I can’t speak for MEBA, but know a fairly significant change was made in early 2000"s by new leadership under Mr Doell to bump up pension and welfare " Fundability " issues. . They, as well as many other unions were notified by the then government powers that be that they were drastically underfunded. AMO has more than addressed that issue over the last 20 years., My decent pension check has never been late or reduced. Nor has health insurance coverage for my family. Not selling any union, but one would do well to see how their particular plans are funded.You will see that SIU is well over 100%… They do things a little different as compared to officers unions.
That’s because you have to work until you’re 100 to collect.
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They are complaining because they end up spending all that extra money from those “high paying” MMP contracts on hotels and food while they wait for their next job. Or maybe it’s because they finally realize that the A books have all the highest paying jobs locked up. And all the scraps actually don’t pay as much and are equal to or even lower than AMO nowadays. Or they could be mad because AMO has had an online job board forever and can pick up the phone to claim the job rather than race people to the hall.
Yeah, AMO got rid of their pension entirely.
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How’d they address it? I’m paying into a pension I’ll never have.
How are your paying into a pension at all?
Well as I said before — if it’s so much better then why does anyone else care how we dispatch our people? I never really hear complaints from within MMP.
MMP also has the ability, like MEBA, to dispatch night mates for port relief work, something AMO doesn’t. I’ve always been able to pay for my hotel room and still collect benefits/beer money even while waiting around for an offshore job to pop up. A-Books were once applicants too yanno… it’s not like I won the lottery out of college and got handed everything ready-made.
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A shipmate of mine retired recently from SIU after 30 years unbroken service a little over 50 years old. Check was not bad, but not what he would have gotten through the many different officers unions. He doesn’t have to worrry about his fully funded union going broke and stop paying his pension. As I said before, one would do well to investigate how well your preferred union is funded for the long run.
We care what MMP does because it affects us too.
The expensive, inefficient, time and money wasting, distant shithole city Union Hall hazing ritual eliminates opportunities for those of us that won’t put up with that bullshit.
Other people that won’t put up with it end up being competition for us on tugboats, in the oil patch, on ferries, etc.
For much of the last 40 years, we had competition from MMP union boys who were double dipping on the boats while they were aging their union cards before they went back to the Hall.
When there was a big glut of mariners (which was most of the last 40 years) the MMP Hall created competition for us on non union boats that suppressed our wages. At the same time the MMP obstructed opportunities for us to sail deep sea because there are no non union ships.
This isn’t much of a problem today because the big glut of mariners has been worked off by retirements and shoreside opportunities. We do not see many MMP boys working on non union boats to age their cards now. Things have changed.
Because the guys who currently collect pensions have to get the money from some where. So some of my money is taken out and goes into that plan. More of it going to my DC and 401K but I still have to support the old plan.
It begs the question and should likely be a forum of it’s own-Does consolidation of the Unions give the members less or more bargaining power? The crew shortages are simple part of US Flag shipping now, yet the Unions / companies have done very little to make the agreements more attractive. In simple terms it seems to defy the laws of supply and demand. In the big 80’s I worked on a US Flag Oil Rig in New Zealand. In order to drill on their EEZ, Kiwi mariners had to be onboard alongside the USA crew. In NZ at the time ALL mariners were in one union “THE GUILD”. It was powerful to the point of absurd at times, but in retrospect over the years I came to believe perhaps they had it correct. Not sure if it could take hold in the USA but it is worth consideration.
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Yes, it comes from the money they paid on over their careers. (At least, it’s supposed to. Maybe if there was embezzlement 20 years ago that’s not an option.)
Right, but as I understand it AMO blew that money and now it has to come from somewhere
The McKay brothers that looted the AMO pension fund is a story itself. I’d guess they are out of prison now and still wealthy.
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Mr Doell took over a wreck when he was voted in as AMO president in early 2000’s following the McKay disaster… His efforts are worthy, cleaned house and restored the books at AMO. Some tough choices had to be made back then,He made them. To Beer captain… the negotiations between the vessel owners contributions on your behalf is an ongoing work by all the unions. Your benefits come from how successful they are contract time.How they invest those monies afterwards is of great importance. .Never paid a dime into a pension other than what said companies put in. Don’t believe you did either, nor any other union member, from whatever union. That’s where the money comes from, your union negotiating for benefits from the vessel owners on your behalf. Which union does it better and stays solvent? Your choice sir.
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Considering the Teamsters just got UPS drivers a contract leading to $170k/yr pay+benefit for, again, delivery truck drivers, yeah, I’d say a strong consolidated union would be better for all US mariners.
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This agreement has the potential to consolidate the bargaining power of a vast majority of engineering jobs in the US flagged fleet. @johnny.dollar here comes your pay bump
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Key word is potential. I’ll sit back and see how it plays out.
In 2008 the AMO pension fund lost 40% of its value during the great recession of 2008. This gives one reason to suspect that the trustees of the AMO pension fund, company and union, were not managing the pension fund’s assets in a conservative, prudent, and financially responsible manner. Shortly thereafter the AMO-defined pension fund folded, taking away the previously promised future benefits for working members and saddling the working members with payments for the foreseeable future for the retirees who were receiving pension benefits. I can tell you right now that if anything like this had happened to the MEBA there would have been hell to pay for both the company and union trustees. The AMO trustees, company and union, should have been jailed for failure to carry out their fiduciary duties. The McKay brothers were on their way out and Tom Bethel was on his way in as AMO president at this time.
Members of a union need to be aware and remind their self-serving union officials that the money for the benefit plans does not come from agreements made by union officials and the company, it comes from the skill and labor, the sweat and blood, performed by the union members and the company and the union officials are beholden to hold up their end of the agreements.
Just a tidbit from Wikipedia
"…On January 5, 2007, Michael and Robert McKay were convicted of racketeering charges. Michael McKay was convicted of “three counts of mail fraud and two recordkeeping offenses.”
This certainly is not the whole story.
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It is well past the time for the unions to stop worrying about what officials or halls will get cut and merge. The competition between unions does nothing to help the mariner and with the number of jobs the union cost for three is unconscionable. The only winners in the competition of stealing jobs are the employer and the officials who brag about new jobs, not new stolen or under-bid. One officers union for deep draft is all that is needed.
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