| 1949: Strongest U.S. Officers' Union Began As An Affiliate Of SIUNA |
American Maritime Officers was chartered as the Brotherhood of Marine Engineers, an affiliate of the American Federation of Labor's Seafarers International Union of North America, on May 12, 1949. That action had been approved by delegates to the 4th Biennial Convention of the SIUNA in Baltimore in April 1949. Like all SIUNA affiliates, the BME--based with SIUNA's Atlantic and Gulf District at 51 Beaver St. in lower Manhattan in New York City--had autonomy within the SIUNA structure. The new union was to adopt its own constitution and shipping rules, manage its own treasury, set its own dues rates, established its own benefit funds, and elect its own officers and committees. In time, the BME expanded its shipboard and regional jurisdictions and, under specific circumstances, changed its name and affiliation--Great Lakes District Local 101 of the Marine Engineers Beneficial Association, District 2 MEBA, District 2 MEBA-AMO, and, finally, AMO. "The name changed a number of times, but the mission never did," said AMO President Michael R. McKay on Jan. 4. "From the start, the purpose has been service to the finest licensed seafarers in the world--self-determination, effective representation, real gain and economic security, unique benefits for members and their families, and lasting opportunity. Our union's position 50 years later confirms success in all these endeavors." McKay described the BME as "the beginning of a tradition of growth, stability, and excellence." With consistency of purpose came an enduring tie to the SIUNA and its affiliates. "Our union came out of the SIUNA family, and we were encouraged to make our own way in the world," McKay explained. "Today, there is no formal link to the Seafarers, but the kinship remains strong." The BME was conceived by the legendary Paul Hall, an Oiler who also held a Second Assistant Engineer's license. With Hall in the beginning was Morris Weisberger, a Sailors' Union of the Pacific official on the East Coast. Weisberger was an Ordinary Seaman who rescued many lives aboard the 'SS Morro Castle' when the passenger ship caught fire and went down off the U.S. coast. Hall was a prizefighter who went to sea at 15 and rose through the SIUNA ranks to become New York port agent, director of organizing, first international vice president, and, at 33, the top official--secretary-treasurer--of SIUNA's Atlantic and Gulf District. A gifted speaker and brilliant tactician, Hall had already established the Maritime Trades Department as a constitutional unit of the AFL in 1946, and he had won national respect and renown that year as the leader of a successful coast-to-coast strike to protest seagoing wage freezes imposed by the federal government. Having made the SIUNA a permanent power in the American labor movement, Hall sought to give engineers a credible voice and a union driven by democratic principle. His message immediately attracted young engineers like Wilbur Dickey, Ray McKay, Charlie King, Bob Harless, "Curly" Wandell, Gus Guzelian, Ray Doell, William Verwilt, Charlie Varn, Jim Wingate, "Speedy" Gonzalez, Lee Berlage, and others-many of them MEBA members who signed on as BME organizers, and who later sacrificed MEBA pension credits in pursuit of a better way. At the time, membership dissatisfaction with the MEBA--a union founded by Masons--was wide and growing. Some engineers were complaining that a lingering Masonic influence had fueled discrimination, while others charged that the MEBA was simply unresponsive to their needs. But most feared the alleged sway of the Communist Party over the nation's oldest maritime labor organization. Eight days after SIUNA chartered the BME and another union, the Marine Allied Workers of the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts, Hall told 'The New York Times' that the BME was "the result of many years of pressure from rank and file engineers more interested in wages and conditions than in union communist activity." Hall's comment reflected the deep political division that had plagued the labor movement for several years as communists--exploiting domestic discontent, economic turmoil, and the fear of fascism during the Great Depression and World War II--sought outright control of or influence over U.S. unions at sea and ashore. One consequence was the establishment of the left-leaning Committee of Industrial Organizations within the AFL. Under mineworkers' president John L. Lewis, the CIO--which included the MEBA and the National Maritime Union--withdrew from the AFL in 1938 and began operating as the Congress of Industrial Organizations. In November 1938, the AFL chartered the SIUNA. The charter was presented to the Sailors' Union of the Pacific, led at the time by Harry Lundeberg, who was named first president of the new union. "The Sailors' Union, originally founded in 1885, formed the SIU when it refused to go along with the communist-dominated National Maritime Union," noted 'The Seafarers' Log' on June 1, 1949. The SIUNA included the Seafarers International Union Atlantic and Gulf District, which was established both as successor to the International Seamen's Union founded by Andrew Furuseth and as an alternative to the NMU. Also established within the SIUNA were the SIU Great Lakes District, which later combined with the Atlantic and Gulf District, and the Canadian Seamen's Union, later known as the SIU of Canada. In its account of the BME and MAW charters, 'The New York Times' said the new unions were launched "in response to pleas from unorganized towboatmen, riggers, repairmen, ferryboatmen, and engineers. Hall told the newspaper that the BME would launch an organizing campaign in key ports. "While the drive naturally will be concentrated toward engineers aboard ships of unorganized shipping companies, membership will not be denied to any group of engineers who wish to join-communists and fascists excepted," Hall said. "Marine engineers are fed up with having their policies as a group shaped by the Communist Party line. They want a chance to negotiate their own contracts for a change" through "a democratic organization free of political influences." An editorial in the June 1 'Log' expanded on Hall's statements. It said "licensed rank and file engineers" had "long been dissatisfied with the kind of union protection available to them." Marine engineers had learned "that the political objectives of a small, dominating communist clique always rate priority over the economic needs of the rank and file," the editorial continued. "In the AFL Brotherhood of Marine Engineers, these men will now go forward on a program dedicated to their economic betterment and free of the vicious influence of anti-democratic and self-serving politically minded leadership." The BME immediately launched a five-point program that sought to:
Within two weeks of its charter, engine officer majorities in 51 fleets--both under contract to MEBA and non-union--were asking the BME for representation. The BME demanded recognition and immediate collective bargaining, meeting resistance not only from the employers, but from the MEBA, which warned that BME membership would mean rule by the SIUNA. But the BME "will run their own affairs from start to finish, in democratic fashion," the SIUNA countered. "The SIU has no designs on the engineers. The charter was issued to the BME simply because the SIU recognized the plight of the engineers in the MEBA, who are nothing more than political footballs for the communist quarterbacks. "The SIU responded to the demands of the engineers because it has always felt, and proved, that seafaring men can only win on the economic front if they are united and free of political domination." The SIUNA also charged that the MEBA had failed to record significant accomplishments for its members, and had functioned "for political ends only--this is why the engineers, until the chartering of the BME, were demoralized, disorganized, and lacking in everything a trade union should provide." Meanwhile, Hall sought to blunt efforts by the MEBA to undermine the SIUNA. Hall's constituents at sea were requested to "regard all MEBA officials boarding, or attempting to board, SIU vessels as hostile to our organization." SIUNA members were asked to inform all MEBA members aboard ship "that the SIU has no designs on their jobs or security, but also to point out that engineers can further their own interests by joining the BME," and to "watch out for tools or stooges of the MEBA and/or Communist Party spreading anti-Seafarers propaganda and to notify SIU officials in the first port the vessel hits of the lies spread and, if possible, the names of the individuals involved." The effort worked. SIU members held fast, and the BME continued to attract engineers on all coasts. By October 1949, Hall was able to report that the BME had "firmly established itself as a growing trade union organization on the American waterfront." The BME "has signed contracts with six steamship companies and is currently in negotiations with several other major operators which, when signed up, will make the BME the collective bargaining agent for engineers aboard hundreds of American-flag ships." He said the number of engineers contacting the BME had reached "almost landslide proportions." What followed were contentious and often violent organizing drives, strikes and demonstrations, bargaining sessions, and legal proceedings--all culminating in eventual victory for the BME in major fleets, including Isbrandtsen Line and Isthmian Line. Ironically, the split occurred as a joint AFL and CIO committee reached agreement in principle on a plan to merge the two labor factions. |
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