Meetings provide forum for direct communication

Meetings provide forum for direct communication

By Tom Bethel
National President

One of the most effective policy reforms enacted on my watch as national president of American Maritime Officers since January 2007 is the permanent practice of bringing informational AMO membership meetings to deep-sea ports on all coasts.

These meetings -- already held in Baltimore, Portsmouth-Norfolk, New Orleans, Houston, San Francisco-Oakland and Tacoma -- serve several increasingly important purposes:

They accommodate AMO members who cannot easily attend official union meetings scheduled each month in the AMO constitutional ports of Dania Beach, Toledo and Brooklyn.
They provide for greater direct communication between the administration of AMO and the seagoing AMO membership.
They keep larger numbers of AMO members current on developments within our union, among AMO employers and within the industry, on Capitol Hill and within the Executive Branch of government, and within the AMO Pension, Medical, Vacation and Safety and Education Plans.
They are as instructive to AMO officials and AMO Plans executives as they are to the AMO members and applicants in attendance.
They help dispel rumor and promote accurate understanding of critical issues that bear directly on long-term job and benefit security for all AMO members and their families.

In each meeting, I brief AMO members on what this administration has done to make our union more transparent -- and to make the AMO administration itself (officials, representatives and employees) more accessible and more responsive than ever to all AMO members and their families.

AMO National Secretary-Treasurer JosŽ Leonard reports thoroughly on union finances, and AMO National Assistant Vice President At Large Bob Kiefer reports in detail on collective bargaining in the deep-sea sector and on pending and forthcoming bids for government shipping charters. AMO National Executive Board Members Dave Weathers and Dan Shea address specific matters raised by AMO members during visits to vessels.

Steve Nickerson, executive director of AMO Plans, provides a comprehensive report on the sound state of the benefit funds. Larry Goldstock, a vice president of Smith Barney, offers a detailed presentation on his firm's wise management of the AMO 401(k) Plan and the AMO Pension Plan's Money Purchase Benefit. Attorney Michael Reny explains the AMO Coast Guard Legal Program, which was expanded recently to provide wage protection for deep-sea AMO members (this specific benefit had been available to Great Lakes members for many years).

In each meeting, time is set aside for questions from AMO members to the AMO officials and the AMO Plans executives, and each question is answered honestly and completely. No subject is off limits during the give-and-take, and I for one am gratified to know that AMO members can now speak up and speak out comfortably and express dissenting views without fear of administrative retaliation. By each evening's end, many AMO members acknowledge the unprecedented candor and credibility that mark each session.

This year's schedule of informal but informative area meetings for members of and applicants to American Maritime Officers will wrap up in Portland, Maine -- a location suggested by an AMO member -- at the end of this month. We anticipate a large turnout and a brisk exchange.

Next year, we will schedule such meetings when possible and practical in the Northeast, the mid-Atlantic, the Southeast, the Gulf Coast, the West Coast and the Pacific Northwest. All meeting dates will be announced sufficiently in advance, and I encourage all AMO members to turn out in their respective areas.

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