Fighting back against foreign mariners in GoM

Professional Mariner Forum
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Here is a response I got from the office of Ron Paul in response to my form letter emailed to his office regaurding Jones Act waivers and attempts to circumvent the Jones Act.

Dear Mr. Payne:

Thank you for contacting my office regarding the issuance of “waivers” under the Jones Act and its impact on United States seamen. I share your concern about the Unites States Coast Guard skirting of the Jones Act, signed into law 1920. I agree that laws, such as the Jones Act, must be either enforced or repealed. Government agencies should not have the discretion to decide which laws to enforce or ignore.
[B][/B]

Sincerely,

Ron Paul

I also recieved a response from Kay Bailey Hutchison that was less than supportive

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I personally do not believe anymore than individual mariners can do a damn thing to get Congress to get out of their shithole they wallow in in Washington and take any action at all about this matter! This is why I am throwning my weight behind the OMSA since they have at least some stroke with the Coast Guard and do want to turn this situation around. Granted, they are more for the US vessel companies than the US mariners but hell, they are the only ones at all in the game so I’m putting my money on their team!

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[QUOTE=rjbpilot;23643]Thank you for posting. Is the 12 man crew due to their “safety standards” or more driven to provide jobs? How many Brazilian vessels are working there as compared to U.S./ foreign vessels? Does the Brazilian government require all foreign vessels to hire Brazilian crew for all positions aboard (besides Master) ?

Thanks for your input.[/QUOTE]When I worked in Brazil, the government officials there were pissed off that an American OSV had taken the place of a Brazilian utility boat which could not do the job. They made it very difficult for us to do our job and even arrested the boat for a month. They were mad when we sent the American unlicensed home and two of the locals we hired turned out to be foreign as well (one Angolan and one German Expat living in Brazil) It took about $20,000 in payoffs before they allowed us to work. After getting the job moving they finally replaced me (Mate) and the QMED (Naturalized American from Cape Verde Islands native Portuguese speaker) with Brazilians.

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Dear All- As you know, our firm has paid well over $10,000.00 to maintain the Save U.S. Seamen’s Jobs campaign with a service that sends the letters automatically to your Rep, Senator, Commandant of the Coast Guard and Office of INS. We have done so only to help, what we believe to be, vital cause. In know way, did we, or do we, wish to be “protectionist” TO THE EXCLUSION of foreign seaman. I believe foreign seaman are your “brothers in arms” so to speak and also risk their lives daily to the perils of the sea. Having said that, our US economy is just now beginning to come back ever so slowly and it is a fragile come back at that. I thought it incredibly stupid to “outsource” our jobs, in any sector, and especially in the seaman area. That is why we did what we did.

It is soon time to “renew” our contract with this company that provided this automated service. I know that the $6K renewal does not sound like a lot of money for a “law firm” but it is an expense that I have to weigh with all our other expenses. So, I am asking you to please [and soon} speak your mind on what you want Gordon, Elias & Seely to do, i.e., renew or not to renew. Some argue that Congress does not listen but I believe, and have always believed, that the ‘squeaky wheel gets the oil’. When it comes to enforcing the Jones Act, I am a stout supporter. This seems increasingly important now that President Obama has “opened up” the offshore drilling industry effectively though the entire Atlantic Coast and also to a much greater extent the GofM and Alaskan waters.

PLEASE let me have your reasoned thoughts.

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RENEW! RENEW! RENEW! RENEW! RENEW! RENEW!

…and thanks for fighting the good fight on our behalf!

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Renew. It’s good for your business to have Jones Act protected mariners. The Jones Act was originally a three legged stool to support the US maritime industry. It very basically said that only US built ships, operated by US owned companies and manned by US mariners were the only ones allowed to work in US waters and between US ports. Over the years it has been watered down or ignored to allow foreign built ships, US ships with foreign mariners and recently foreign owned ships to operate in US waters. Make no mistake these changes were allowed and ecouraged by US shipowners and those that contracted them in. These changes or relaxing of the rules came about through generous “campaign donations” [also known as bribes] to the politicians who control the laws and the enforcement thereof. The ideal for many of these US shipping companies would be to have a protected territory using foreign built vessels and employing low paid foreign workers. Every trick in the book has been tried including importing low cost foreign labor to replace US workers in US ship yards as well as getting waivers for vessels largely built overseas.
There has been little or zero concern among the politicians who see to these laws where the US mariner is involved. Even the unions campaign contributions [bribes] to politicians have gone down due to declining membership and general membership apathy. That leaves only the oil companies and those who they contract to influence decisions , we all know the Jones Act mariner is an evil they’d rather not pay for and won’t unless forced to.
So, I’d encourage your law firm to continue fight for the mariner. Attorneys may be our last voice. The mariners cannot compete with politically connected deep pocket companies that want to dismantle all but one leg of the three legged stool which was[is] the Jones Act.
Jones Act mariners, their profession and their relatively excellent standard of living will soon be a thing of the past unless there is an organized effort to stop the piece by piece dismantling of an act that was conceived back when stock price and bottom line wasn’t worshiped as a god.
Tengineer

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Renew!!!please.

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I would strongly suggest that you renew. I believe that you will continue to see a return on your investment.

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Done!

Now please tell your friends to use it!

http://capwiz.com/jonesactquestions/issues/alert/?alertid=14137901&PROCESS=Take+Action

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[QUOTE=c.captain;7874]No problem John…thanks for your support

[B][U]Btw…RED ALERT[/U][/B]

If anyone here goes to RigZone today they will see that Veolia Environmental Services has postings for ALL vessel positions. This is a BULLSHIT RUSE and DECEIPTFUL! They have all those positions filled with foreign nationals on the KINGFISHER and are only running those ads to show to the USCG that they are “trying” to recruit Americans for those positions. You will notice that in none of there ads to they say that US citizenship is a requirement. If one follows RigZone like I do, they will recall that Veolia runs these exact same ads every six months or so. One time more than a year ago, I responded to one of these and managed to talk to some port captain in their Lafayette office and he told me point blank and this is no BS…“OH, WE ONLY RUN THOSE ADS BECAUSE WE HAVE TO!”

Letters need to be sent by US mariners to the USCG Office to issues the waivers to Veolia and Caldive that we ARE available for these jobs and qualified to do them!

The office in Washington DC is:

J.F. Williams
Chief, Foreign and Offshore Vessel Division (CG-5432)
U.S. Coast Guard Headquarters
2100 Second Street SW
Washington DC 20593-0001
(202) 372-2275 v.
(202) 372-1917 f.

email: greg.e.cable@uscg.mil

They need to stop hearing only from the f’ing lawyers on K Street and start hearing from US! This has got to STOP and it is up to US to stop it!

for more information go to http://americanprofessionalmariners.blogspot.com/ and thanks for the support[/QUOTE]

Aha,

That explains a lot! I have a buddy who works for Veolia who is a US mariner, but all his pix show foreign folks. I applied a few times when they first started running their ads & never heard back, so I asked him if they were still hiring. He sounded pretty disgusted & told me he would try to help, but not to plan on working on any of thier boats.

BTY I do know that Maersk is using some US mariners, an old master of mine recently moved to their GoM rig.

Also, from what I was told by Helix, they plan to man the Caesar with all American officers because they have found it is far too expensive in the long run when they do it the other way. I was offfered one of the CE slots on her, but the pay was pretty rock bottom. . . . especially considering the headaches she will be with all the new technology Helix incorporated on her.