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No substitute for face-to-face debate
Jack Hearn and his AMO Membership Committee apparently believe that an online “comparison” between the Hearn-AMC slate and ours is an acceptable substitute for wide-open face-to-face debate between Jack and Tom Bethel as the slates’ top candidates.
Tom has twice proposed such direct exchange, offering to let Jack set the terms and conditions and offering to pay the costs of the venue and of recording the event live for immediate uploading to our respective campaign Web sites from his personal campaign account. But Jack has twice ignored these reasonable proposals, despite the fact that seagoing AMO members would gain the most from live debate.
Fearful of difficult questions and direct challenge but mindful of the political consequences of ducking debate, Jack and the AMC attempted to draw distinctions between slates with side-by-side bullet points on the Hearn-AMC campaign Web site. But this effort just did not cut it.
Jack and the AMC set up two columns – Jack and the AMC on the left, Tom and our slate on the right. Under topic headings, Jack and the AMC dropped vague, fragmented comments about what they would do as elected officials of our union, then steered the eye to the right for what Jack and the AMC said were our positions. The Hearn-AMC comments on the left were without critical detail, and the Hearn-AMC distortions of our record on the right were incomplete, inaccurate or misleading.
“Business plan for growth and jobs,” Jack and the AMC promised in one entry. Scanning to the immediate right to what Jack and the AMC want AMO members to believe, Jack and the AMC said our union had experienced “Loss of 700 or more members since 2006.”
Had this topic been addressed personally and directly by Tom and by Jack at the same time before an audience of AMO members, these AMO members could have asked both candidates specific questions on this issue.
AMO members could have asked Jack to explain in detail how a Hearn-AMC administration would bring more jobs into AMO. But this would have forced Jack to talk uncomfortably about his own inexperience with job development, and about the Hearn-AMC plan to retain unidentified marketing consultants at unspecified expense to AMO for an unknown length of time in the frail hope of expanding our union’s job base.
AMO members could have asked Jack to explain how the exclusive use of consultants by a Hearn-AMC administration – not only for job development, but for contract negotiations and for lobbying as well – would not increase overhead significantly and wipe out the cost savings Jack and the AMC say they would achieve by cutting salaries.
AMO members could have asked Tom to verify in detail that this administration has generated 500 additional jobs for AMO members and protected hundreds of existing jobs since assuming office in January 2007.
AMO members could have asked Tom to confirm that the AMO membership and applicant rolls have grown substantially in the last three years – with a corresponding increase in revenue from membership dues and initiation fees – and that record numbers of U.S. Merchant Marine Academy and state maritime academy graduates are signing up with AMO as the most reliable source of long-term licensed seagoing jobs.
“Cut costs, money for member benefit first,” Jack and the AMC said on another line, suggesting inaccurately that AMO membership dues are used to provide benefits to AMO members and their families. In the right-hand column, Jack and the AMC attributed “Increase general overhead $4 million in four years” to this administration.
Had this topic been addressed personally and directly by Jack and by Tom, AMO members could have asked each candidate to refer to his copies of the annual LM-2 financial disclosure reports filed by AMO with the U.S. Department of Labor – reports available on the official AMO Web site for the last three years at Tom Bethel’s direction – and make his respective case.
But cost questions would have left Jack fumbling. Jack would have been forced to concede that legal expenses represented the single largest increase in AMO overhead from 2006 through 2010, and that most of this additional expense – more than $700,000 in legal fees paid by AMO – resulted directly from the failed civil lawsuit Jack and the AMC filed against AMO in February 2007. This case – in which Jack and the AMC lost unequivocally on every count in federal district court and on appeal – accomplished nothing for Jack and the AMC and nothing for the seagoing AMO membership.
AMO members could have asked Tom to confirm – line-by-line through the LM-2s – that official salaries reported by Jack and the AMC actually included reimbursements for legitimate business expenses, and that operating expenses overall had actually declined over the four-year period – by $1.7 million in one fiscal year alone.
“DC Plan, contribution/distribution equity,” Jack and the AMC said in reference to the forthcoming AMO Defined Contribution Plan, attributing “DC Plan, unfair distribution” to this administration.
In direct debate, Jack would have been forced to explain why he did not know that the United Mine Workers of America Pension Fund was insolvent in July 2010 when Jack and the AMC dangled this fund as a model of what a defined benefit pension fund could be in AMO under a Hearn-AMC administration.
Jack would have been forced to state specifically for the first time what the Hearn-AMC campaign’s subsequent pension strategy would cost and how it would be paid for. This strategy – centered on open-ended spending – was drawn in haste and in political panic after ballots were mailed to all AMO members September 1.
In direct debate, AMO members could have asked Jack to state specifically for the first time whether AMO members who had qualified for and received lump sum benefit distributions from the defined AMO Pension Plan before October 1 – including Jack Hearn – would have to leave their permanent jobs at sea under a Hearn-AMC administration.
AMO members could have pressed Jack to defend the discriminatory membership participation standards a Hearn-AMC administration would insist upon for the AMO Defined Contribution Plan and to comment on the strong possibility of membership lawsuits against AMO and AMO Plans in response.
In direct debate, AMO members would have had yet another opportunity to ask Tom to address specific controversies arising from pension issues.
There were other examples covering other issues, but the point is clear enough by now. Jack Hearn’s refusal to debate Tom Bethel has deprived all AMO members of their most revealing, most informative opportunity to judge each candidate – and each slate by extension – on their qualifications for office. The Hearn-AMC campaign’s online alternative – avoiding questions and insulating falsehood from straightforward challenge – did AMO members no service at all.
Tom Bethel, National President
José Leonard, National Secretary-Treasurer
Bob Kiefer, National Executive Vice President
Joe Gremelsbacker, National Vice President (Deep Sea)
Don Cree, National Vice President (Great Lakes)
Charles Murdock, National Vice President (Inland Waters)
Mike Murphy, National Vice President (Government Relations)