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Optimism and confidence strong in renewed AMO
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By Tom Bethel National President I’m grateful for the support this administration has received from deep-sea, Great Lakes and inland waters AMO members since we assumed office in January 2007. E-mails, phone calls and letters to me and to others on the AMO National Executive Board indicate widespread satisfaction with the way our union now operates and confidence in AMO’s new, unified leadership. From the top down, the administrative focus in the last four months has been on greater transparency, efficiency, accessibility and accountability, improved service to AMO members at union headquarters, in the port offices and aboard the vessels, more direct participation by AMO members in collective bargaining and union policy, better and more frequent communication between the administration and AMO members at sea and at home, and building upon AMO’s status as the nation’s largest, strongest, most prosperous and most resilient union of U.S. merchant marine officers. Immediate priorities under unpleasant and unprecedented circumstances at the New Year were the just accommodation of newly elected AMO officials and the purging of all unproductive employees and consultants from the AMO payroll, and both were accomplished seamlessly. Other simple, common sense changes instituted for the lasting benefit of AMO members included the relocation of the deep-sea dispatch department from a remote site across a hazardous thoroughfare to the safer and more convenient AMO headquarters building in Dania Beach and the posting of official AMO confidentiality, travel, ethics and equal employment opportunity and sexual harassment policy statements and additional documents (including the affiliation agreement between American Maritime Officers and the Seafarers International Union of North America, AFL-CIO) on the union’s Web site. A new Web site link to the Federal Elections Commission permits AMO members to track disbursements from the AMO Voluntary Political Action Fund and the AMO Retirees’ Association Voluntary Political Action Fund. Additional posts conducive to a fully informed membership are forthcoming. Perhaps most importantly, AMO members are now encouraged to ask questions and to disagree openly--without fear of administrative reprisal--with what AMO officials, representatives and employees say and do. AMO members can speak up and speak out at regularly scheduled monthly membership meetings, during vessel visits by AMO members, by telephone to headquarters or port offices, or by e-mail--officials’ e-mail addresses are now included in the directory that runs each month in this publication. Beginning this month in Baltimore and Portsmouth, Va., AMO members will have an additional outlet for questions, comments and open discussion. I and other AMO officials will hold informational membership meetings periodically in ports where significant numbers of vessels are clustered and in areas where many AMO families live. These meetings will be patterned after the popular and comprehensive if informal AMO membership meetings held in Great Lakes ports each winter. My agenda as national president of AMO includes open dialogue within our ranks, healthy conversation that can only benefit all AMO members. This is why I asked three unsuccessful candidates for national president in our union’s 2006 election to meet with me to discuss issues they had raised during the campaign and other matters that may concern them and the AMO members who supported them last year. This is why I took the unprecedented step of inviting these candidates to observe the week-long meetings of the AMO National Executive Board and the joint union-employer trustees of the AMO Pension, Medical, Vacation and Safety & Education Plans in Philadelphia next month. Two of the candidates agreed to meet with me--one during the executive board and trustees’ meetings, another during the summer in Dania Beach when his current seagoing rotation ends. The third candidate declined to meet, and he had not responded to my invitation to attend the Philadelphia sessions as of May 1. This candidate will be at sea during the meetings, but he is free to designate a representative in the interest of mutual understanding. If this candidate decides to talk with me at some point, I will accommodate him at his convenience. Meanwhile, the work goes on. AMO officials and rank and file negotiating committees have since January secured significant wage and benefit increases through collective bargaining with major deep-sea fleets, and additional contract talks are underway or forthcoming. Our union is awaiting the award of highly competitive Military Sealift Command shipping charters (a principal source of deep-sea employment) and preparing for additional bidding for government business by AMO employers. AMO members are beginning to work aboard liquefied natural gas tankers in international trades, and additional commercial opportunities are in development. Our staff in Washington is monitoring Congress and the Executive Branch on such issues as funding of the Maritime Security Program and defense shipping and enforcement of the Jones Act and the cargo preference laws upon which many AMO employers depend. We remain optimistic on all these fronts--and optimism is what we in the administration sense from the union members we hear from so often. The feeling is that AMO is moving on--intact and secure, its credibility and reputation restored--after a difficult time. This encourages everyone in the AMO administration. We know that, while much has been accomplished in a short, turbulent time, there is more to do--and we’re working on it every day. |
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