The Department of Defense has decommissioned the Army’s supply ship prepositioning program that gives them access to equipment, vehicles, and supplies aboard Full Operating Status (FOS) ships that remain afloat and ready for rapid deployment in strategic areas. Cost savings were cited for the retirement of the Army Prepositioned Stock 3 (Afloat) program. M.E.B.A. crews five of the seven vessels in the APS-3 program.
Those vessels, deployed globally, function as floating warehouses stocked with essential military supplies, including ammunition, tanks, medical equipment, and spare parts. The military cargoes they carry complement the land-based supplies stored in the U.S., Europe, South Korea, and the Middle East. Five of these vessels are managed by M.E.B.A.-contracted Patriot and include the LMSRs USNS RED CLOUD, USNS CHARLTON, USNS WATKINS, USNS POMEROY and USNS
SODERMAN. The other two are the AMO-manned Ammunition ships MV LTC JOHN UD PAGE and MV SSG EDWARD A. CARTER JR. The contract for the PAGE was not renewed and the vessel has already been reflagged out of the U.S. fleet. The 45 American jobs attached to it were lost. The CARTER had its contract cancelled and was de-flagged from the U.S. fleet adding to another 45 jobs lost.
As part of the proposal, recently signed off on by the DOD, operational control of the LMSRs would go over to the DOT/MarAd and the ships would be homeported stateside in Reduced Operating Status (ROS). In ROS status, the remaining vessels will carry no cargo, be minimally crewed and maintained, and will be subject to a five-day activation standard. With the end of the program, the Army will no longer have ready-to-sail vessels in standby status and will instead rely on MarAd to activate ROS vessels in the continental United States. The M.E.B.A. and other impacted groups have thus far been unsuccessful in stopping this transition. We believe it is bad for our nation’s military readiness and is counter to the Administration’s goals of increasing US-flag vessels and mariners.
Wonder how soon this will impact the unions? Still seeing folks dispatched regularly to these vessels unless they’re just prepping to return them stateside for cargo download and inactivation to ROS status for MARAD’s peeps to take over.
That’s like 100 jobs right there folks are already freaking out about— all or most of them soon to be back in the halls.
Definitely a loss of jobs no doubt about it. SUP is definitely the biggest looser of jobs. But if when they go ROS there will still be jobs. Not all will be lost. How many unlicensed jobs are kept in ROS?
For licensed billets. I think there is a 2 mates and 3 engineers kept in ROS? Someone correct me if I’m wrong.
MMP should be able to offset the loss of the Patriot and Express Ship billets with the unionization of OSG/ ATC. But it seems the higher ups can’t get their sh*t together and get a contract. I am skeptical that it will ever happen, MMP has burnt a lot of bridges within the industry and they got no pressure/ plan except an expensive and long legal battle.
We’re hearing they really want to go AMO. They were set to flag in 9 ships this summer and want four to go to them immediately.
CMA CGM has fucked us real hard and our legal folks just kinda laid down and took it in the ass. No one can claim they really tried to fight them and they’ve more or less confessed to screwing the pooch and letting it get worse than when it all started.
When your own “leadership” admits it’s basically over— that says quite a bit.
It starts there— but their end goal is to dump MMP across the fleet. This has been mentioned in union meetings and a few of our elected leaders have privately said they think ultimately it’s over for us and APL.
