1956: BME Backs MM&P

1956: BME Backs MMP On Tanker Pact

MEBA President Bows To NMU, Reneges On Deal To Join Mates In Bargaining

     The ship was named Expansion, and it was an appropriate symbol of the growing influence of the Brotherhood of Marine Engineers in January 1956.
     Like other ships before it, the Expansion-- operated in Alaska by Aleutian Marine Transport--was the subject of bitter jurisdictional rivalry between the BME, an affiliate of the Seafarers International Union of North America in the American Federation of Labor, and the Marine Engineers Beneficial Association, a union in the Congress of Industrial Organizations.
     Tensions between the BME and the MEBA persisted despite the merger between the AFL and the CIO in December 1955.
     The MEBA had already lost the Expansion fight on two levels. In two unanimous votes forced by the MEBA, the ship's engineers had chosen the BME as their union, and the National Labor Relations Board had dismissed an unfair labor charge brought by the MEBA against the new union. But the MEBA refused to abandon its claim to represent the men.
     To settle the dispute, BME Vice President Jack Regan, the union's West Coast representative, asked the NLRB to conduct a third representation election aboard the Expansion. This time, the MEBA failed to make the ballot--the engineers' choice was BME membership or no union.
     On January 23, 1956, the NLRB announced the outcome--another unanimous vote for the BME.
     The BME's Expansion victory was consistent with its impressive record. In less than seven years, the BME had secured collective bargaining agreements with the largest U.S.-flag deep-sea liner fleets and with tugboat operators in Philadelphia, Baltimore, and other East Coast ports.
     The new union had surpassed the MEBA on the wage front and had won revolutionary benefits for BME members and their families. The BME had grown with its appeal as a responsible alternative to the leftist MEBA--engineers on all coasts had come to know the BME as a union where ideas mattered more than ideology.
     The BME and the MEBA were to butt bows again later that year, this time over tanker contracts the BME had no claim to.
     The MEBA and the International Organization of Masters, Mates & Pilots had agreed to joint collective bargaining with the Atlantic and Gulf Coast tanker fleets they worked in. But the MEBA reneged on the deal and accepted the wage pattern already agreed to by the unlicensed National Maritime Union, a traditional ally of the MEBA.
     The MEBA announced its settlement on June 13 and said the pact had followed two days of bargaining. The MM&P said there had been no negotiating and pointed out that the MEBA contract included cuts in wage differentials between engineers and some unlicensed ratings.
     Captain John Bishop, secretary-treasurer of the MM&P, explained the developments in a letter to MM&P Atlantic and Gulf locals.
     Bishop said MEBA President H.L. Daggett had "stalled" IOMMP President C.T. Atkins's participation in joint bargaining. Daggett later announced that "the MEBA had accepted the pattern for tanker wage review scales as set by the NMU," Bishop wrote.
     The deck officers' tanker committee presented its own contract proposals to the tanker operators, but the proposals were rejected because they exceeded the pattern. The IOMM&P&P suspected that Daggett's decision to bargain alone had been orchestrated by NMU President Joe Curran.
     "After a lot of sounding off about hitting the tanker operators for a 'substantial' pay hike, the MEBA leadership caved in and accepted a sell-out agreement," said an editorial in BME Marine Engineer, the BME's official publication. The wage structure agreed to by the MEBA was "not even up to NMU standards," the editorial said, adding that the MEBA's "quick" agreement had "pulled the rug out from under the negotiating plans of the MM&P."
     The editorial said: "Just why the MEBA decided to go it alone in negotiations and to settle for less than the NMU pattern isn't clear, but it seems certain that Joe Curran ... had a hand in it. Either Curran, who has been trying to create the impression that he speaks for maritime labor, made a deal with the MEBA top brass, or he threatened them with the loss of his support if they attempted to win a fair increase for the engineers they represent. In either case, MEBA officials did a disservice to their members and to all licensed officers by knuckling under to Curran's desire to set the pace for maritime."
     Meanwhile, the BME's administration continued setting practical policy.
     In February 1956, the BME Executive Board recommended that the union's initiation fee be raised from $500 to $600, and that 30 new books be issued to maintain the proper job-member ratio. Both recommendations were approved by BME members.
     Organizing continued as the BME signed up C.S. Loveland Towing Co. in Philadelphia after a four-day strike. Engineers in the Denton Steamship Co. ocean-going fleet and the Commonwealth Inter-Island Towing Corp. fleet, a tug service between Florida and the West Indies, also chose BME representation.
     The BME also teamed with the Seafarers International Union Atlantic and Gulf District and Masters, Mates & Pilots Local 14 for joint organizing of Baltimore-based tugs.
     Additional BME jobs were secured when Isbrandtsen Line received government approval to charter up to seven Liberty ships from the Maritime Administration's reserve fleet.
     In deep-sea bargaining, the BME won six-percent wage increases and other contract improvements in the Isbrandtsen, Isthmian, Victory Carriers, and Denton fleets.
     Late in the year, the BME--promoting the spirit of the AFL-CIO merger--began rapprochment with the MEBA, then the only seagoing union not a member of the AFL-CIO Maritime Trades Department.
      "The BME endorses this program and sees in it new benefits for our members and all working people."

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