By Willie Barrere
National President
As I write this, we are entering the December holiday season and the end of the year is fast approaching. I’ll take this opportunity to bring you up to speed on the progress we’ve made in 2024. I’ll also look ahead to our priorities for 2025, with emphasis on continued growth and improvement for our union.
As you know, ours is the largest union of U.S. Coast Guard licensed Merchant Marine officers sailing on unlimited tonnage and unlimited horsepower vessels. Leading it brings about many challenges and responsibilities.
While always mindful of the separation between the union and the AMO Benefit Plans, members of the Executive Board and AMO officials and staff are working together as a team with the fantastic leadership and staff at AMO Plans and STAR Center. Everyone is focused on improvements for the greatest number of members, applicants, and AMO Plans participants, given the operational realities and financial limitations of our industry and the benefit trusts. Details about developments with AMO Plans benefits are featured in a separate report.
Change takes time and we are getting there with each new step. We know not everyone agrees with everything but I trust most will understand AMO needs to grow to remain successful in our industry and to rebuild capabilities to meet the needs of the membership in terms of service and opportunity.
Contracts: Our contracts team has sustained its focus on maximizing pay increases with each negotiation, and expanded the role of member negotiating committees from each fleet. This helps achieve a better outcome at the table and makes it possible to address quality-of-life issues directly with our contracted companies.
As most know, government RFPs are much different and not subject to negotiation with a company or agency, and some of the MSC charters being awarded now were put out for competitive bids a long time ago. This Executive Board is working directly with the other officer unions to create a situation that raises the level of the labor packages each can provide to our companies to use in competitive bidding on RFPs. We’re seeing improvement through cooperation and it will continue.
New companies and new vessels: The above may not matter much if we don’t have a positive outlook, and I can honestly say that AMO has a very bright future. Although we are losing the Carter, Page, Bobo, and Ocean Jazz, we have two new shipping companies contracting with AMO and expect a dozen more vessels to be introduced during the next eight months. This is in addition to the recent vessels brought into our fleet – the tenth ARC car carrier, ARC Endeavor, and the USMMI shallow-draft tanker, Redwood Trader. Our new vessels will include tankers, the replacement ship for the Magothy, a new ESB, wind-farm vessels, VAM vessels, and others. We will make the announcements as soon as we are able.
The Constitution: Our governing document needed to be overhauled and some areas needed to be addressed this year. The Executive Board worked with our attorneys on proposed changes and they were approved by the members voting in a union-wide online referendum.
Ship store: In November, we were briefed on the progress and viewed samples of products from the new online AMO Ship Store. The initial announcement has been posted. As a union, AMO is a non-profit and does not make money from this; it just creates availability for members who want these products. The store is located online.
Membership Drive: Our recruiting efforts, reduced initiation, and word of mouth have contributed to an increase of more than 250 new members and applicants since last year. We will do more to expand our fleet.
Recruiting: We have revamped our recruiting program and targeted each of the maritime academies with specific officials to develop better relationships with the students and the school staff. I anticipate American Maritime Officers will be the number one choice for students graduating next year. If you are a recent graduate and would like to represent AMO to your academy, please reach out to Kathleen Friel at kfriel@amo-union.org.
One of the challenges we have in recruiting is recovering from the 40 percent reduction in license-track students since 2015. All of the academies saw reduced license-track enrollment. I met with the state maritime academy superintendents in Washington DC in November. We are working together to increase national awareness of the maritime industry and maritime academies, and also to increase government funding to offset the extra costs added to student tuition due to the school ship training tours. While the new NSMVs bring the latest technology and vast improvements over their previous vessels, they also add hefty increases in annual costs for each school. MARAD pays for each vessel and does cover fuel and major maintenance costs, but daily operations and dock upgrades can amount to millions per academy each year.
Membership Assistance Program: The AMO Member Assistance Program (MAP) has issued nearly $40,000 in assistance to members whose homes were severely damaged or flooded during the recent hurricanes. Thank you to all of our members who contribute to this self-funded program. We are not the insurance company, but we can help.
Dues increase: As recently announced, there will be a dues increase starting the first of the year in 2025. As our union expands, we will need to keep up with staffing. In the year 2000, AMO had roughly the same number of members and applicants with nearly twice the staff with which we now operate. While we are working much more efficiently, we still need to fill some positions that will help to maintain and improve service to the membership. Despite the increase from last year and this year, our highest dues rate will be $2,000 a year for Captains and Chief Engineers. This is less than half, and in some cases 20 percent, of the other two officer unions.
ASCA: The American School Counselors’ Association represents more than 43,000 guidance counselors. Their annual conference is in July of 2025 and AMO has secured over 40 booths so far to create a Mariners’ Row at the conference. This will be the first major introduction of our industry as a whole to high school and middle school guidance counselors across the country. I anticipate all of the maritime academies and unions will participate, as well as shipping companies, MSC, NOAA, training facilities, shipyards, and other entities.
Social media: We’ll be ramping up our online and social media efforts in 2025. Members and applicants will again receive an email in January with options to select files from your camera roll to upload photos and video directly to AMO. We lead unique lives at sea and travel the world for work and on vacation. If you’ve got good pictures and video to share, let’s post them. AMO staff is working now to catch up with some of the pictures and stories we received from members this year and we’ll be looking forward to more in 2025.
National election: As you know, there will be some changes in the national political scene in 2025. Below are a few of the things on which we are focused.
We will have a new President and some new members of the House and Senate next year. We did not support either presidential candidate. Our focus, and the exclusive application of the AMO Voluntary Political Action Fund, is the Legislative Branch. Some members of the House and Senate who have been strong and reliable supporters of the maritime industry and American labor did not win re-election. We will need to devote time and effort and contributions to help re-elect our supporters in order to ensure our American maritime industry remains secure and stable.
I cannot stress enough how important campaign contributions are to members of the House and Senate who understand the importance of strong American maritime policy – the Jones Act, MSP, TSP, CSP, cargo preference, and Food for Peace programs. I sincerely ask each member and applicant to consider contributing to the AMO Voluntary Political Action Fund on a regular basis. These funds are used only for political donations. Our jobs at sea and the industry in which we all work are the return on the investment we make. Even $100 each quarter will go a long way toward maintaining the programs that sustain the U.S. Merchant Marine.
Kelly-Waltz legislation: Senator Mark Kelly, a former astronaut and Kings Point graduate, and Congressman Mike Waltz, a U.S. Army Colonel and VMI graduate, will be putting forth a bill to revamp our National Maritime Policy. This extensive legislation will seek to improve our industry and covers everything from shipbuilding to crewing, as well as training and maritime academies. Congressman Waltz has been nominated to be the next National Security Advisor and has been a supporter of the U.S. maritime industry.
Our next Executive Board and AMO Plans Board of Trustees meetings are at the end of January. If you would like to be part of the process, please reach out to any Executive Board member and let them know.
The AMO team includes those of us at sea and ashore. Each member of the Executive Board has time at sea, some of us over 30 years. We know what life is like onboard and we have not forgotten. We appreciate our member mariners and all that you do. Our role is to support the membership and improve all that we are able – wages and benefits, rotations, connectivity, culture, and service. With a nationwide manning shortage and a need to grow the maritime industry, and with new opportunities emerging, we are also dedicating resources to increasing the capabilities of our union, improving our reputation, and expanding our membership.
Finally, as you read through this issue and we close out 2024, we have cause for celebration of successes. We should take pause for reflection on absent friends, fellow members, and shipmates who have made their final voyage. Those on this list remind us that life is short and we should cherish our time on board and at home.
I truly appreciate all of the hard work and sacrifices all our members and their families make this time of year. No matter where you are in the world, please be good shipmates and partners and come home safely.