to, and they "write in" for overtime they deserve, while others--those who don't have a copy of the Agreement, those who are marginalized by their own Leaders--are left to weather their own storms.

SIU Labor Agreements are loaded with loop-holes, vague language, exceptions to the rule, so they're next to worthless to begin with, but at least they provide some guidlines. Without them, though, SIU Members are rendered completely defenseless by their own Leadership. So why won't SIU's Leadership help protect their Membership by providing them with Labor Agreements BEFORE they stagger out of the Hiring Halls and fly out to meet their ships?

Here's one theory--and it's only a theory: SIU's Leadership, the Titled Twelve, are crooked, crooked in a dangerous way, and therefore they have no real power at the negotiating table--that's why maritime Capital keeps law-enforcement agencies at bay (everyone knows SIU's Membership calls for investigations regularly). The Titled Twelve are there not to negotiate fairly on behalf of the Membership or to enforce Labor Agreements, but to "manage" (man-handle, if necessary, which I'll get to later) the SIU Membership, to incite fear and intimidation and keep unruly "union activists" in check while systematically reducing labor costs--that's their true function. If they ever attempted to negotiate fair Labor Agreements on behalf of the SIU Membership, ship management personnel--new money--would rise up and provide all the evidence the FBI and the Justice Department needed to lock up the Titled Twelve. But because the Titled Twelve have no such intention, they are permitted by ship management personnel, and therefore the Justice Department, to remain in power. Noam Chomsky spoke about this arrangement between "US interests" and the Mafia in his book "Understanding Power," which I've already quoted, word for word, earlier in this blog.

Before I return to the subject--wages and working conditions--allow me a moment to clarify my position: I no longer work in the maritime industry, so I have nothing to gain by "selling" SUP or "bashing" SIU's Leadership (not the Union Members). What I hope to accomplish with this blog is to help re-forge a relationship between maritime Capital and Labor--one that actually works, and I'm simply using SUP as a model for what actually works--and I want to pressure the SIU Leadership to make better managerial decisions on behalf of the people--the Members--who are counting on them to do so. After all, criminals or not, they're still in a position to help a lot of people--again, both Capital and Labor--but it seems to me they need a little nudge, shall we say, in the right direction.

Generally, I don't like to nudge anyone I believe is dangerous. I'd much rather cold-cock them, figuratively speaking, so let's get back to proving the SIU Leadership is either A.) crooked, B.) inept, or C.) both A and B...

Overtime pay, and when you're entitled to it, is a great way to prove that the SIU Leadership are the wrong people to negotiate fair Labor Agreements on behalf of the SIU Membership.

To cover all my bases, let's start with a small "mom and pop" shipping company operating on the Great Lakes called "American Steamship," which, when compared to a behemoth of a company, like Maersk, is miniscule--and yet they can still afford to pay their sailors a decent living wage.

American Steamship operates, I believe, thirteen or fourteen bulk carriers on the Great Lakes, each between six-hundred and a thousand feet long, but I'd have to double-check their website to be certain. Their ships carry iron ore pellets, gravel, sometimes a little corn, maybe some wheat, charcoal--products that are neither expensive nor potentially catastrophic for the environment. So they're not making fantastic amounts of money like, say, the oil industry.

I worked for American Steamship for four months last summer, during which time I realized there was high concentration of extremely competent "professional" American sailors working on the Great Lakes.

Generally speaking, because the wages on the Lakes are radically higher--$3448.93 per month base pay, $29.73 per hour overtime, compared to $2,200 per month base pay deep sea, and $14.83 overtime--the difference in quality between sailors who work consistently on the Lakes, and those who work consistently deep sea, is night and day. I mean, deep sea sailors who are lucky enough to land a "relief" job on the Lakes typically stand out like retards at a genius convention (Hmmm...maybe I was one of them! Ha ha ha!). You'd have to work amongst both groups for a prolonged period of time to fully appreciate my assessments.

That's not to say all deep sea sailors are morons, either. Some, and they know who they are, rank among the most professional sailors I've ever seen. If they're non-productive, as foreign maritime Capital interests often declare when trying to rationalize why Congress should abolish the Jones Act, they're non-productive because they're retaliating against forces determined to undermine their interests the only way they can: work stoppages and slowdowns. Nobody asks the Leadership's permission to toss expensive gear over the side of the ship when they're convinced the Leadership is a huge part of the problem.

If you spoke with the average Great Lakes sailor affiliated with SIU, you'd quickly realize this guy had options in life: He could have been a carpenter, or an electrician, perhaps an auto mechanic, or a skilled craftsman of some sort, but he chose to be a sailor. And we'd all better hope he's a good one, too.

U.S. water shortages are becoming critical. Flow in the Colorado River, which feeds the Las Vegas Valley, dropped by almost half between 2000 and 2005 due to successive droughts. Yet Canada has major water problems of its own.

The International Joint Commission has repeatedly warned about declining water quality in the Great Lakes due to toxic contamination, and water levels in the lakes have dropped to record lows.

"Although the Great Lakes contain about 20 per cent of the fresh water on the Earth's surface, only one per cent of this water is renewed each year," the commission noted in a recent report.

Between the ever-changing currents and the small vessel traffic, navigating a ship up the Houston Ship Channel is a challenging and often times frightening experience, but navigating a thousand foot ship through the narrow rivers connecting the Great Lakes--now that takes skill, competence, prolonged concentration, a steady mind, and I'm barely scratching the surface.

There are sharp twists and turns in the rivers, like driving along mountain roads, only those roads are flat, of course, except now they actually move. There are sub-surface peninsulas, pre-dawn fishing boats, shoals, rocks along the shoreline--which might be less than a hundred feet off your port and starboard bow at one point--and there are wind gusts, shifting water currents, not to mention unpredictable weather: dense fog, rains, heavy winds that can easily blow a ship off course, and plenty of ice during the winter. But during the summer, there are pleasure craft to avoid crushing--thousands of them--and they seem to dart out of nowhere.

Off the top of my head, I don't know exactly how many ships have hit the rocks and sunk on the Great Lakes, but I've heard the number before, and it was a staggering: hundreds. The Edmund Fitzgerald is, without question, the most famous. The point is, sailors navigating ships on the Great Lakes damn well better know what they're doing--they better know what they're getting into beforehand--because if they don't, if they hit the rocks, the whole world's going to know someone just fucked up in a huge way. Since American Steamship operates only on the Great Lakes, and can't slip below the horizon the same way a salt water vessel can, they know it's in their best interest--everyone's best interest--to hire only the most professional sailors available. To ensure professional sailors stick around, they offer a respectable wage.

NOTE: And yet, even on the Great Lakes, multi-national conglomerates, like Du Pont Chemical, ship their lethal cargoes on "flags of convenience," because, hey, if one of these ships hits the rocks and pollutes what is arguably America's most precious resource--the largest fresh water supply in the world--for the next thousand years, do you think they want to be held responsible? Hell no, they figure. And so Big Oil and Big Chemical side-steps responsibility by hiring unknown operators who are experts at evading responsibility: mega-rich American and German folk who own and operate "foreign-flagged" vessels no government in the world will be able to track down in the event of a disaster).

If you don't understand the hidden dangers of "flags of convenience" operating in American waters--anywhere, for that matter--then I strongly encourage you to read: "The Outlaw Sea" by William Langewiesche.
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Safe Crew Levels Questioned ("The Sea")

Commerical pressures, together with flag state flexibility, are leading to wide differences in the minimum number of crew required to operate ships of similar size and trades, the UK's Maritime Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB) has warned. It has illustrated its point with the case of a British-flagged 2,594gt ship which hit a buoy in Danish waters. Under UK regulations it needed a crew of seven, while a ship of similar size and engaged on similar trades was deemed by another European flag to need just five.

"Such inconsistencies raise questions about the effectiveness of the current methods of determining safe manning levels," the MAIB said.

Britain's Maritime and Coastguard Agency, meanwhile, is being urged to review its procedures for issuing safe manning certificates following inspection of a UK-flagged ship by the International Transport Workers' Federation (ITF). The vessel, carrying timber between Scotland and Ireland, was found to have a crew of five--an Irish Master, one Ghanaian and three Russians--instead of seven required on voyages exceeding twenty-four hours.

The head of the UK officers' union, Numast, Mr. Brian Orrell, said more and more ships like this were turning up. "Our information is that the crews are mainly Russian or Ukrainian and are employed through manning agencies that require seafarers sign waivers not to speak with flag or state authorities or to the ITF."
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WHO'S DRIVING THE SHIP?

If you recall seeing photographs of a Wheelhouse setting aboard an American-flagged vessel on the cover of a magazine, the Bridge itself probably looked like it was filled with lots of high tech equipment--the kind that will mark a target the size of a milk carton two miles away. It goes without saying that there were lots of people in the photograph, too, and they all appeared attentive to their surroundings, clean and professional. Like, the Captain was probably in the window with a pair of binoculars wearing a white collared shirt and pretty gold bars, while the mate on watch was taking a bearing or scrutinizing the radar, and then there's the Wheelsman, of course, who always appears ready to maneuver the ship on a moment's notice so as to avoid catastrophe.

Photographs like that are deceitful propaganda, that's all. It's not even realistic propaganda--and everyone who works in the maritime industry knows it. The public, on the other hand, remains largely ignorant to shipboard life. They look at this propaganda and see all that high-tech looking equipment that's involved and figure the professionals operating commercial vessels couldn't possibly go wrong.

They're not mistaken, they're mislead.

Those who live on the coast ought to take great comfort in knowing that whenever they see an SIU-contracted ship--be it an oil tanker, chemical carrier, whatever--bombing along the coast at full ahead, nobody's driving.

Not comfortable with that? Why not? Oh, that's right: you use common sense.

I guess that explains why you're alive. What I mean by that is, if you didn't use common sense while speeding to work this morning, maybe you would have engaged the cruise control, tied the steering wheel in place, and leaped into the back seat for a cat nap before work while your car careened toward the inevitable--driverless.

That would, after all, make sense, right?

Of course not. And the SIU Membership knows that removing the AB Watchstander (Quartermaster, Wheelsman, Helmsman, whatever SIU's Leadership calls them today) from the Wheelhouse to work outside on the Bridge wings via Labor Agreement requirements is worse than country dumb: if/when there's a collision, that SIU Member knows he'll likely be among the first to die, along with all hands aboard, while the people ashore who concocted these Labor Agreements will shrug their shoulders predictably, and hire someone convincing to explain to the public why they'd forced the deceased to abandon his post in the first place. Only after the fact will the general public realize, too, that removing the Helmsmen from look-out duties to chip and paint out on the Bridge wings via pro-Company Labor Agreements was a corporate-sponsored act of terrorism.

Let's slam the brakes, throw it in reverse, and stomp the gas. Fifteen to twenty years ago, according to the what an SIU Bos'n sailing out of Houston had to say, SIU Labor Agreements didn't force AB Watchstanders to work while on Wheel-watch--and it drove ship management company personnel stuttering mad. They couldn't stand that Labor Agreements permitted not one but two lazy AB Watchstanders to stand in one place eight hours a day and stare out the window at the ocean: one behind the wheel, another out on the bridge wing, regardless of the weather.

Now, staring at the ocean might sound rather pleasant, however, allow me to assure you, it's work, mentally and physically. Imagine it this way: draw an imaginary box that's approximately two feet wide and two feet tall on the floor. Step inside it. If you absolutely must use the head, you must first call your spouse and convince them to stand in your place. Otherwise, for the next four hours straight, don't move, just stand there and imagine you're keeping a sharp eye out for vessel traffic: chemical tankers, oil rigs (800 plus in dot the Gulf of Mexico), pleasure craft overloaded with drunken loonies who think it's hilarious to risk their lives, your career, and your freedom, slicing across your bow dolphin-close. Are your feet, legs and back beginning to throb yet? If not, don't worry, they will--and you'll have plenty of time to think about that pain.

What you probably won't realize while standing there in your little box in your den, your office, or wherever, is that, ironically, while it's difficult to spot vessel traffic at night, it's a thousand times easier than it is during the day--and here's why: running lights.

During the day you can't see those running lights, so ships blend into the sea, as do oil rigs and tugs, and as for small vessel traffic--unless you notice their bodies floating by while you're painting out on the bridge wing, you won't even know you killed them, because remember: the vessel you're driving is approximately the same size as the North Tower at the World Trade Center...was. There's an unbelievable momentum in motion underfoot, it takes a long time for a ship to react, even if you're heavy on the rudder, so if you suddenly see another vessel emerge from a thick fog dead ahead of you, guess what: both ships are doomed, along with, what, forty-eight other people who are about to drown--and those of us ashore can look forward to an ecological disaster biblical in proportion while waiting for policy-makers who saw this coming to react predictably: "Whose responsible? Why did this happen? How could this happen? We didn't know SIU Labor Agreements removed the Helmsman from the Bridge! We have to do something to prevent it from ever happening again!"

Of course, by then it would already be too late for rich folk living along the coast between, say, Seattle and San Diego, or New York City and Key West. Everyone in the maritime industry knows that the Exxon Valdez did not run aground and waste 1,200 miles of coastline because the Captain was drunk--that was all complete fiction. It ran aground because the Wheelsman was inexperienced and incompetent. Any way you look at it, if/when there's a major oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, if it's anything like the Exxon Valdez, and 1,200 miles of coastline ends up wasted for the next thousand years, there won't be much of a tourist-industry left to support the Southeast.

In order to fully appreciate this scheme's implementation, this SIU Bos'n took me back twenty years. In collusion with the SIU Leadership, he said, ship management companies devised a Bait and Switch policy to lure AB Watchstanders out of the Wheelhouse to scale rust and paint on the bridge wings. Wouldn't you know it?. They began implementing this policy in stages shortly after Mike Sacco took office. As this particular Houston Bos'n described these stages to me, images of a huge paper bag full of cash swapping hands appeared in both of our minds.

Stage one consisted of the SIU Leadership convincing AB Watchstanders they had negotiated hard on their behalf--and won! If you'll agree to work while on watch, they allegedly told the Membership, the Company has agreed to pay Penalty Overtime! Hooray for the Membership!

Younger, more naive sailors cheered, figuring: Hey, I'm going to be on this ship anyway, so I might as well make all the money I can while I'm here. Older, wiser SIU Members who didn't trust the new Regime sensed foul play, and they resisted, refusing to work while on watch, undoubtedly because they understood the risks involved with being stranded in a life-boat surrounded by 330 million square miles of salt water (Yes, that's roughly how much salt water covers the planet).

Stage two was implemented during the next round of Labor Agreement negotiations: Now, whether you like it or not, you're going to work, but don't complain, because we've fought hard on your behalf, and the Companies have agreed to continue paying Penalty Overtime. Throughout this time period, the older, wiser Members who, by now, had learned to despise the new Regime, were retiring en masse to avoid retiring at sea--the bottom of it. The younger, more naive Members simply figured their Leadership was fighting hard at the negotiation table on their behalf, but unfortunately this time they lost some ground.

Until stage three was implemented: Now you're going to work on watch whether you like it or not, and you're not going to be paid Penalty Overtime. Oh, and by the way, we've removed one of the ABs from the Wheelhouse, too. No, he won't be an AB Maintenance man. He won't even be on the ship. Yeah, tough round of negotiations this year. We lost that position altogether. Sorry about that, fellas. Good luck out there. You'll need it. Later.

Now those younger, more naive sailors, like the one telling me how this scheme had come together, were older, wiser, and thoroughly convinced they'd been sold out by their own Leadership.

Like the majority of SIU's widely varied Labor Agreements, here's the language used to ensure AB Watchstanders do not stand a proper look-out while on Wheelhouse watch in SIU's 2001-2006 Standard Freightship Agreement:

Section 7, page 25, Men Standing Sea Watches: "Men standing sea watches shall be paid overtime at the applicable rate for Saturday, Sunday and Holiday watches for all work in excess of eight (8) hours between midnight and midnight each day. No work except for the safe navigation of the vessel is to be done after 5:00 pm and before 8:00 am, Monday through Friday, and Saturdays, Sundays and Holidays without payment of overtime.

"B. Except as otherwise specifically provided, if a man standing regular at sea or in port on Saturdays, Sundays and Holidays is required to do work other than routine work for the safe navigation of the vessel, they shall be paid at the rates specified in Article II, Section 21 (b), Penalty Rates.

"With the Following exceptions (SIU Labor Agreements are loaded with "exceptions" and "loop-holes"):

"1. Routine work for the safe navigation of the vessel.
"2. Cleaning quarters
"3. Undocking and docking
"C. If a man standing sea watches on Saturdays, Sundays or Holidays is required to handle explosives, clean holds, do longshore work, work ballast, do carpenter work, secure cargo, lay dunnage, handle mail or baggage, handle stores, use paint spray guns or sand-blasting equipment, tend livestock, handle garbage, remove soot from the stack, clean bilges or clean up oil spills, clean tanks or such work as defined in Article III, Section 34, Additional Work, he shall be paid only the rate as specified in this Agreement for that type of work."

Leaves much to be desired, doesn't it, especially in terms of specifics. For example, it says nothing to the effect of: vessels operating within such-and-such distance from the coastline shall require AB Watchstanders to put away their tools and stand a proper look-out in waters frequently shared with pleasure craft and small fishing boats. The language used in SIU Standard Agreements doesn't even come close, and sailors realize why: you have to actually work aboard a ship for a prolonged period of time before you can negotiate Labor Agreements effectively from a sailor's perspective--and with such limited experience, even when combined, the Titled Twelve can't possibly live up to that basic expectation.

When you're aboard a fishing boat or a pleasure craft off the coast of Florida between 0800 and 1700 Monday through Friday, and it's not a Holiday, say your prayers if you see an SIU-contracted vessel coming toward you at 18 knots: the AB you're counting on to maneuver the ship is out on the bridge wings chipping rust, painting, or whatever it takes to make the main stop along the political parade route look pretty--so he's definitely not paying attention to you. If you're counting on the mate on watch to maneuver the ship in his stead, you're wasting precious moments waiting for that ship to turn. AMO Captains typically force mates to update publications, for example, while on watch, to keep from paying that mate overtime, so he's not paying attention to you, either. If you don't start your engines and get out of the way fast, you're going to die.

Equipment aboard commercial ships--again, tankers, chemical carriers, LNG vessels, break bulk carriers, etc--is dangerous to rely upon entirely.

Take nuclear submarines, for example. Now they really do have all the newest high-tech gadgetry at their disposal--yet none of it prevented the USS San Francisco (SSN 711) from face-planting into the broad side of a subsurface mountain not far off the coast of China last summer. In reality, the navigational equipment aboard commercial vessels doesn't come anywhere close to the high-tech navigational equipment aboard nuclear submarines. In fact, one could argue that the most important gear available to an AB Watchstander--aside from the helm itself--is a heavy-duty pair of binoculars.

But those binoculars don't do much good when you're the 0800-1200 or 1200-1600 AB Watchstander painting the bow 700 feet away from Wheelhouse when you're supposed to be standing a proper look-out watch aboard the M/V ITB Mobile.

During fair weather, the bow of an Integrated Tug and Barge (ITB) is a quiet place to paint--so en route to Point Comfort, TX, I heard the screaming from a way-too-nearby fishing vessel perfectly well. That screaming is not something I'll forget any time soon.

In case you're as unfamiliar with what it's like to work for USS Chartering, Inc. as the Titled Twelve, I'll tell you a little bit about their vessels.

They're tankers, they're the same size as ships, but, because the house-portion of the ship can be removed, the Coast Guard had to come up with a whole new classification for them, so they called them Integrated Tug and Barges.

Most tankers, like the M/V Philadelphia, for example, which was actually smaller than both the ITB Mobile and the ITB New York--I risked my life aboard all three ships--are operated by twenty-four to twenty-six sailors, and even those numbers are inadequate in the event of flooding or fire.

On the other hand, Integrated Tug and Barges are crewed by half the number of sailors, making them twice as dangerous to operate--and whenever USS Chartering Inc. could escape Coast Guard detection--they were known to reduce labor costs by sailing short-handed whenever possible (Deck Engine Utility personnel were often absent, and sailing short an AB wouldn't stop them either) so even with a full crew aboard, they were unapologetically short-handed.

The SIU Membership didn't put up much of a fuss, either, largely because SIU Membership knew ITBs not only ranked among the most dangerous ships in the US fleet, they were also among the lowest-paying jobs. Only the hungriest, most desperate SIU Members with the least amount of union seniority would have anything to do with ITBs, so crew turn-over was rapid-fire (yet another hidden cost investigators can attribute to substandard Labor Agreements). That would change over time if word spread that suitable Labor Agreements were agreed upon between maritime Capital interests and Labor, but that's not likely to happen any time soon.

These days the importation of foreign nationals to replace American sailors aboard American-owned ship, for example, is justified by decision-makers who reference "jobs Americans don't want." What? Jobs Americans don't want? Work conditions can be life-threatening, but if the pay is right, American employers don't have to look for employees--at all. American employees find them. Take jobs driving fuel tankers (tractor trailers) through Iraq. There are IEDs--road side bombs--everywhere, they're killing American personnel daily, so work conditions truly are life-threatening, but because pay outweighs the risks, American employers like Halliburton rarely if ever complain about labor shortages.

While aboard the M/V ITB Mobile, I asked the captain why the Company risked breaking the law by importing four Polish nationals (at a time) to perform work aboard an American-flagged vessel that could otherwise be performed by four American sailors, and, without hesitation, he belched: "Because I can work them like dogs for $6.00 per hour sixteen hours per day, and they can't give me any shit about it."

Integrated Tug and Barges are poorly designed. Their rudders--they have two--are excessively small for the size of the vessel, so they're notoriously difficult to maneuver. Too, their propellers are undersized, making them that much more difficult to maneuver because you have an inadequate volume of water flushing the rudders. Containerships, by comparison to all tankers, handle like sports cars. All tankers are hard to control because there's so much momentum involved with the weight of the product, but ITBs are by far the trickiest, and because ABs have to work the machinery twice as hard to mainain a proper heading, they lose steering regularly. You spend a lot of time holding your breath when driving one of these disasters waiting to happen

Have you heard about last month's spill in northeast China's Heilongjiang province? It was caused by an explosion at a benzene plant. That spill is headed to the Russian city of Khabarovsk along the Amur river and predicted to hit the city of 600,000 early Thursday. Benzene is horrible stuff, so the Russians might as well forget using that river for drinking water ever again. As it leaches into the shoreline and kills off the environment for the next millennium, it'll give everyone who ignores my advice to cut their losses and flee the region a healthy dose of cancer.

As I recall, we carried MTBE (an accelerant equal to ether) aboard the M/V ITB Mobile between California, Louisiana, and Texas quite regularly. We might have even docked in Port Everglades, FL, while I was aboard, but I'd have to research the ship's schedule to be sure. Okay, so MTBE’s horrible stuff to work with. It not only reeks like ether right through your gas mask, it's just as volatile, so one spark near the "headers," as they're called, during a load/discharge operation will happily incinerate a large portion of, say, Fort Lauderdale. Care to disagree for political reasons? Perhaps we ought to round up video footage of those explosions and fires at that fuel depot north of London that are presently raging out of control--and that was only jet fuel, not MTBE. Not necessary? Okay, good: everyone agrees one stray park near the headers during load/discharge operations would happily incinerate a large portion of Fort Lauderdale.

Deck Department aboard the M/V ITB Mobile consisted of one stuttering drunk AMO Captain, one incompetent AMO Chief Mate who wasn't afraid to admit he'd cheated his way through SUNY, a twenty-five year old AMO Second Mate, a twenty-three year old AMO Third Mate straight out of the academy, a hard-working but otherwise egotistical name-dropping SIU Bosun from Jacksonville, FL, who couldn't wait to tell you he knew Lynard Skynard survivors, three SIU AB Watchstanders, two of whom were removed from the Wheelhouse to work on deck--out on the "barge" portion of the ship--during daylight hours throughout the workweek, an irrational pumpman from Ghana, and sometimes a DEU. Come to think of it, I don't remember anything about the DEU, probably because there wasn't a DEU aboard while I was there. Yes, that sounds typical.

I recall the Chief Mate's first words to me--spoken the moment I had finished signing Articles: "Overtime is mandatory. If you don't work because you're sick, tired, foul weather--I'll fire you."

My response was probably not what you'd expect. He didn't expect it, that's for sure. "Just how old are you, Mate?" I asked. It's been a few years, so I’m only 99.9% certain he said twenty-eight, but he definitely responded by shouting: I'm twenty-fucking-eight! You got a problem with that?

Actually, yes, I did. What kind of experience can a twenty-eight year old Chief Mate who--I later learned--cheated his way through SUNY bring to the fleet? Not much, that was obvious. And I had to stand watch with this guy eight hours per day until I jumped ship and ran for my life? If tanker depots weren't so remote, his response alone would have prompted me to turn around and walk off the ship on the spot, but I figured I could tolerate him until we reached Long Beach (I wanted to transit the Panama Canal at least once before completing my investigation). Several days after departure, the Captain barged into the Wheelhouse stone-cold drunk, wearing only his underwear. I'm not kidding, either. This guy was a foul-mouthed, chain-smoking mess, a total loser. The Chief Mate looked neither surprised nor offended. Apparently this was a regular occurrence.

Which brings to mind an interesting side-note: whenever I'd dash up to the Wheelhouse to report for watch, I'd check the GPS to see how far off course we were. It's not just some random habit I'd developed, either. When an AB Watchstander values his career--or, for that matter, his life--he'll check the GPS to make sure he's assuming a watch that's been stood properly by the AB before him. Reason being, if the ship's off course, but you assume the watch anyway, and then something happens, the Coast Guard holds you responsible. Now you're facing huge fines, possibly jail time, losing your Merchant Mariner's Document, you career--all sorts of horrible things will happen to you.

A ship is almost always allowed to wander off course, more on the ocean than on the Great Lakes (more room for error). There are no strict guidelines, and it's common courtesy for the previous watch to adjust the ship's heading by tweeking "Iron Mike" a few degrees to port or starboard, whichever is necessary, to make sure you're as close to the course line as possible for turnover--normally within a hundred feet. Generally speaking, I don't recall a problem with assuming the watch, mostly because all I can think about at the moment were the problems that arose while the Chief Mate and I stood our watch (0400-0800/1600-2000). That is to say, I'd check the GPS, we'd assume the watch together. Then he'd order me to perform day-maintenance on the barge so that he could kick back and play "Solitaire" on the computer located in the chart room instead of focusing on the ship's present whereabouts. Pretty smart, right?

So, I'd have an excellent idea of the ship's position when I reported to the Bosun for my work assignments. That would change, of course, as time passed, and by the time 1700 rolled around--the end of the workday--I'd grab some dinner and report back to the Wheelhouse to re-assume the watch. Of course, by then we had always wandered a couple of miles off course. The Mate never seemed to mind. He was always busy entertaining himself on the computer. I can't believe I had to ask his permission to bring the ship back to the course line by simply tweeking "Iron Mike," but that's what it came down to, and here's why:

The first time I tried fine-tuning our heading, he had jumped up screaming: "Don't touch that! Never touch the helm without my say so!" Dumbfounded, I remember saying, "But, Mate, we're a mile and a half off course!" to which he responded, "Who the hell cares! Let the Second Mate fix it when he gets up here!" So much for safe navigation of the vessel. For the next four hours we'd stray further and further from the course line plotted on the chart (he was gun-decking his work there, too, as I recall). By the time our watch was over, and our reliefs arrived, turnover consisted of pointing in the direction of the course line and saying: "It's five to ten miles that way."

Not only is straying off course and zig-zagging across the Gulf of Mexico dangerous, it's expensive. For every mile you wander off course, you have to come back a mile, and ships don't get the same fuel economy as, say, a Honda Accord, either. They burn tons of fuel per hour, literally. So if you wander off course, say, five to ten miles per watch, twice per day, and the Second Mate always has to come up and make adjustments, this AMO Chief Mate's lackadaisical approach to accuracy was costing maritime Capital interests tens of thousands of dollars in additional fuel costs each year. If someone corrected me by saying, "No, hundreds of thousands of dollars," it wouldn't offend me.

One can assume USS Chartering, Inc, thought they landed a real bargain when they signed substandard Labor Agreements with American Maritime Officers long-term, too. It wouldn't surprise me if their employers are reading this and calling their attorneys, shouting, "Christ, if ship management personnel had signed Labor Agreements with MM&P, we might have spent a few extra bucks an hour, sure, but we'd have professional officers aboard our ships, and we'd be saving hundreds of thousands of dollars each year in fuel costs! What can we do to fix this mess!" because signing substandard Labor Agreements with an inferior and/or resentful labor organization is no bargain.

Wait until their employers and investors hear about the part that involved lots of screaming I foreshadowed earlier--and we're not talking about the kind of screaming a water skier might expect when he deliberately cuts a fisherman's lines, either. We're talking about the kind of screaming you hear when a handful of weekend fishermen on a small yacht look up and realize they're about to experience a violent death.

If I was on watch, why was I painting on the bow?

Unlike regular tankers, where one Bos’n and two AB Maintenance men prowl the deck fulltime, there was only one fulltime AB maintenance man (commonly called a day-workers) aboard the ITB Mobile: the Bos'n. Without help, voluntary or involuntary, there was no possible way he could keep up with all the work necessary to keep the "deck" operating safely.

Only the structural engineers and architects can provide a guestimate of how many miles of steel fuel lines (pipes) are exposed to the weather and salt water sea-sprays aboard the M/V ITB Mobile, but it would be just that: a guestimate. Nobody knows precisely, the Chief mate informed me. Cargo or Product lines are equal in circumference to a 200 year old Oak Tree, while hydraulic lines are no greater in circumference than a child's pinky, all of which have lots of nooks and crannies that take ten times as long to prepare properly before painting. If someone who knew said there were fifty miles of these lines aboard, or even a hundred miles, it wouldn't come as a surprise. They're everywhere, so you risk life and limb climbing up, over and around them in a hurry while on cargo watch to start and shut down pumps. If you don't move fast enough, expect catastrophe.

Four fulltime Able-bodied maintenance men (day-men) couldn't possibly hope to maintain that many miles of fuel lines properly, much less just one.

Unlike SUP-contracted vessels, where fresh water wash down of the entire vessel is mandatory overtime for unlicensed deck personnel each time the vessel pulls out of port (the Company spends a little on overtime, but recovers those costs in paint, maintenance--and, hey, everything around here actually works!). Aboard the ITB Mobile, we were ordered to implement a different means of attacking inner-granular rust (and most other SIU-contracted vessels): Paint over it until you forget it's there.

When the Evamarine paint you're ordered to smear over salt, rust, grease, hydraulic oil, and everything in between, with minimal if any preparation work to the surface area, and five gallons of it costs roughly $400.00, it's not only careless and ineffective, it's not only brutally expensive for maritime Capital interests and investors who foot the bill, it's deliberate, and it's sabotage--but that's exactly you should expect when ship management companies reduce the crews to the point where they can't possibly hope to maintain that $120 million dollar ship without cutting a few corners, while at the same time undermining the interests of those few sailors who are left by signing substandard Labor Agreements with labor organizations managed by Leaders who apparently couldn’t care less about their Membership's interests.

If sailors take time to prepare steel surface area properly, lay on two coats of primer, one gray, the other red, hit it with several thick coats of paint, it'll take longer, and therefore it'll cost maritime Capital interests more in labor costs, but sailors won't have to revisit it again for a couple years, even longer if they rinse the thick layers of salt off with fresh water on a regular basis. They finish one job, move on to the next, and you begin to see significant progress.

On the other hand, if sailors don't take the time to prepare the surface area because the vessel is severely short-handed, and therefore they have neither the time nor the manpower, not to mention the inclination, you'll see rust reappear and spread within a couple of weeks, creating deep divots in the steel that only get deeper with time (weak points where pressurized cargo lines eventually rupture if they're not replaced--and there was no possible way to replace them all aboard the ITB Mobile, no matter how many foreign-nationals the Company was willing to fly over from Poland to exploit, a blatantly illegal business practice the SIU Leadership ignored for years).

If I know how ship management personnel think, they're reading this and concluding the best way to get results is by strong-arming crewmembers with written step-by-step policy. Well, okay, that might work. I doubt it, personally, but you can try.

Here's another approach to the same situation: Experienced sailors know how to do their jobs. Sailors new to the industry will learn if they see a future in it. If you provide them with the proper tools, provide them with incentives to work hard and efficiently, provide them with the appropriate manpower, and implement policy that makes them value rather than resent their jobs, they'll do whatever is necessary to protect your employer's $120-140 million dollar investment without being told precisely how to do it. As I stated earlier, they already know how to do it. If you're part of the Management Team, it's your job to encourage them to follow through.

The first step is to locate a labor organization that negotiates fairly on behalf of their Membership. From there, everything else will fall into place: If you won't or can't take care of your employees, allow their labor leaders to do it for you. In return, they'll see that it's in their best interest to take care of you. Just make sure you're dealing with the right labor leaders. Otherwise, forget it, none of this will work.

While all of this might sound hopelessly idealistic, let's not forget who explained it to me: a businessman everyone called "Bobby." Bobby wasn't some random businessman, either. He was the Chairman Emeritus of Alexander and Baldwin, Inc., and he was a true leader. We'll discuss his winning approach to business later. Right now I have to explain why I heard all that horrible screaming while painting the bow aboard the ITB Mobile.

A DAY IN THE LIFE OF AN AB WATCHSTANDER ABOARD THE ITB MOBILE

In published reports, Captain David John of Graig Ship Management criticised companies that used minimum legal manning levels as the basis for crewing their ships. "These low numbers inevitably lead to long working hours and fatique--unsafe ships manned by non-caring, lonely and desperate seaman. Such a situation did no good to Company or Seafarer.

"The day is fast coming," he went on to say, "when regulators must take a long, hard look at the current regulatory system from a practical view-point, and ensure that their principles of safe manny are actually worth anything at all. Sure, there would be added crew cost, but isn't that worth a more efficient and safer industry?"

Captain John "deplored" the growing difficulty for seafarers getting ashore and for charitable welfare organisations, such as The Mission to Seafarers, getting on board to make contact with them. "The Ship is fast becoming a prison for its crew." All the more reason then, he said, for the industry to appreciate the benefit of these organisations to seafarers, and to provide the necessary support to ensure their "long term survival."

To make up for self-imposed deficiencies demonstrated earlier, USS Chartering, Inc. didn’t ask for my help, they demanded it.

The 0400-0800 AB Watchstander’s schedule is grueling, to say the very least. You wake up at 0320 (3:20 am), drag yourself out of bed and prepare to assume the watch. Assuming the vessel is underway rather than in port, in which case turnover occurs by the gangway, you'll relieve the watch in the Wheelhouse. You’re probably exhausted from the day before, and your daily schedule—which I’ll illustrate for you now—explains why:

For someone who's never been an AB Watchstander before--has never stood in the Wheelhouse eight hours per day, every single day, month after month after month, for decades on end--negotiating a simple chair into the Labor Agreements on behalf of that AB Watchstander to use while on watch might, at first, seem trivial.

Not surprisingly, the Captain will always have a chair available to him in the Wheelhouse. It's a comfortable chair, too, like a throne, and nobody is permitted to use it but him. Okay, that makes sense, he's the Captain, he gets a chair. The Mate on watch will always have a chair, too. It'll be smaller than the Captain's chair, but it's comfortable, and he's the only one permitted to use it. With the exception of the English Channel, the Suez Canal, the Panama Canal, pilots are aboard for relatively short periods of time, yet there's always a chair available to him.

As for SUP AB Watchstanders, since their Labor Agreements require they focus their efforts on standing a proper look-out twenty-four hours per day, they, too, have a chair. If the ship they're aboard is midway across the Pacific Ocean, and nobody's reported vessel traffic in days, and you stepped into the Wheelhouse, they'd probably be using it, too. While driving in and out of port, they set it off to the side and stand behind the Helm--because it's a sign of deference to the Captain and the Pilot aboard, it's professionalism. The vast majority of the sailors SUP represents take pride in their careers, they define themselves as professional sailors, so they conduct themselves accordingly. And if they don't, the Captain and the Mate on watch are there for reminders.

So everyone--including non-union unlicensed personnel--has a chair available in the Wheelhouse with the exception of one group: SIU AB Watchstanders.

SIU AB Watchstanders are acutely aware of that fact, too. They're reminded of it every time they report to the Wheelhouse to stand a watch. And so they consistently demand their Leaders include a simple chair in Labor Agreement negotiations. In other words, we're talking about a chair, but it's more than a chair. We're questioning the Titled Twelve’s willingness to listen to the Membership's grievances, and we're questioning their motivations and powers at the negotiating table.

When questioned why a simple chair hasn't been included in Labor Agreement negotiations, and agreed upon, at times the Titled Twelve has responded along the lines of, "AB Watchstanders who sit down are lazy, and SIU AB Watchstanders aren't lazy," which sounds good when spoken with the proper conviction, but it's still meaningless. At other times they'll say, "We have more important things to negotiate," implying, of course, that the Membership's call for action ranks low on their priority list, if it makes the list at all.

After all, a chair is a simple request. It wouldn't be so trivial if the Titled Twelve could just produce one, yet they can't, or won't, neither of which bodes well for their powers of negotiation. If the Titled Twelve can't produce one, why not? Labor Leaders with no skeletons hanging in their closet can, and have. If the Titled Twelve can't produce one, it's time SIU's Membership replaces them en masse with people who can. If the Titled Twelve won't produce one, why not? Don't the Members' call for action matter? Is SIU a democracy, or is it a dictatorship?

For the next four hours, you'll approach this matter from every conceivable angle while you STAND your watch.

At 0750, your relief will show up. Instead of having 45 minutes to eat, like everyone else aboard, you’ll have ten minutes (the Bos’n could have given me a half an hour, but he was what most sailors would call a Company-man, so he decided ten minutes was adequate). So hurry up, grab yourself a bowl of cold cereal, grab your gear, and meet the Bos’n behind the ship’s house. Lousy weather or not, you’re working overtime. On this ship, it’s mandatory. Otherwise, they’ll fire you.

For the next four hours you’ll reduce your average hourly wage by working overtime. If that sounds untrue, do the math. You’ll find the numbers to work with detailed at the bottom of this entry. Okay, let’s just assume you’re finished, and now you agree with me. Let’s move on. Lucky for you, it’s not sleeting outside. Instead, it’s sweltering hot, and you’re working on a huge, slow-moving, steel ITB that absorbs heat exceedingly well. Get used to it, says the Bos'n. This is paint weather. The Bos’n has a ship-sized deck to worry about, reduced manpower, antiquated tools, he’s tired, he’s severely underpaid, just like you, so stop grumbling, skip the appropriate prep-work involved and start smearing paint over all that rust. It’s covered in salt and grease? Too bad, keep working, we’re pulling into Point Comfort around midnight tonight, and we’ve got ship management personnel coming aboard tomorrow morning.

You’ll continue painting over rust until 11:45, at which time you’re free to spend the next fifteen minutes cleaning your brush, trekking back to the house, and it's a long trek, too, and scrubbing the paint off your hands there. If it takes a few extra minutes to clean out your brush properly, too bad, working for free is your problem. Around here, it’s bell-to-bell, no exceptions. We—meaning you, not the Chief Mate—don’t write in extra overtime for anything, even when it's deserved.

About the time everyone else aboard is finished eating, you’ll stagger into the mess hall. In terms of morale, the Chief Steward's the man most directly responsible, and right now he's ticked off because it’s 12:10pm, and he had to wait for you. While standing there, watching him shovel re-heated leftovers onto your plate, you’re acutely aware the food’s going to taste horrible. Here’s one of many big reasons why: food stuffs are included in negotiations between the Company and the Titled Twelve. However, unlike SUP Labor Agreements, where you’ll see every single line item the ship is required to carry listed right there for everyone to examine, you’ll find no such equivalent in the SIU Standard Labor Agreement you’re presently working under.

Of course, the required food stuffs list does exist—the Chief Steward’s got it locked in his room—but he’s highly unlikely to show it to you, because if you ever grabbed hold of it, you'd photocopy it, and if that happened, you and everyone that follows would hold him accountable. Once it circulated throughout the ship, the entire crew could question why he didn’t order this or that while the ship was in port, and that just doesn’t work well for him. Limiting accountability from anyone other than the Captain by witholding it from the Labor Agreement was designed to limit if not eliminate accountability, not encourage it.

Granted, he might be a decent Steward, he might actually keep you in mind while doing his job—but that’s totally up to him. In fact, SIU represents some of the finest Stewards in the world--heck, some of them are gourmet chefs. It seems there used to be a lot more of those gourmet chefs around, but as wages stagnated or lagged behind annual cost of living increases, as Steward's Department, generally, lost personnel between one Labor Agreement negotiation and the next, thereby increasing work loads and reducing work conditions, many of them retired, or they abandoned the industry for jobs on the beach. Not all of them, of course, but enough to notice, as you've leap-frogged from one ship to the next.

If you worked ashore, you could simply look elsewhere for something to eat if the food looked grotesque, but you don’t, you can't, you work on a ship, your choices are limited to eating or not eating, so if this Steward's half as bad as the permenant Steward aboard the Horizon Reliance (was), there’s an excellent chance you’ll entertain thoughts of leaping over the counter and attacking him three times per day for the next six months. Maybe you'll even do it.

(Normally I weigh 161 lbs--it's one constant in my life. While aboard the Horizon Reliance, however, which we'll ravage in due time, I dropped 17 lbs during a thirty-five day voyage because of the Steward. Did it lighten my spirits, make me a more productive worker? Of course not. Quite the contrary.)

It’s 12:30 pm, you’re finished gagging on the Steward’s reheated leftovers. You'll see them again tonight in yet another form: night lunch. As you retire to your room for a half an hour break before it’s time to get back to work, the Chief Cook apologizes for the lousy food. It’s not his fault. He’s not the one ordering supplies, he’s not the one who makes up the menus, and you say don’t worry about it, friend, it’s not your fault, it’s the Chief Steward’s fault—he’s the one who’s permanent, he’s the one we can’t get rid of because he’s kissing the Old Man’s ass. With that said, you say thanks anyway, and you retire to your room. If you had just a little more time, maybe you could catch a nap, but you don’t, so instead you chain-smoke to keep from nodding off. Nodding off sounds pleasant, but the waking up to return to work part—ugh. That’s rough. Better just stay awake.

At 1300, instead of returning to your can of paint, you start in on port preperations. The midday sun is a killer. There’s no shade anywhere. Not even you cast a shadow. All you can do is sweat and work. Water all around but not a drop to drink. If you try to sneak back to the water fountain, there’s always that chance you’ll run into the Captain, the Chief Mate or the Bosun, all of whom are permanent crewmembers, whereas you’re not, you’re rotary, so you’re the odd man out. If one of those guys spot you, you’ll catch hell for sneaking off to grab something cold to drink. They might even fire you. Better just keep working.

But you’re not really working. You’re out there, you’re moving around, you’re visible from the Bridge, but you’re in no big hurry to get much done. You're just burning time, going through the motions. All you can think about is how this whole system has been rigged to work against you. If you worked under a fair Labor Agreement, you’d work like you were working on your own home, the one you so seldom see.

A woman lives there and some kids, they’re yours, but you don’t know them anymore, they don’t know you. You’re just some guy who comes and goes and sends a little money home on an unreliable basis, nothing that can be counted on to establish a decent life. Maybe after you get off this ship you’ll get home and find the house empty. What's amazing is that your wife hasn't packed the kids and left already. She probably has a live-in boyfriend while you're away. Couldn't blame her if she did.

This wasn't the life you promised her, that's for sure. Wealth, power, influence--those were never driving motivations in life. She knew you never wanted to be rich--it wasn't among your life's aspirations. Of course, if you won the lottery, great. Otherwise, all you really asked for was your fair share of the pie. Early on in your career, you got it. Not anymore, though. Things changed. Now this job is killing you. It takes and takes and takes until you have nothing left to give. Something you needed to survive flickered, and then it was gone. Hope.

Until 1430 you continue to assist the Bos’n and the other Watchstanders with port preperations, one of whom is should be in the Wheelhouse standing look-out for vessel traffic, but of course he's not. Pulling thousands of feet worth of hawsers out of the boxes is back-breaking work. After that you’re ordered to pre-stage fire-fighting gear. If there was a fire aboard this ship, there’s little chance you’d survive battling the blaze, not with so few hands aboard, but you’re required by law to put your life in harm’s way if one ever ignites—Shipping Companies and Insurance Companies made sure it was written into law long ago. With so few hands aboard, maintaining the firefighting equipment properly is virtually impossible, not with all the other work that needs to be done.

At 1430, the others continue working, but you finally get to knock off overtime, take a shower, maybe sleep for fifteen or twenty minutes before it’s time to assume the watch in the Wheelhouse again. You won’t sleep well. You never do. Your room is directly above the starboard engine, so it’s always hot and loud. All you can do is lie there for awhile, semiconscious, until the phone rings. Hearing it is almost painful. In this tiny room it’s as loud as the fire alarm, which reminds you that there will probably be a fire and boat drill tomorrow.

It’s difficult to say which is worse, working out in the hot sun, or climbing into one of those fire suits. They’re so heavy and awkward. On any other day you’d be working, you'd be making a little bit of money, not much, but when it comes to fire and abandon ship drills, you’re required to work, you’re required to participate, but you’re not paid, so the Captain drags the drills out forever. The Coast Guard requires one drill per month. This guy figures four looks better on paper. Since it's your time, not his, not the company's, he can afford to be liberal with what he demands of you. If there was a fire on this ship, we’d all be doomed. There’s simply not enough of us to combat a fire fueled by 300,000 barrels of MTBE. We couldn’t possibly contain a spill in the event of a collision, either. My god I’m exhausted. Better get up to the Wheelhouse. It’s time to assume the watch.

So that’s what you do, you head up to the Wheelhouse and assume the watch. Immediately, the Mate tells you to report to the Bos'n. You’re required to work out on deck from 1600 until 1700. Great, you think. That’s just what you wanted to do, work long enough to cover my hands in paint, then report back to the Wheelhouse after the evening meal hour—which, for you, is really the evening meal half-hour. As usual, the food’s horrible. You’re hot, sweaty, normally you shower yet again after your evening watch, but it never seems to help, you still feel dirty. Finally 1950 rolls around, your relief shows up, and that’s what you do—you shower, you spend fifteen minutes writing down your overtime, you collapse onto a mattress that hasn’t been replaced in years, so it’s stained with urine and vomit, just like your pillow, and it’s likely infested.

You woke up this morning at 0300, but between breakfast, lunch, that short break between 1430 and 1550, if you can even call that a break, dinner, watch, and just getting cleaned up and ready for bed, the reality of your life is that you’re working eighteen hour days, but on paper you’re only working thirteen and a half. Mentally, physically, you’re exhausted, this lifestyle is making you older than your years, and you have to wake up in a couple of hours to tie up the ship in Point Comfort, TX.

Thank god you're not a crewmember. You're an investigator. You're jumping off this ship as soon as its pier-side. No reason to stay. You've seen enough to know nothing here works in anyone's favor. Complete deregulation sounded possible until you experienced the results.

(Continue working here)

I can't believe I just found this. I wanted to double-check the dimensions of an Integrated Tug and Barge, and look what I stumbled across in the process: indisputable proof that signing substandard Labor Agreements with notoriously corrupt labor leaders--the McKay gangsters--was a very bad idea. Read this:

Date: July 20, 2005

Contact: Lt. Ian Bird
(409) 723-6585

COAST GUARD INVESTIGATES BARGE GROUNDING

PORT ARTHUR, Texas – Investigators from Coast Guard Marine Safety Office Port Arthur are monitoring the grounding of the Integrated Tug and Barge (ITB) Mobile approximately 1.5 miles south of the Sabine Jetties here today.

No injuries have been reported, and initial inspections of the 691-foot U.S.-flagged ITB have found no flooding, loss of cargo or fuel.

Mobile’s owner, ITB Mobile LLC, has made an attempt to remove the ship from its hard-aground position without success. Additional tug boats are being called to the scene to assist with the removal operation and are expected to be on scene today.

The vessel is not obstructing navigation, and the port remains open to traffic.

Mobile was en route to Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., with approximately 330,000 barrels of gasoline and diesel fuel at the time of the grounding.

An ITB is a barge that is pushed by a tug boat that has been specifically designed for that barge.
The cause of this accident is under investigation by MSO Port Arthur.

(Continue working here)
_____________________________________________________________________
DISPARITIES IN PROFESSIONALISM

As the maritime industry stands today, there are massive disparities in professionalism between the SIU sailors working deep sea and SUP Sailors--and here's a big reason why: money. Intelligent sailors investigate wages throughout the SIU fleet—-throughout the industry--and follow the money. Morons stick with what's easy, and what's easy is finding a job aboard an SIU-contracted vessel operating deep sea that pays slave wages (cruise ships, for example, and oil tankers, chemical tankers, the lowest paying jobs in the American fleet, ironically enough, because, from Capital's standpoint, they're also among the most profitable ships to operate).

It's difficult but not impossible to measure the disparities in professionalism between disgruntled SIU sailors working deep-sea and SUP sailors (again, if SIU sailors working deep sea are non-productive, if they're not "professionals," it's largely because they A.) haven't worked in the industry long enough to master their trade, politically and professionally, and/or B.) they're retaliating the only way they can against labor management mechanisms that undermine their interests--at least presently).

SIU sailors working on the Great Lakes don't rank among the finest sailors in the world because they are the finest sailors in the world. If they've got competition for those bragging rights, deep sea, it comes not from sailors affiliated with their own union, but rather from sailors affiliated with Sailors Union of the Pacific.

When taken as a whole, Sailor's Union of the Pacific indeed represents the best of the best deep sea sailors, and because of recruiting policies they're implementing, they're getting even better, faster.

Until recently, the average age of an SUP sailor was 56 years old, which translates to an experienced, knowledgeable, and might I add "professional" sailor, one that has weathered the most vicious of political storms in the maritime industry.

The average age of the SUP sailor, however, is declining fast--and for all the right reasons, from maritime Capital's perspective. To begin with, when the 80% of SIU Apprentices mentioned earlier are considering their options--that is to say: abandon the industry, or locate a labor organization they find favorable--a sizable percentage are choosing the latter, and so they're abandoning SIU in favor of SUP, which naturally reduces the average age of SUP sailors.

Secondly, Military Sealift Command and Sailors Union of the Pacific are working on a progressive joint venture, one designed to revitalize their respective labor pools as manning requirements increase, both in the military and commercial sectors, and to do so in such a way that's appealing to those considering career paths in the maritime industry (unfortunately I'll have to wait to detail the MSC/SUP recruitment process until I receive recruitment literature from officials--but I have seen it in action, and since then I've discussed it at length with maritime Capital interests at the executive level, and the results are extremely positive, both for maritime Capital and Labor).

If maritime Capital interests in the commercial sector outside of those I have spoken with personally are weighing their options, if they're in the process of locating a labor organization that represents knowledgeable and increasingly younger sailors--strong backs, for lack of a better word--then before they rush to sign Labor Agreements with SIU, they might want to hold off until they've investigated what SUP has to offer.

Maritime Capital interests--or ship management companies, for that matter--have the option of throwing money at labor problems aimlessly. Something tells me SIU's Leadership won't turn it down. It's called common sense.

However, even if SIU wages were adjusted to compete with SUP wages, even if the language in SUP Labor Agreements was stolen, re-written, and implemented in SIU Labor Agreements, unless all maritime Capital interests operating under the American flag engaged in this hypothetical effort to correct problems plaguing the maritime industry en masse voluntarily--even if this policy shift was executed by force of law tomorrow--maritime Capital interests that want to correct problems and reduce if not eliminate hidden costs detailed throughout this expose would still face a considerable lag time. Long-term problems would be diluted, not necessarily fixed, as SIU-affiliated sailors with union seniority abandoned lower-paying jobs in favor of higher-paying jobs, or alternated between the two indefinitely, while newly indoctrinated sailors attempted to do the same. If maritime Capital interests--or ship management companies, for that matter--want immediate results, they need to consider allowing current Labor Agreements to expire in favor of Labor Agreements with alternative labor pools within the American labor market, thereby eliminating that lag time instantaneously. While SUP sailors might appear to cost maritime Capital interests considerably more, those costs, all of them, including hidden costs not addressed on the bottom line, need to be reviewed and reconsidered: the additional labor costs to Capital's bottom line would be minimal, while the monetary additions to sailors' pay is substantial. And so, from Capital’s perspective, it's really a matter of choosing the right labor pool managed by the right people, and thereby channeling the majority of those monies into the hands of those most deserving: the sailors themselves.

(Continue working here)
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Enslaving Mariners Endangers Passengers But Nets Billions

If the Titled Twelve are bad for America, they're by no means the worst.

Just drop by Micky Arison's home in Bal Harbor and ask how he became the richest billionaire in Florida, and he'll tell you: His family owns foreign-flagged cruise ships, lots of them (45 worldwide), that sap billions out of the American economy each year. His father, Ted Arison, started Carnival Cruise Lines in 1972. Micky assumed power in 1979 at the wise old age of 26.

Not surprisingly, Carnival Cruise Lines had a very rocky start when its first ship, the former ocean liner Mardi Gras, ran aground off Miami on its maiden voyage. Ted's competitors made fun of him by offering "Mardi Gras on the Rock" drinks aboard their ships.

To get even, instead of conforming to the Jones Act, Ted shoved them out of the cruise line business (temporarily) by continuing to foreign-flag his vessels, thereby creating an unfair playing field, tipping the odds of success heavily in his favor. While his competition followed the rules established in the Jones Act and the Passenger Services Act, built their ships here in America, hired American sailors, paid American taxes, conformed to American safety regulations, abided by American labor laws, Ted, and later Micky, was able to slow them down considerably by ignoring those responsibilities.

I have yet to meet Micky myself, but people say he's a nice guy, someone with an open-door policy, but let's face the facts: even nice guys with open-door policies know unethical business practices like legalized slavery aboard foreign-flag vessels permitted at present to service American ports provide one heck of an advantage over domestic competitors who protect their passengers by following the law, and ultimately strengthening the American economy.

Micky's not the only one, either. All major cruise lines, including Royal Caribbean, Norwegian, Carnival, Princess, Holland America, Celebrity and Crystal, have "foreign-flagged" vessels.

The Passenger Services Act

When American presidents on both sides of the aisle demonstrate support an Act despite foreign opposition for more than a century, it says something.

The Passenger Vessel Act was created on June 19 of 1886 by the forty ninth Congress, and can be found in U.S. law under Chapter 421[15] Section 8, 24 Stat. 8. It states, basically, “That foreign vessels found transporting passengers between places or ports in the United States , when such passengers have been taken on board in the United States , shall be liable to a fine of two dollars for every passenger landed.”

The Fifty Fifth Congress amended the act on February 17, 1898. Chapter 26[16], section 2, 30 Stat. 248. The amendment changes the penalty from two dollars to two hundred, proving that, when pressured, Congress is more than capable of influencing an otherwise lawless domain.

According to the amendment, Sec 8: “No foreign vessel shall transport passengers between ports of places in the United States, either directly or by way of foreign ports or places in the United States , either directly or by way of a foreign port, under a penalty of two hundred dollars for each passenger so transported and landed.”

The law now appears in the United States Code under 46 App. USCA 289 (1996) as: “No foreign vessel shall transport passengers between ports or places in the United States, either directly or by way of a foreign port, under a penalty of $200 for each passenger so transported and landed.”

The Jones Act

After World War I, the Senate Commerce Committee, whose chairman was Senator Wesley L. Jones of Washington, conducted a study to determine what should be done with vessels financed and owned by US taxpayers, and operated by the U.S. government. It resulted in the Merchant Marine Act of 1920, containing a policy declaration that it was necessary for the national defense and for the proper growth of foreign and domestic commerce that the U.S. have a merchant marine of the best equipped and most suitable types of vessels sufficient to carry the greater portion of its commerce and serve as a navel or military auxiliary in time of war or national emergency, ultimately to be owned and operated privately by U.S. citizens. It became known as the Jones Act.

The Jones Act requires that no merchandise transported by water between US ports is to be carried "in any other vessel than a vessel built and documented under the laws of the United States and owned by persons who are citizens of the United States."

Overview of Stakeholders:

1.) pro-cabotage/pro-America
2.) anti-cabotage/anti-America

Pro-cabotage/pro-America interests include:

--Defense Interests
--Shipyards
--Unions: AFL-CIO maritime trade unions
--U.S. Flagged Ships
--Coalition: Maritime Cabotage Task Force
--Presidents have stated support for the Jones Act for more than a century

anti-cabotage/anti-American interests include:

--Free Traders
--Travel and Tourism Agencies
--Agricultural Interests
--Port Authorities
--Port Cities
--New Money, Big Business
--Foreign Cruise Interests, Foreign Commercial Shipping Interests (like Maersk)

Basically, on the pro-cabotage/pro-America side, the political parties supporting Cabotage laws are: Democrats and hard line Republicans. Democrats support the laborers for Cabotage, and hard right Republicans support defense interests.

Other pro-cabotage/pro-America interests include: patriotic unions--who might be angry with but still ultimately loyal to the U.S. flag business, patriotic US-flagged ship operators who wish to maintain restrictions on the coastwise movement of foreign flagged operators, and patriotic Defense interests who understand why it's vitally important that the US maintains shipbuilding skills, ships, and crew for the ready reserve. It's widely suspected Osama bin Laden is funding his terrorist organization with revenue generated through maritime trades, and no red-blooded American wants his ships undermining American interests by shipping American cargo from one American port to the next--but without restrictions, like the Jones Act, that would be entirely legal.

On the anti-cabotage/anti-American side, parasitic travel and tourism agencies side with Port Authorities and Port cities that could, without question, pressure foreign-flag interests to re-flag their vessels to America and abide by American law. Agricultural interests who know that cabotage sabotage will minimize shipping and freight costs for their goods, thereby maximizing their profits. New-money businesses who demand absolute freedom from laws and social responsibilities, and of course rabid exploiters like Micky Arison, who demonstrate little if any allegiance to this country, and who either don't understand or don't appreciate the stability the Middle-class provides American society as a whole. If Micky wants to prove his allegiance to this country, for no other reason than good publicity, he always has the option of re-flagging his ships to America, and protecting his passengers by following American law. In doing so, I strongly suspect he'd see a radical increase in his profit margin--and that's fine, that's the American dream in action--but only under these circumstances would he benefit this great nation rather than leeching off it.

Here's what the Carnival Cruise Lines Employment Profile says to ensnare cheap, bottom-of-the-barrel employees:

"Carnival Cruise Line:

"The 'Fun Ships'- that is exactly what the Carnival ships are. More affordable cruises, lots of neon lights, not that much elegance and formal atmosphere. Carnival is catering towards younger passengers and the main objective aboard the vessels is party, party and party again. That makes Carnival the richest cruise line in the world (the company owns also Holland America Cruise Line, Costa Cruises, Seabourn Cruise Line, Cunard Line and Windstar Cruises) which operate independently as separate brands and target a more upscale clientele). What can employees expect from Carnival? Slightly lower salaries and somewhat lower standards when selecting candidates comparing to most of the other major cruise lines. Carnival crew members are like their clientele, they like to party and most of them believe that the more "loose" atmosphere and the presence of younger passengers makes up for the slightly lower salaries.”

Interpretation: If you want to work aboard one of Carnival Cruise Line's ships, your motivations shouldn't include paying bills at home--because these are "Fun Ships," where "the main objective is to party, party, party." As someone who's been investigating the industry, a "loose atmosphere," to me, and to anyone with common sense, really means: visualize passengers, many of whom are drunken college students, as sex partners, load up on booze with them; once you're stumbling drunk, go stand your watch in the Wheelhouse, but try not to do anything stupid, like kill everyone aboard by slamming the ship into an island or another ship, expect shared living accommodations to be cramped, accept that Third World pay is something you're powerless to change.

What you'll notice while examining pay aboard cruise ships is that the Captain's pay is half that of your average taxi driver in New York--and it only gets worse:

Captain's Salary: $5800 U.S. dollars a month.

Staff Captain Salary: $5000 U.S. dollars a month, depending on the cruise line.

First Officer Salary: $3700 U.S. dollars a month, depending on the cruise line.

Second Officer (designated navigation officer) Salary: $2800 U.S. dollars a month, depending on the cruise line.

Third Officer (designated navigation officer) Salary: $2500 U.S. dollars a month, depending on the cruise line.

Junior Third Officer Salary: $1900 U.S. dollars a month, depending on the cruise line.

Security Officer (handles all shipboard security for the vessel , drugs interdiction) Salary: $2200 U.S. dollars a month, depending on the cruise line.

Security Personnel Salary: $1600 U.S. dollars a month, depending on the cruise line.

Safety Officer (responsible for passenger and crew safety drills, abandon ship procedures, crew safety training, supervision of ships tenders) Salary: $2400 U.S. dollars a month, depending on the cruise line.

Bosun Salary: $1600 U.S. dollars a month, depending on the cruise line.

Seaman Salary: $1400 U.S. dollars a month, depending on the cruise line.

Deck Attendant Salary: $900 U.S. dollars a month, depending on the cruise line

If you're thinking: "Well, a staff captain's salary is $5,000 per month--that's $60,000 a year, and that's not so bad," then I must explain how this works.

First off, everyone's salary, meaning: no overtime pay for anyone. This explains why sailors aboard cruise ships work a bare minimum of twelve hours per day, seven days a week, as long as they're aboard (from 4 to 10 months for ordinary crewmembers; Captains, on the other hand, typically work six months per year, like it or not, slashing that $60,000 per year down to $30,000 per year).

Once you divide the Staff Captain's salary, $5,000, by the number of hours he'll work per month, minimum, 360, you'll realize he earns $13.88 per hour. At the bottom of the pay scale you'll find deck attendants earn $2.50 per hour or less, again, depending on the vessel. When you're earning $2.50 per hour or less, you can't quit. What are you going to do, spend four months' income flying home? Americans can't possibly survive on $2.50 per hour, Cruise Line executives know that, so who do they hire? Not the kind of people I'd trust with my life, that's for sure.

Because remember, if the ship starts sinking, of if it catches fire, the Captain, who's required to speak fluent English before he's hired--and probably has a very sexy Latin accent for good measure--won't be the one loading half-drunk and totally hysterical passengers into lifeboats.

That responsibility will fall to lower-ranking personnel. If they can't speak English fluently because Carnival Cruise Lines didn't make it a prerequisite for employment for all hands aboard, and hired them straight out of the Third World to keep labor costs at an absolute bare minimum, when the ship's sinking fast and chaos overcomes reason, passengers--mostly Americans--will realize they made a huge mistake purchasing tickets to "party, party, party" aboard a foreign-flagged vessel. Fortunately for Carnival Cruise Line and their competition, complications that inevitably arise when crewmembers don't speak the same language as passengers won't be passed along to potential ticket-buyers back on "the beach," because consumer-image complications have a way of simplifying themselves once disgruntled passengers aboard a sinking ship are dead.

Who works for $13.88 per hour? Not Micky. Unlike his employees, he's in it for money--the Big Money.

According to Forbes magazine: "His Miami-based cruise operation is the largest in the world, carrying over 3.1 million passengers each year to the Caribbean, Hawaii, the Mediterranean, the South Pacific and other destinations. Carnival Cruise Lines, the mass market K-mart of cruises and the most profitable of Carnival's (NYSE: CCL) six brands, last week added another liner, the Carnival Spirit, bringing Carnival's fleet to 45 ships.

"Almost everyone in the industry"--who, exactly? Not his employees, that's for sure--"considers Arison, 51, a top-flight manager who helped secure Carnival's 35% market share and turn it into a $16.3 billion [empire at his employees' expense]," raves Forbes Magazine.

Micky's sister won't work for $13.88 per hour, either. Again, according to Forbes Magazine:

Sharis Arison
Net Worth: $2.4 billion
Country of citizenship: Israel
Marital Status: divorced (did she demand alimony?), 4 children
University of Florida

"Israel's richest resident, Shari Arison, worth $2.4 Billion dollars, had an eventful year. Carnival Cruise, in which she inherited a stake from late father Ted Arison, is close to becoming the largest leisure cruise line in the world. No small feat: Carnival chief executive, Micky Arison (Shari's brother) beat out Shari's fellow Israeli billionaires, the Ofer brothers, in a quest to buy P&O Princess Cruise. Newly divorced, Shari also holds a stake in Bank Hapoalim, Israel's biggest, where she retains a seat on the board. Also owns an interest in Eurocom, Nokia's exclusive distributor in that country. Arison's holding company is being bandied in the press as a possible buyer of Bezeq, Israel's state-owned phone company, which has toyed with privatization for years. Her most active role is in Matan, a charity she founded modeled after the United Way."

Was daddy Arison in it for the money?

According to Dan Gerstenfeld, who writes for Amotz Asa-el, when Ted Arison died in Tel Aviv, Israel, October 8, 1999, at the age of 75, he was worth somewhere between $6 and $10 billion dollars, making him the wealthiest Jew in Israel. So, yes, he was definitely in it for the money.

He had been born in Zichron Ya'acov in 1924, and immigrated to the United States in the 1950s because his own government took measures to prevent him from enslaving fellow Jews aboard his cruise ships. He was bitter about it, too, muttering that his own government had "obstructed free enterprise."

Poor Ted.

After Ted had reestablished slavery off the coast of America, and sapped billions from the American economy, he promptly dumped his US citizenship and returned to Israel in 1990, where his investment group became a leading economic influence. By then he had made Forbes magazine's list of the 400 richest people in the world, with "estimates ranging from $6 billion to $10 billion." (Heck, everyone I know would be happy with that $4 billion dollar margin they couldn't verify.)

He returned to the Israeli business scene in 1994, when he purchased from the Histadrut a controlling share in the Shikun Ufituah construction company, now the largest such firm in Israel.

In 1997 Ted purchased a controlling share in Bank Hapoalim, Israel's largest bank.

Two years ago, his investment group purchased a 43 percent stake in Bank Hapoalim for more than $1 billion -- the largest privatization deal ever done in Israel.

The purchase of Bank Hapoalim, Israeli socialism's flagship and largest business entity, by a man who at least in his own view had fallen victim to an anti-capitalistic government was a twisted form of vengeance.

His road to purchasing the Shikun Ufituah construction firm is believed to have been at least partly paved by a close relationship with then-Histadrut Chairman Haim Ramon.

Shortly after Ted's death, his business activities were inherited by his son and daughter, Micky and Shari, with the former heading the Miami-based Carnival, and the latter, who is a Hapoalim board member, taking over the Israeli operations.

Let's not forget that Ted was "extremely active on Israel's philanthropic scene," according to Dan Gerstenfeld. He went so far as to donate Ichilov Hospital's helicopter landing pad (What? A landing pad? You mean, a slab of concrete? How generous!).

"Trickle-down economics," my ass.

With billions at the surviving Arisons' disposal, and so little vision between them, there's no reason to question why politicians like Senator Fritz Hollings and Senator John McCain--who I normally agree with and admire--are merely puppets hired by foreign interests to undermine the Jones Act, knowing full well it won't be healthy for America. They call it reform, they call it commercial diplomacy, but what it really amounts to is providing foreign-flagged operators unrestricted access to American markets, and therefore unlimited advantage to cripple domestic maritime Capital interests.

Why else would John McCain sponsor Jones Act "reform"? Last I heard, California hasn't parted from the mainland, therefore Arizona lacks beach-front property, much less a tourist industry based on maritime-related interests. Then again, living in the desert does, quite literally, "insulate you from politics," doesn’t it, John, because, let's face it: If Arizona was directly involved with the maritime industry, and therefore your constituents faced immediate threat from you undermining the Jones Act, they'd likely give the Jones Act as much thought as illegal aliens running through their back yards at night and stealing their jobs come morning, and they'd definitely throw you out of office in a big hurry if/when their interests were swamped in crude oil carried by a foreign-flagged tanker operating between one American fuel depot and the next once they realized you sponsored catastrophe.

As for you, Kathleen Magee, I read your Master's Project, "US Cabotage Laws: Protective or Damaging?" and I might have laughed my way through it except that I was too afraid considering just who might take it seriously. Behind the smoke and mirrors you presented, none of which was especially convincing, I have to believe that even you realize marginalizing if not eliminating significant portions of the Jones Act would be incredibly harmful to America as a whole.

Owners of foreign-flagged cruise ships sapping billions out of the American economy each year don't need Jones Act "reform" to increase competitive advantage over foreign competition because they are the foreign competition, Katherine, we both know that. They hire people like you to convince the American public that marginalizing some if not all of the Jones Act is really a great idea for everybody, because, if they ever succeed, if they ever convince the general public that lie is the truth, they stand to increase their already staggering profit margins by only god-knows how much via unrestricted access to the world's most profitable consumer market.
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Who polices cruise ships?

The answer is simple: Good question.

When Greenpeace activists posing as passengers filmed crewmembers ordered by cruise line executives to throw ton after ton of plastics into the ocean off the coast of Florida in order to save the cruise lines money, they turned that footage over to media organizations that aired the footage on national television. US Government officials had no choice but to address problems it had been dodging for, well, forever. So, when pressured and only when pressured, US Government officials can persuade cruise line executives to implement common sense into policy via force of law, even with regards to the most mobile industry in the world, the maritime industry. Thanks to Greenpeace and the like, not cruise line executives, US Government officials have taken action in the past, and have prevailed over cruise line executives with regards to enforcing environmental laws that protect the general public.

Because passengers—the general public—were projectile vomiting all over the place, and were forced to file one lawsuit after another against cruise lines due to food poisoning, year after year after year, lawyers took action, of course. Yet again, US Government officials couldn’t dodge inherent responsibilities associated with public office: protecting the general public. They had to take action.

Wouldn’t you know it? Now at least twice per year cruise lines will comply with US health inspections. While that might sound like a huge step forward, it’s not, unfortunately for the public. Inspectors must arrange their inspections with the cruise lines prior to boarding vessels, so executives know when they’re coming, so do shipboard personnel.

Of course, none of this was voluntary on the part of cruise line executives, despite what they prefer you believe. Due to popular demand, government officials had no choice but to set aside political favors and campaign contributions, and to manhandle their keepers through force of law—and that is a very real threat, if you happen to be a cruise line executive profiting off a multitude of public endangerment issues, like risking passengers’ lives by hiring crewmembers responsible for food preparation, engine maintenance, and the safe navigation of the vessel straight out of the jungles of Central America, for example, to reduce labor costs to nothing.

As for protecting passengers via protecting crewmembers by enforcing US labor laws aboard foreign-flagged cruise lines leeching off the American economy—well, a lot of very concerned US citizens are working on it.

A man by the name of Charles Lipcom is one of them. Cruise line executives call him an ambulance chaser and a vulture because he’s an attorney, whereas cruise line passengers and employees think of him as more of a godsend—because at least this guy will stand tall and explain the complexities involved with Admiralty Law to crewmembers and the general public.

"It's not like there's one rule book," he’ll tell you, and he should know: he specializes in maritime personal-injury cases on behalf of plaintiffs who learned the hard way it’s dangerous to risk your life aboard a foreign-flagged cruise ship. When it comes to protecting passengers aboard cruise ships, there are layers of laws as well as the international treaties to consider. "It's a really complex area."

The world's maritime industries are governed by international treaties that allow ships, no matter where they are based, no matter where they operate, to be registered in a foreign country and fly the flag of that nation, he's explained. These flag states have primary authority for enforcing the treaties that cover issues such as safety and pollution.

But ships also must deal with regulations in countries they visit. Which U.S. laws apply depends on how they are written and interpreted.

There's been a "sort of a nibbling away" at the notion that the flag state is supreme, Lipcom has said before.

In the case of environmental laws and the ADA, U.S. waters and U.S. citizens are directly affected.

Foreign-flagged cruise line companies—which make most of their money luring North American passengers into an inherently dangerous environment, the ocean–are notorious for dodging laws and safety standards whenever possible. Cruise line executives are “free traders” at the most reckless, so they incorporate in places like Panama, the Bahamas, Liberia, Cyprus, I even remember spotting a vessel registered in Mongolia—and these are obviously countries that are powerless to enforce laws within their own boarders, much less aboard ships. Liberia, for example, has been reduced to rubble by civil war. They’re not about to send safety inspectors anywhere to enforce laws of any kind aboard ships flying their flag.

"The US is gradually extending some of its laws to all vessels operating in its territorial waters or that do business with it," says Edmund Welch, legislative director for the Passenger Vessel Association, a trade group for US-flagged vessels, which nowadays are generally smaller cruise ships, ferries and dinner boats.

Marginalizing US Labor Laws

Now the United States is looking at labor laws. If cruise lines flew US flags, they would have to employ US citizens, as well as have US ownership, and the ships themselves would have to be built right here in America.

To billionaire cruise line executives like Micky Arison, the thought of hiring even the lowliest American scab is intolerable. Instead, they’d rather postpone the inevitable until the cruise line industry has helped create what Rulers consider a suitable labor base—one that’s immense and desperately impoverished—in Miami, arguing that they provide good jobs at better salaries than their Third World employees could make in their own countries. Good jobs, they say. Engine maintenance workers not mentioned earlier, for example, earn between $500 and $900 a month, working 12 to 16 hours per day, seven days a week, for months on end, according to Charles Lipcom.

Because old and new US ship-builders/owners who want to follow the law, who want to implement ethics into their business plan, know they can’t compete with Third World wages, the United States hasn't launched a major cruise ship in more than 40 years, and that’s just the way billionaires Micky and Shari Arison like it: minimal competition from like-minded, unethical Industry Leaders like themselves (that's changing, but we'll come back to it at the appropriate time).

Wage and hour laws were written decades ago, when the cruise line industry was far more beneficial to the American economy than it is today. Until Reagan charmed his way into office, the cruise line industry was managed by a sort of gentleman’s club—like-minded capitalists who competed with one another, but ultimately agreed it was in everyone’s best interest if they shared the wealth by including sensible forms of socialism into corporate policy.

It wasn’t bleeding-heart generosity that guided their thinking, either. They simply understood that if you want to be fantastically wealthy, it’s okay, society will let you, ordinary citizens will even cheer you along, but you must agree to share the wealth. Otherwise, society destabilizes, it tears itself apart. As a member of the Ruling Class, you know it’s reached that point when someone throws a torch through your bedroom window in the middle of the night, and you see all your neighbors—your employees, the ones who toil 14 to 16 hours a day and still live in squalor—surrounding your house with hatchets and pitchforks, which undoubtedly sounds crazy, but that’s what happened during Shay’s Rebellion.

Since then the Ruling Class has installed cameras everywhere, hired private armies to ward off the barbarian hordes, as they see society, built walls around their mansions, installed bullet-proof windows in their limousines, demanded the US Government pour taxpayer dollars into SWAT teams to protect them from taxpayers, but we all saw the infamous LA Bank Robbery. Two desperate crazies armed with AK-47s firing 10 rounds per second took the LAPD head on, and they didn’t seem the least bit intimidated by video taped evidence—or, for that matter, SWAT teams. As far as anyone knows, they didn’t have political assassination in mind, either. They just wanted lots of other peoples’ money.

One crazy armed with a $150 AK-47 and a political agenda, today, can cut down four armed security guards and one Ruler in one half second, precisely, if my calculations are correct. And nobody, rich or poor, wants to struggle through life in America under those conditions—but now I’m straying from the point:

The gentlemen’s club thinking wasn’t guided by generosity. It was guided by common sense and self-preservation.

It was also guided by a remarkably simple-to-understand business stradegy. Even back then, small commercial vessels, like dinner boats and/or tug boats, were expensive to build and operate, so more often than not you needed investment capital. To protect investors, themselves, to maximize profits by minimizing "hidden costs," they understood that you had to offer a competitive wage to attract and retain skilled professionals trained and certified here in America. Otherwise, you risk catastrophe.

Then Ted Arison came along and decided it would be better for himself, personally, and his descendents, Micky and Shari, if he reinvented slavery aboard his foreign-flagged vessels operating in US waters, leaving the old gentlemen’s club little choice but to abandon stakes in the cruise line business (temporarily) and concentrate their efforts elsewhere in the trades. The old gentlemen’s club has always foreign-flagged some of their vessels, mostly to avoid dragging the country into war by side-stepping domestic neutrality laws, and yes, sometimes to increase their profit margins—but with Ted Arison in the market, they had no choice but to foreign-flag all of their vessels just to retain their influence. They’re still making loads of money, so they’re not particularly angry, but they’re not particularly happy about what’s taking place, either. What worries them is that heavy-handed free-traders will destabilize the economy if they don’t step up to the plate, and soon.

If they don’t take the initiative, the US Government will.

The US Government has the power to force foreign-flagged cruise lines operating in US waters to comply with US Labor laws the instant policy-makers see fit. If pressured, it could, conceivably, tell today’s cruise line executives: Look, you’re threatening our national and economic security, you’re endangering unsuspecting American passengers by hiring Third World peasants to crew your ships, so re-flag your ship to America, if you want to service this country, abide by our laws, pay taxes, like everyone else, or we’ll cut off your access to the American-consumer market. That’s an option that’s definitely within the US Government's range of power.

Obviously, the US Government has the US Coast Guard at their immediate disposal. Without access—even if it’s limited access—to the American consumer market, cruise line executives could calculate Company life expectancy if forced to rely on Haiti and the Dominican Republic to generate revenue in seconds. Still, they would undoubtedly postpone hearings, one way or another, during which time they’d retaliate—but not directly.

Retaliate? How? If the US Government ever so much as hints at exercising its true power—that is to say, hints at acting in the long term interest of this country—foreign-flagged cruise line executives will undoubtedly rally the troops: travel agents living hand to mouth off commissions, shop owners selling trinkets to cruise line tourists, like beer coolers and cheap sunglasses, bar-owners, liquor vendors, port authorities who don’t like a lot of fluctuation in the market, and so on.

Micky Arison has $3.6 billion dollars in his wallet, he won't go hungry if Carnival Cruise Line’s profits crash through the floor, but his scared-crazy troops will, and Micky won’t likely hesitate to use that to his advantage.

Ironically, then, even the thousands of service-industry personnel working for slave wages aboard foreign-flagged cruise ships can be expected to voice opposition in support of Rulers like Micky.

What? Why them?

Well, imagine you scrub pots and pans sixteen hours per day aboard a cruise ship for $400-800 per month. Once you realize you are about to be thrown off the ship in what is, to them, a foreign country, by privately-funded armed security personnel, and herded into make-shift concentration camps in the worst part of Miami until you round up a few thousand bucks to fly home, even if you have your last three months’ wages in your pocket—$1,200 to $2,400—the tendency is to panic first, consider long-term up-swings to the industry—to your paycheck, and therefore your quality of life—later.

Nobody wants Miami to erupt into mass-hysteria. When the US Government decides to act in the long term interests of this country, policy-makers need to publicize a well thought out, step-by-step game plan at least one year prior to implementing policy. This way the troops, so to speak, have time to protect their interests in the immediate future. Whoever runs the show when foreign-flagged cruise ships are strongly encouraged to re-flag to the United States, the old gentlemen's club, the sitting regime, or a combination thereof, travel agents, shop owners, hotel operators, liquor vendors—they’ll all come out ahead, they’ll see higher profits, there’s no question about it, but they'll need time to prepare for a lull in sales—and while that lull might be temporary, it’s enough to scare those with limited capital at their disposal into opposition.

When will the US Government act? We’ll see. The late Ted Arison’s descendants, Micky and Shari, have billions of their employees’ dollars at their disposal, they have an additional $236 million of pork they grabbed from their now infamous crony capitalism FEMA deal, and plenty more where they came from—so they can hire a lot of lobbyists to arrange face-time with that money. Then again, the old vanguard, the people who are starting to think it might be time to reign in the industry, have plenty of money, too. Arguably more important, though, they have blueblood names, family connections deeply entrenched throughout Washington, so when they get nervous, when they see a genuine threat to the country their families have called home for generations, they don’t need to hire anyone to arrange face-time with policy-makers, or for that matter the President of the United States. They pick up the phone and hit redial.

As of late, the US Government has taken little more than baby-steps toward reigning in foreign-flagged vessels operating in American waters, mostly because the general public doesn’t understand the maritime industry, and therefore hasn't demanded action en masse. Generally speaking, trusting honeymooners, rowdy college students, and retirees are clueless in terms of Admiralty law when they step aboard a foreign-flagged cruise ship for the first time. Instead, as the cruise ship rests peacefully in port, they dump their luggage in their rooms, they rush to the bar, order cocktails from an attractive, smartly dressed bartender named Juan, they look around, at the carpet, the pool side lounge chairs, the chandeliers, and assume a ship this huge must be mightier than the sea.

It’s not true, of course, but someone who knows can hardly blame passengers for their naivety.

When things turn ugly on the ocean, they turn very ugly very, very fast—and there’s no place to run but overboard. Let's pretend the barometer drops. Suddenly passengers aboard a foreign-flagged cruise ship experience the terrifying affects of a rapidly developing low pressure system over the ocean, aboard a ship that begins pitching, rolling, slewing 20 degrees to starboard, slewing another 30 degrees back to port, rising on a seventy-five foot high swell, careening down its side deep into a troft, hammering the bow deep into green water, again and again and again, until it feels like the 114 million pound ship is going to break its own back. If there’s an emergency—flooding, fire, whatever—hopefully the exotic crewmembers, many of whom are from American-friendly countries like Yemen and Iraq, will lower the lifeboats without letting terrified passengers free-fall a hundred-plus feet to the water below. The majority will likely try to prevent that from happening, but if it does, tough luck. This is the ocean. There’s no guarantee anyone will survive out here.

When hired mouth-pieces like Katherine Magee publicize backward-thinking, unimaginative strategies to encourage more Americans to purchase more tickets aboard more foreign-flagged cruise ships, someone who’s experienced the oceans’ worst storms wants to say: Look, Katherine, since you obviously don’t identify with passengers’ concerns at all, I’ll explain them to you using as many one syllable words as possible:

People are born with a powerful urge to minimize their exposure to dangerous situations.

Rocket science, isn’t it, Katherine.

The thought of boarding an ocean-bound cruise ship presents inherent dangers—people know that while debating whether or not to purchase tickets. A cruise sounds like fun with a hint of danger, so to increase their odds of survival, potential passengers want to know the name of an American port will be painted on the stern when they fly across the country and arrive at the port terminal—because, as it stands, that American flag splashed across the side of the ship they've seen in countless advertisements isn’t fooling anyone. It’s there to mislead them, to deceive them, and Americans don’t like it when foreign interests use the American flag to deceive them. In fact, they resent it.

American passengers want to see the name of an American port painted on the stern--the one place it matters--because it assures them that American rules and regulations are enforced, and that far more of the crewmembers will be American, like themselves, and therefore the people they’re entrusting their lives to will do everything in their power to protect them—not smuggle forty pounds of C-4 explosives aboard to kill them.

Fear-mongering, you say, Katherine? Tell that to the 100 plus passengers who burned to death when six terrorists planted explosives aboard the M/V Superferry 14. Last I heard, only two of those men were in custody, authorities couldn’t find the other four.

The threat of terrorism aboard cruise ships isn’t fear-mongering, it’s very real. Port authorities are installing cameras, screening luggage, bringing in bomb-sniffing dogs, and while it all might help, they will never, never be able to guarantee explosives won’t be smuggled aboard a cruise ship--any ship, for that matter--even if that ship is flying the American flag.

When it comes to policing the maritime industry, efforts are minimal, at best. In the port of Miami, for example, oil tankers, cargo ships trading between 240 countries, and cruise ships operating locally, generate $12 billion per year, most of which is spirited off to accounts in the Cayman Islands and the Isle of Jersey--but a fraction of that revenue actually stays here. According to “Maritime Security”—the magazine, not this blog—“a successful attack at a busy center like [Miami] could destroy sea-going tourism for years, shut down hotels and devastate the area’s economy.” 800 cruise ships and 2000 cargo ships, they say, 90% of which are foreign-flagged, dock in the harbor each year. Odds are, it's going to happen. All concerned citizens can do is work together and demand Congress minimize the possibility by reigning foreign-flagged vessels operating in American waters.

Of the ninety-seven-thousand people that toil in port-related jobs in Miami, would you like to know how many divers search for underwater demolitions placed outside the hulls of all these ships? As of February 2005, just five. In other words, the threat is real, everyone knows it, the money’s there, but the Rulers refuse to sacrifice a sliver of their profits to prevent it. Instead, they’d rather sit back, wait for something happen, and when it does, transfer the added expense of protecting their privately owned vessels and facilities to American taxpayers, if there's anything left to protect, because, historically, that’s how this works.

The absolute least Micky Arison could do to head-off catastrophe is register his ships in America, thereby encouraging fellow Industry Leaders operating under foreign-flags to do the same. By abiding by American laws—the Jones Act, that part about employing Americans, to be specific—he’d significantly reduce the likelihood that a crewmember hired outside this country would/could smuggle explosives aboard one of his vessels with the intention of inflicting great harm onto this nation. As it stands, however, today's cruise line executives, again, Industry Leaders, like Micky Arison, who operate under "flags of convenience," target Third World employees to minimize labor costs, inviting terrorists to work aboard their ships. Terrorists know it, potential passengers know it, and potential ticket-buyers are voicing their opposition by not buying nearly as many tickets as they could--with Carnival Cruise Line.

So if investors are wondering why Micky Arison and the like can only persuade a disappointing 1% of 300 million Americans to vacation aboard foreign-flagged cruise ships annually, there’s the first part of the explanation.

Don’t like it, Micky? Change the way you do business. Common sense tells me you’ll profit from the decision.

I'm not the only one who believes that, either. In fact, whether Micky realizes it or not, by foreign-flagging his vessels, he created a niche. Market research indicates far more than 1% of the American population wants to vacation aboard a cruise ship, but they want to vacation aboard a specific type of cruise ship, ones that are American-flagged--and those who agree are maneuvering to accommodate market demand:

"The United States is experiencing unprecedented growth and activity in the US-flag domestic cruise market," according to Maritime Cabotage Task Force insiders. "All told, as many as 30 US-flag passenger ships are either under construction or in advanced stages of design. This latest surge in U.S. cruise ship construction represents an investment of over $1.3 billion by private American investors and financial markets. When delivered, these ships will join the more than 3,600 US-flag cruise vessels of various sizes now carrying 100 million passengers a year between U.S. ports – allowing significantly more Americans to enjoy cruising [under their terms]. For example, The Delta Queen Steamboat Company recently announced plans to introduce five new 300 ft.-long, 225 passenger coastwise cruise ships into the domestic trades, with construction slated to begin later this year. At the same time, American Hawaii Cruises is currently negotiating with three of the nation’s largest shipyards for the construction of at least two new large, state-of-the-art, 2000 passenger ocean-going cruise vessels."
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Bad Publicity for Carnival Cruise Lines

Americans oppose slavery, even if it's legalized slavery...

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Lunch with "Bobby" Pfeiffer

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Working Hungry Aboard the Horizon Reliance

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The Costs of Financing a Union

With SIU, SPAD contributions were compulsory: monies were deducted from sailors' Vacation (supplemental income) checks for the Leadership to distribute as they saw fit. Typically, the Members themselves have had little if anything at all to do with how those monies were distributed (No, I don’t agree with Big Arnold’s proposals, but there has to be some way to fold the Membership’s opinions back into the decision-making process, because, aside from using the Members to generate monies, the SIU Leadership has all but expelled them from the decision-making process).

(Continue working here)

Minimum Union Overhead Means Maximum Union Efficiency

SUP FINANCES

The SUP is financed almost exclusively by membership dues. Other sources of revenue are initiation fees, voluntary contributions to the Union's General Treasury and to the West Coast Sailors newspaper, rental income from our buildings and a $2.50 per man day contribution from companies under contract to help defray the cost of operating our hiring hall.

The current dues, as determined by secret mail ballot referendum in 1998-1999, is $130 per quarter or $520 per year. No assessments, etc., can be levied without a secret mail ballot vote of the membership.

The officers' wages and benefits are set by secret mail ballot referendum and are paid out of the General Treasury. It is illegal under the SUP Constitution for any regularly elected officer to be paid by an employer. Union support staff are members of Local 3 of the Office and Professional Employees International Union and are also paid out of the treasury of the SUP.

Affiliation of the SUP

The Sailors' Union of the Pacific is an AFL-CIO union as an autonomous affiliate of the Seafarers' International Union of North America (SIUNA) which was organized by the SUP in 1938. Other autonomous affiliates of the SIUNA, which is the only federation of unions in the AFL-CIO, includes the Marine Firemen's Union and the SIU-Atlantic, Gulf and Inland Waters District.

Autonomy is key to our affiliation with SIUNA. The SUP membership makes all decisions regarding the conduct of our organization including bargaining and contracts. The SUP controls its own destiny.

The SUP is also affiliated with the Maritime Trades Department, AFL-CIO, also founded by the SUP; State Federations of Labor in California, Washington State, Hawaii, as well as AFL-CIO Labor Central Councils in many cities in those states.

By participating in these organizations, the SUP acts in concert and solidarity with the rest of the labor movement on issues common to all, ranging from bread and butter issues of wages, hours, and working conditions to those involving social justice.
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Big Risks, Little Rewards

Sailors are perceptive. They study people from a distance. So when you’re an outsider, one who disrupts the established rhythm of their world by asking specific questions, they notice. They don’t know who you are, what you’re doing there, or why you’re asking such specific questions, but they sense you’re there to fix something, and they assume fixing that something might benefit them—and perhaps what they, too, know is broken.

Slowly, information starts flowing your way, just a trickle, at first, but there comes a point where inclinations reach a sort of critical mass industry-wide, and that’s when the floodgates open. Not only do ordinary sailors approach you, but officers, too, and secretaries, management personnel, accountants, lawyers, an occasional policy-maker--people you’ve never met in your life—-and they do so with an awkward deference. They start talking, like they know the system's broken, they've always wanted to fix it, too, but for whatever reason they hadn't acted until you came along.

Questions are answered before they’re asked, you hear whispers of foul play; proof enters your hands through indirect means. At times it pours in so fast and heavy from so many independent sources you can’t possibly hope to keep up with it all, much less organize your notes in such a way that they make sense to anyone but yourself.

As you dash from one environment to the next, from blue collar to white and back again, with all your gear, struggling to blend in, there comes a point when you realize that fixing this problem can no longer wait. It’s time to step off the chessboard and get to work. The task at hand seems so gargantuan it’s daunting. All you can hope for is a moment to publish a fraction more of what you learned in the field. The stakes were high to begin with, you always knew that, but, if changes need to be made, you have to go public—and that’s when you can expect your life expectancy to reduce itself to minutes fast.

(CONTINUE WORKING HERE)

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Substantial Returns via Quality Labor

It seems that many ship managment companies, nationally and internationally, are so preoccupied with cutting costs, driving for weak Labor Agreements and tough legislation that increase sailors' work-loads while reducing legitimate overtime--some might call it "gravy"--that they're missing one glaring reality: it's not working.

Investing in quality labor organizations managed by honest Labor Leaders pays substantial dividends. They may be difficult if not impossible to calculate on the Company's balance sheets, but they're real, and they undoubtedly sharpen competitive advantage. "Bobby" Pfeiffer understood this business practice, and he acted on it: he invested in Sailors Union of the Pacific; Masters, Mates and Pilots, Marine Firemen Oilers and Watertenders, and these labor organizations, he would tell you if he were alive today, operate and maintain his ships superbly.

Others dont, and they ought to realize there's something seriously wrong with the industry if someone like me agrees it's time to conduct my own investigation--an investigation I'd expected to take one year, possibly two, and six years later I'm still working on it, and in the process calling the obvious to everyone's attention: on paper, a mismanaged labor organization might look like a bargain, but in practice they're costing maritime Capital interests phenomenal amounts of cash through lost productivity, frivolous lawsuits, random acts of sabotage, so on and so forth.

If--or should I say when?--Capital suffers another disaster caused by an inexperienced and/or incompetent sailor, like the Quartermaster on watch when the Exxon Valdez hit the rocks, ship management personnel will be forced to admit the disaster was preventable, privately then publicly--and the American people will demand the government take action.

Captain David John, of Graig Ship Management, would agree: If sailors are paid what they deserve to be paid, if they're earning a decent living wage and feel as though they're being handled fairly, if they're working under Labor Agreements written in a language that protects their interests, not undermines them, far more of them will make a career out of the maritime industry--and that alone will help protect Capital interests.

Even "professional" sailors who have since abandoned the maritime industry in favor of jobs "on the beach" will likely return. If criminals, such as the Mafia, have in fact been used as a wage management mechanism, then they've since become redundant, and by all means necessary they need to be eliminated from the equation. Once that happens, once SIU Members are able to re-join the decision-making process, like many Industry Leaders, I believe the system will naturally correct itself, in the interest of everyone involved, Capital, Labor, and the American people.

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HERE'S HOW SIU WAGES COMPARE:

Standard GREAT LAKES Bulk Cargo Agreement: AB Blue (Wheelsman)
--Based on a forty hour work week/16 hours OT for four weekends
--Base Pay:...................$3,448.93 per month
--Overtime Rate (OT):.........$29.73
--Penalty OT Rate:............$49.55
--Vacation:...................9 for 30
--Retirement..................

BREAKDOWN
--Average hourly rate:.$22.18, based on a forty hour workweek
--Minimum overtime:....$1792, based on 64 hours per month (weekends)
--Vacation:............$1064.99, based on 9 days vacation for 30 days worked.

TOTALS (when all is combined)
--Total hours worked:......224
--Average hourly rate:.....$28.56
--Total (before taxes):....$6406

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SIU Standard Container Vessel Agreement Deep Sea: AB blue
--based on a forty hour work-week/16 hours for four weekends OT
--base pay:............................$2383.97 per month
--OT rate:.............................$15.62 per hour
--Penalty OT ($48.03 on the Lakes).....$5.25 (deep sea)
--Vacation:................14 for 30
--Retirement...............$7.00 per day (in other words, you have to spend the vast majority of your life aboard a ship if you ever hope to retire--and you won't retire comfortable. SUP labor agreements, on the other hand, require that the Companies you work for put $25.00 toward your retirement--and that goes into a 401K that you control, not a pension plan that you have little or no control over.)

BREAKDOWN
--Average hourly rate:..$14.78 based on a forty hour work week
--Minimum overtime:.....$1002.24 based on 64 hours per month (weekends)
--Vacation pay:.........$1104.13

TOTALS
--Hours worked:......................224
--Average Hourly rate:...............$19.96
--Total per month (before taxes):....$4,472.37
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SAILORS UNION OF THE PACIFIC WAGES aboard MATSON NAVIGATION VESSELS:

Section 8. Wages and Overtime Rates

This wage scale is based on 40 hours at sea and in port for day workers, and 56 hours at sea and 40 hours in port for Watchstanders.

Rating
Bosn Freighter (Over 20,000 gross tons)

Monthly base wage: $4,247.33
Daily Base Wage: $141.57
Monthly Supplemental Wage: $2,042.70
Money Purchase Plan Daily: $25.00

AB Maintenance Man

Monthly Base Wage: $2,884.52
Daily Base Wage: $96.15
Monthly Supplemental Wage: $1,475.42
Money Purchase Plan Daily: $$25.00

AB [Watchstander]
Monthly Base Wage: $3,021.77
Daily Base Wage: $100.72
Monthly Supplemental Wage: $1,540.20
Money Purchase Plan Daily: $25.00

Ordinary Seaman Watchstander

Monthly Base Wage: $2,340.81
Daily Base Wage: $78.02
Monthly Supplemental Wage: $1,220.70
Money Purchase Plan: $18.51

"When in accordance with Appendix "A" vessels are manned with a Carpenter/Maintenance Man, the monthly wage of this rating shall be the same as that of a Carpenter in the above schedule for vessels of the same gross tonnage.

"The hourly overtime rate for all ratings except the Ordinary Seaman shall be $23.83 effective 7/1/02

"The hourly overtime rate for Ordinary Seaman shall be $17.87 effective 7/1/02.

The hourly cargo rate for all ratings shall be:
Effective: 7/1/02
Straight time hours: $17.87
Overtime hours: $29.45

"The hourly rates for men hired for standby work as provided in Section 43 shall be:
Effective: 7/1/02

Bos'n:
Straight Time Hours: $22.72
Overtime Hours: $37.42
Money Purchase Plan Daily: $25.00

Effective 7/1/02
AB:
Straight Time Hours: $21.29
Overtime Hours: $35.93
Money Purchase Plan Daily: $25.00

The hourly rates for men hired for shifting gangs as provided in Section 44 shall be:
Effective 7/1/02:

Bosn:
Straight time hours: $20.17
Overtime Hours: $33.55
Money Purchase Plan Daily: $25.00

AB:
Straight Time Hours: $18.99
Overtime Hours: $32.04
Money Purchase Plan: $25.00
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CHEVRON TANKERS
As of 02/06 wages are as follows:

Boatswain monthly base: $3,563 monthly
Overtime rate: $19.21

AB monthly base: $2,570 monthly
Overtime rate: $19.21

Ordinary Seaman: $2,154 monthly
Overtime rate: $14.93

No supplemental pay, but vacation paid 16 for 30 days; employees work on a 90 days rotation with all transportation to and from vessels paid by Chevron.

Pay rates based on 40 hour work week/OT paid for work over 8 hours per day and all hours on weekends and holidays.
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SIU SWEETHEART CONTRACT

Sealift Inc
68 West Main Street
Oyster Bay, NY
11771

Not all SIU-contracted companies pay their sailors as well as well--or should I say as or poorly?--as the SIU wages detailed above. While it may sound hard to believe, Sealift Inc, for example, actually pays sailors responsible for the safe navigation of vessels less than SIU's Standard Containership Agreement Deep Sea requires.

When you hear rumors of SIU port agents being forced to pull barflies down to to the Hiring Halls in order to meet manning obligations aboard "gray-hulls" carrying military hardware to our troops overseas--who are even more underpaid, as shall be detailed in another section of this blog--the wages detailed below partly explain why regular SIU often vanish just prior to a military invasion:

M/V Maj Bernard F. Fisher (Diego Garcia, FOS)

Daily Base wage (eight-hour day): $69.89
Overtime Weekdays: $10.52
Overtime Weekends/Holidays: $18.26
Vacation Pay: Info. unavailable
Pension: Info. unavailable

According to the 28-Feb-05 pay-stub an SIU Member furnished me moments before he abandoned the maritime industry and began his panhandling career in San Francisco, in seven days he earned:

Daily Base Wage (seven days worked): $489.23
Overtime Weekdays (20 hours worked): $210.40
Overtime Weekends (24 hours worked): $438.24
Travel Per Diem (three days travel): $209.67

Note: Travel per diem offsets earnings. You get in en route to a ship, and you get it when you leave a ship, unless, of course, you're fired--in which case you pay your own way home from, in this case, Diego Garcia, explaining why most SIU Members are highly reluctant to work aboard ships anchored off sandbars in remote locations.

Gross Wage: $1347.54 (before taxes)
Social Security tax (6.2%): $83.55
Medicare Tax (1.45%): $19.54
Federal W/H tax (M-7): 104.45
Cash advances: 100.00

Total Deductions: $307.54
Sub balance: $1040.00
Balance Due: $1040.00

Average hourly wage (for 100 hours in one week): $11.37
Note: Per diem deducted before dividing by number of hours worked.
Note: Vacation pay was not factored in (above), since it was not recognized on this pay-stub.

Normally "gray-hulls" pay considerably less Vacation Pay than commercial vessels. My guess is Vacation Pay aboard Sealift's M/V Maj Bernard F. Fisher is 9/30, but let's give SIU's Leadership the benefit of the doubt and say that it's 14/30: $978.46 per month. In this case, if the sailor works eight hours per day plus four hours overtime, plus twenty-four hours of overtime per weekend, his (or her) average hourly wage skyrockets to $17.19 per hour for 360 hours worked per month.

My neighbor's fourteen year old son averages more than that caddying at Chicago Golf Club.
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Comment received regarding SIU Break Bulk Carriers:

If Sealifts grey hulls are bad, try the break bulk carrying food aid, AB $56 a day, OT 9.59/hour, vacation 9/30, weekends are a second day of pay as opposed to 8hrs OT. Sealift food aid ships (PL480 acrgos) also carries "riders", who get off the ship in Caribbean ports spend a couple days in a hotel and then fly to the US. The ship will get into trouble coming into the US with the riders onboard. If there is a USCG inspection then the riders are given a day off and some money and the various places their names are are removed. The first SIU contract I worked was with DYN Marine 5 years ago, AB blue, $7.49/hr, same rate for OT, vacation was 7/30 nothing extra on weekends.

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SIU MEMBERS CONSIDERING LABOR STRIKE AGAINST SIU LEADERSHIP

Don't believe it can happen? Think again:

BY JONATHAN SILBERMAN
HOLYHEAD, Wales, December 14—Tens of thousands walked out of factories and offices, and bus and rail services were affected across Ireland December 9 in a mass display of support for the fight against union busting by workers at Irish Ferries. The workers have been fighting plans by the company, which operates car ferries between Ireland and the United Kingdom and France, to replace all its 543 workers with nonunion labor employed at half of Ireland’s minimum wage of 7.65 euros (US$9.10).
An estimated 100,000 workers took part in protest marches called by the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) in the Irish cities of Dublin, Cork, Waterford, Limerick, Galway, Sligo, Athlone, and Rosslare. The national trade union day of protest, the largest in Ireland for decades, was backed by most ICTU-affiliated unions and by the nonaffiliated Association of Secondary Teachers. Unions in the United Kingdom organized a solidarity action in Wales two days before.

As this issue goes to press, the seafarers’ union—Services, Industrial, Professional and Technical Union (SIPTU)—announced it had reached a settlement with the owners of Irish Ferries. Under the deal, workers would keep their jobs with existing terms, continue to be represented by SIPTU, and no one would be paid below the Irish minimum wage. Some of the workers who have decided to accept redundancy (layoffs) will keep the enhanced payments for the job loss despite threats by the company that these would be withdrawn. Workers at various ships are now voting on the proposal, but one of the boats they had struck, the Jonathan Swift, has already sailed from Dublin to Holyhead.

Since November 25, SIPTU members had been occupying two Irish Ferries ships, the Isle of Inishmore and the Ulysses, docked in the Welsh ports of Pembroke and Holyhead.

In an operation carried out with “military precision,” the London Guardian reported, company-organized gangs of thugs boarded the two ships in civilian clothes. Once on board, they changed into dark uniforms with padded jackets and took up pre-arranged positions. It was then announced over the loudspeakers that they were in control of “security.” After the ships were docked, the bosses planned to bring in a new crew to replace the fired workers.

In response, however, union members occupied the two ships and barricaded themselves inside.

The company tried to employ non-Irish workers, especially from Latvia and Estonia, and to escape Ireland’s minimum wage law by re-registering the ships under the Cyprus flag. It claims that 95 percent of its business competitors are using “outsourced” labor and flying flags of convenience.

Irish Ferries already employs crews of contracted workers on one of its ferries, the MV Normandie, which operates between Rosslare in Ireland and Cherbourg in France, under the flag of the Bahamas. Its sailings have been hit by a SIPTU boycott at Rosslare.

The director of the Latvian seafarers’ register, Jazeps Spridzans, said he doubted that Latvian workers would work for the wages being offered, according to Leta, the national press agency in that Baltic country.

The company currently employs 70 Latvians as sailors, mechanics, and floor staff at a minimum of 8.37 euros (US$9.96) an hour plus meals, uniforms, and round-trip transportation to their country of employment.

ICTU general secretary David Begg told the press that the protests were not aimed against foreign-born workers. “The Congress banner at the head of today’s march puts the case quite emphatically: Equal Rights for All Workers,” he said.

One of the occupying workers, John Curry, told the Guardian, “This is not just about us and our jobs. It’s much wider than that. If this company is allowed to get rid of its workers in one fell swoop, then what’s going to stop other countries across Europe from doing the same?”

The Seamen’s Union of Ireland, which claims to represent 60 percent of the seafarers at Irish Ferries, has not been on strike. It has expressed concern that the company would slash the redundancy terms (severance pay) it has offered and which a majority of its members have accepted.

The dispute at Irish Ferries comes after a similar move by Doyle Concrete, a breeze-block (cinder block) company based in County Kildare, to cut wages and bring in a replacement workforce. A six-week strike at the Doyle’s plant in Rathangan ended when the Labour Court ruled that the company had acted unreasonably in reducing established pay rates.

...To be continued..
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We have a problem, gentlemen. It's time we fix it.