Can SIU Members retain full membership status if they join MSC and continue paying dues? How are SIU-Civmars different from Civmars?
You will not loose your book. But your time at MSC will not count towards getting your A book. So in the future if you return to non-MSC shipping with SIU you will pick up where you left off.
MSC follows the federal employee civil service rules with it’s own set of retirement, insurance and seniority. The two don’t combine or relate in any way. Time spent in one side will not be transferable to time in the other side.
You will no longer be able to go to Piney Point once your current eligibility expires. MSC offers training at MSC schools, some USN schools or by paying for you to attend private run maritime schools. In some ways this is better than SIU, in other ways it is worse.
The up side is that the variety of training can far exceed what SIU can offer as there are many schools you could go to across the country. The down side is that approval for MSC training takes battling the bureaucracy and most people give up or don’t bother trying.
There is no difference whatsoever between a dues paying civmar and a civmar scab. Most unlicensed at MSC do not pay dues. It’s a different world with different rules.
Right, there is no difference, only the dues paying " siu civmars" have less pocket money to spend as they spend it on dues. There is little to nothing the siu can do for a civmar as it is a federal job. Same is true of the lic billets. No use in unions with Msc.