When I first started sailing in the oilfield, I heard allthe horror stories about unions. I noticed over the years, the only time I got significant raises was when the unions came sniffing around. California in ’72,Alaska ’77, California and Rhode Island around ’80. I got screwed as companiessold out or merged and lost benefits when I got pissed off and quit. This was before the 401Ks. After a couple of down cycles in the oilfield, I joined theSIU and started sailing seagoing tugs under Inland contracts. I worked the same amount of hours as I did on the oilfield vessels but I was paid overtime and vacation pay. My income was twice what the oilfield paid. My union dues were one third of what I was paying for insurance with the non-union companies andwere tax deductible. As the ‘80s cycle in the oilfield plummeted, the mass exodus of scabs to cross the 333 picket line was at it’s peak. When thecontract was settled, the companies were restructured and we were saddled witha bunch of scabs pushed into the SIU contracted boats. These leaches were the worst at ‘creative writing” on the overtime sheets and insisted on drawing unemployment on their days off when they had permanent jobs. I was privileged to sail with some great crews over the 24 years I sailed with the SIU. We had agood track record for contract negotiations. The scabs were our greatest impediment. The NW companies are counting on the standard sailor mindset to cut each others throats. The money sounds good but the NE tugs still havn’t recovered from the 333 strike.
There are 2 foreign owned grain docks in ? That have locked out the ILWU in Portland. Forced the 3 big union shops to lease 1 boat each and put scabs on them to do the dirty work. They just started spotting barges to discharge 2 weeks ago and have not impressed the local guys, me included. The overall lock out has been going on for about 8 months . From what I hear its about to get a lot more interesting. Stay tuned.
Good for you, no respect for SCABS!!!
Longshore union pulls out of national AFL-CIO, citing attacks at Northwest grain terminals
The ILWU has split with the AFL-CIO, citing attacks at Northwest grain terminals. (The Oregonian)
By Richard Read, The Oregonian
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on August 30, 2013 at 8:40 PM, updated August 30, 2013 at 9:33 PM
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The West Coast longshore union is pulling out of the national AFL-CIO, citing “attacks” in which the umbrella organization’s members blatantly cross picket lines at Northwest grain terminals.
Robert “Big Bob” McEllrath, president of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, broke the news in a letter obtained by The Oregonian Friday. In the three-page letter sent Thursday, McEllrath told AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka the ILWU would sever its 25-year affiliation with the federation, cutting formal ties because organization members sabotaged dock workers.
The defection exposes a major schism in organized labor as well as the increasingly embattled status of the dockworkers’ union, a financially pressed organization threatened by automation that shrinks its base of almost 60,000 dues-paying members. Northwest conflicts, such as a 2011 challenge by an AFL-CIO affiliate that tried to displace longshoremen at a new grain terminal in Longview, Wash., are central to the historic fallout.
McEllrath sent the letter a day after a federal administrative law judge issued a withering decision directing the San Francisco-based longshore union to stop disrupting Port of Portland operations and to quit seeking work that the judge said belonged to another AFL-CIO affiliate, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. McEllrath didn’t mention the decision, but he cited numerous other perceived offenses as well as disenchantment with the AFL-CIO on policy issues ranging from taxes to immigration.
“We will not let other affiliates jeopardize our survival and block our future as the primary waterfront workforce,” McEllrath wrote.
The ILWU pullout portends more turmoil on the West Coast waterfront and resulting disruptions in international trade. The bitter Portland standoff tied up freight for months last year and caused international cargo vessels to bypass the city.
National AFL-CIO officers could not be reached late Friday. But Tom Chamberlain, Oregon AFL-CIO president said he felt the ILWU defection was related partly to the Port of Portland dispute – ostensibly over the equivalent of a couple of jobs, but involving broader turf battles.
Chamberlain called the longshore pullout discouraging. “We’ll continue to support our brothers and sisters in the ILWU,” he said. “They’ve been a good affiliate of ours.”
As an affiliate since 1988, the ILWU passed on a portion of its dues receipts to the AFL-CIO, a national federation of unions with more than 12 million members.
McEllrath, an elected president who rose from a Vancouver local, found just one positive thing to say to Trumka, thanking him for helping in 2002 longshore contract negotiations. The rest of the letter lambasted the AFL-CIO and its chapters, saying that since 2008, “we have seen a growing surge of attacks from various affiliates.”
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Continuing coverage of the contract negotiations between longshoremen and Northwest grain terminal operators.A “particularly outrageous raid occurred in 2011,” McEllrath wrote, “when one affiliate slipped in to fill longshore jobs at the new EGT grain facility in the port of Longview, Wash., and then walked through ILWU picket lines for six months until we were able to secure this critical longshore jurisdiction.”
“Your office added insult to injury by issuing a directive to the Oregon State Federation to rescind its support of the ILWU fight at EGT,” he wrote, “which threatened to be the first marine terminal on the West Coast to go non-ILWU.”
McEllrath cited offenses by other affiliates in Los Angeles, Oakland, Tacoma and Seattle.
“Throughout the Pacific Northwest,” he wrote, “we are daily seeing still other affiliates blatantly cross the picket lines of ILWU members who have been locked out for months by the regional grain industry.”
In that dispute, terminal owners in Portland and Vancouver have shut out dockworkers, trying to make the ILWU accept contract terms closer to those the union was forced to accept in Longview. Conditions on the picket lines have turned nasty. Washington Agriculture Department officials said this week they would stop inspecting grain at United Grain Corp. in Vancouver if security did not improve.
Longshore union leaders feel particular pressure as they prepare for West Coast labor negotiations with the Pacific Maritime Association, which represents cargo carriers, terminal operators and stevedores.
“We see this situation only getting worse as the ILWU is about to start West Coast longshore negotiations and face the challenge of the ports soon being run by robotics and computer-operated machinery over the next five to 10 years,” McEllrath wrote. “The survival of the ILWU and the job security of our members depend on our having these remaining jobs.”
The ILWU defection comes at an embarrassing time for the AFL-CIO, as the federation prepares to kick off a national conference Sept. 9 in Los Angeles that occurs every four years. A major theme of the convention is expanding membership and inclusion.
Chamberlain, of the Oregon AFL-CIO, said the ILWU pullout flies in the face of a recent trend in which estranged affiliates have returned to the fold. Trumka, the national president, worked hard to bring back laborers and hotel and food workers numbering in the millions, he said.
“Trumka’s got a track record of mending fences and bringing people back,” Chamberlain said. “Hopefully he can use some of that talent with the ILWU to find out what the true issues are and bring them back.”
– Richard Read
[QUOTE=“Jemplayer;119721”]Say what you will, but why the guys holding the line are worried about losing everything before the strike ends the scabs are making bank and in this case a years pay in 4 months! And where are you at the end of the strike? That much poorer with very little to show for it. Most of the time it takes you years to make back what pay you lost while on strike, if you are lucky enough to get any type of raise.
All unions have done is keep the market rate for you guys years behind, and the owners are laughing all the way to the bank.
Face it unions are dead and holding you guys back. All they are doing is sucking dues out of your pay check and trying to under bid each other for the next contract. How is this helping the mariner?[/QUOTE]
This is just union talk and has nothing to do with what’s going on here. You’re a good party man comrade.
[QUOTE=NYBoatman;119725]The scabs are making more bank? Those scabs are lucky to get paid half of what the union guys would make and there definitely not getting the same benefits. All they do is lower the standards for pay and benefits for the rest of the industry. Nothing comes good from scabbing. And as for unions keeping the market back for us is completely wrong. You guys in the gulf weren’t making shit until a couple years ago. The unions kept standards high for everyone, standards were lowered when scabs came to take jobs away.[/QUOTE]
First off everything I learned about unions comes from this forum. I read the thread and listen to you guys and form an opinion. Yall are your own worst enemy if you want to try and spread the greatness of being so called union. Please explain to me how sitting on a picket line not bring home a pay check helps you while somebody else takes your spot? How is it smart to have a union president telling you to work or not, who is most likely making six figures a year regardless if you work or not? What’s wrong with just going to another company when you feel like you can get a better deal some where else and forcing the companies to compete amongst each other for the talent?
Umm what tug guy is making $900 a day that works for a union, if that just half of what you are making, then your making $1800 a day? From what I can gather the average union captain is making in the $500 and your mates are in the $300. $500 is the low end in the Gulf for 500/1600 ton and the high end for 100 ton captains. $300 is starting pay for 100 ton and shit pay for a 500/1600 ton mate. You do start your OS’s out better but it quickly falls off at the AB where Gulf and Union guys are making the same.
You talk about benefits but I have never payed more the $120 a month for health insurance, granted I’ve only had to get it for myself but I don’t ever recall it going over $200 for a family. Even my Dad had great health insurance even back in the 80’s running utility boats.
You might try and persuade me about how you get a pension, but didn’t AMO change up the rules several years ago and a lot of guys got screwed? Also you hear all the time of guys losing their pensions from the union, not just maritime, and there are near retirement age and now haven’t got a pot to piss in. For a young guy like me counting on a pension for my retirement is downright dangerous, but your union bosses keep feeding you the same line and how many of you take it hook line and sinker.
Sure Unions had their place back in the day, and yes they did improve wages for everyone, but take a look at the Gulf. Unions haven’t been around in over 10 years, and our wages and benefits keep getting better every year. Now to the point that they have surpassed anything a Union could offer me. The free market has taken off and now the unions are holding you guys back. Wasn’t there just a thread, if I understood it correctly, talking about how the new contract in the NE was like 0/0/3% raises over the next three year? Man that doesn’t even cover the cost of living inflation. And because you are Union what are you going to do? Can’t go to another company same contract. Go sail non union? Hearsay!!
Go ahead and wrap your self up in the false warmth and security that the union gives you, but please explain how the modern day union is helping anybody?
I started in GOM in 1977 as an OS. Went the union route in 1979. Never looked back. I’ve seen a few up and down cycles obtaining work off the board, but always managed to survive. I’ve secured a nice pension when I want it, my home I built in 1988 has been paid off for a number of years and I’ve got a shitload of money in a checking account, three savings accounts in different banks and an even bigger shitoad of dough in IRAp and 401k accounts. The union has worked fine for me.
You’re misinformed as that no union mate makes $300 a day, other than maybe Crowley second mate working 4/8. Not moving oil. Mates at decent companies moving oil make over $600 which is less than the oilfield but have been making decent coin all along, not suddenly in the last few years. Union company harbor tug mates make over $500, and thats not moving petroleum barges. Captains are management at least on the east coast and therefore not union. Yeah a hundred bucks less a day but add in the travel sometimes halfway across the country I don’t pay for every two weeks!
You guys down in the gulf are in a different business working for different companies. It’s a different culture.
Pensions are a thing of the past. Nobody new counts on a pension these days. My benefits are free, and are just as good if not better than anywhere. The shit raises are just to be dealt with. And not all companies have the same contract, I really don’t know any that do. When nobody has big fuckups that $10-15,000 bonus makes up for the shit raise on occasion too.
Neither way is ideal, but unions are far from that bad of a thing. If you read into this situation it’s not the boat guys on strike as the real problem.
You dont understand. The scabs crossing the picket line of the workers on strike will make half of what the union guys are making. Half of $900 is $450. And they would be lucky to even get that. Striking keeps the standards of pay and benefits high for the workers doing that job. And by scabs crossing the line they lower standards for the job.
Capts and mates are making more than then those figures in the NE. Deckhands are making $350-$370 a day plus OT in the NE. Mates are making $550-$600 and Capts are making more then the mates obviously. And the raises are 3% each year for the next 3 years. And just cause u pay $120 for insurance doesnt mean its good insurance. And my company contributes 6% to my 401k and it goes up the longer your there.
And if you dont like the contract you can go to a different company, there not the same contracts. Or you can sail non union if u want. Sailing non union and scabbing are 2 different things. When u scab ur taking a good job with good pay and benefits from someone and there family. And thats fucking wrong!!
[QUOTE=“NYBoatman;119795”]
You dont understand. The scabs crossing the picket line of the workers on strike will make half of what the union guys are making. Half of $900 is $450. And they would be lucky to even get that. Striking keeps the standards of pay and benefits high for the workers doing that job. And by scabs crossing the line they lower standards for the job.
Capts and mates are making more than then those figures in the NE. Deckhands are making $350-$370 a day plus OT in the NE. Mates are making $550-$600 and Capts are making more then the mates obviously. And the raises are 3% each year for the next 3 years. And just cause u pay $120 for insurance doesnt mean its good insurance. And my company contributes 6% to my 401k and it goes up the longer your there.
And if you dont like the contract you can go to a different company, there not the same contracts. Or you can sail non union if u want. Sailing non union and scabbing are 2 different things. When u scab ur taking a good job with good pay and benefits from someone and there family. And thats fucking wrong!![/QUOTE]
And their family…that’s where the propaganda starts
I wanna know who the “99 fucking idiots” where who really thought of their families first and took a contract for barely above the CPI. ???
How many total people voted?
[QUOTE=Jemplayer;119784] How is it smart to have a union president telling you to work or not, who is most likely making six figures a year regardless if you work or not? What’s wrong with just going to another company when you feel like you can get a better deal some where else and forcing the companies to compete amongst each other for the talent?
[/QUOTE]
A union is the workers who are organized. No one would be forced to go on strike without a vote. (The action in the NW is a lockout not a strike) if the workers want to end a strike they would vote to end it.
“Union officials” are sometimes former shipmates and if they don’t perform in office they may get voted out and become shipmates once again.
[QUOTE=z-drive;119794]You’re misinformed as that no union mate makes $300 a day, other than maybe Crowley second mate working 4/8. Not moving oil. Mates at decent companies moving oil make over $600 which is less than the oilfield but have been making decent coin all along, not suddenly in the last few years. Union company harbor tug mates make over $500, and thats not moving petroleum barges. Captains are management at least on the east coast and therefore not union. Yeah a hundred bucks less a day but add in the travel sometimes halfway across the country I don’t pay for every two weeks!
You guys down in the gulf are in a different business working for different companies. It’s a different culture.
Pensions are a thing of the past. Nobody new counts on a pension these days. My benefits are free, and are just as good if not better than anywhere. The shit raises are just to be dealt with. And not all companies have the same contract, I really don’t know any that do. When nobody has big fuckups that $10-15,000 bonus makes up for the shit raise on occasion too.
Neither way is ideal, but unions are far from that bad of a thing. If you read into this situation it’s not the boat guys on strike as the real problem.[/QUOTE]
After talking to several companies I hadn’t once seen an offer over 375 for a harbor tug mate, or 450 for offshore. I talked to HR at one company and when they asked me what I was looking for in a day rate on a tractor tug I threw out 450, never even heard a word back. Maybe I am just talking to the wrong places, but I would love to get back into tugs in the northeast at some point, preferably harbor work.
Few and far between pay that well but they are out there. $400 is about the norm these days though. That $500 comes from the “higher” paying company I am familiar with and includes some holiday and “other” pay, but day-day averaged out its well over $500. McAllister had been throwing $400 around for tractor mates lately.
That union wages are higher is not controversial, at least among economist. It’s called “union wage premium”.
Another term to google “union worker productivity” - union workers are more productive then non-union.
Loaded grain barge set adrift at night on Columbia River, causing alarm as longshore dispute continues
By Richard Read, The Oregonian
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on September 09, 2013 at 1:32 PM, updated September 09, 2013 at 4:08 PM
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Someone apparently intentionally set adrift a loaded grain barge on the Columbia River Friday night that was to be unloaded at a terminal that has locked out longshoremen, U.S. Coast Guard officials said Monday.
The crew of a passing tug happened on the 252-foot-long barge, which was floating unlit and unmanned near a staging area between Portland and Vancouver. Tidewater Barge Lines Inc. staff members had reported the 42-foot-wide barge missing at about 10 p.m. Friday. The Lori B tug towed the barge back to a staging area near Hayden Island where it had been moored.
A Tidewater employee said ratchets used to hold the barge in place appeared to have been intentionally loosened, according to a Coast Guard news release. A longshore union spokeswoman said the union had nothing to do with it.
“If in fact it was intentional, that’s an extremely serious act of recklessness,” said Capt. Bruce Jones, commander of the Coast Guard’s Columbia River sector. “It could have endangered a lot of people or caused a collision or resulted in some environmental damage.”
The fact that Barge 550 was loaded with grain destined for the locked-out elevators is also significant because it shows that tugboat companies have found a way around longshore picket lines. Columbia River tugs are typically crewed by union members affiliated with the International Longshore and Warehouse Union.
Until recently, two Portland and Vancouver grain terminals that have locked out longshoremen in a yearlong labor dispute had received grain solely by rail. But now, Tidewater and Shaver Transportation Co. deliver barges to two staging areas, where grain-elevator companies arrange to retrieve them.
Coast Guard officials said they didn’t know whether Tidewater originally intended to deliver Barge 550 to United Grain Corp. in Vancouver or Columbia Grain Inc. in Portland. A Tidewater spokeswoman did not return calls for comment Monday.
The barge was found floating near the navigation channel used by large vessels, according to the Coast Guard, which is responsible for policing shipping channels.
“Intentionally causing damage to a vessel or its cargo is a crime punishable by a fine and imprisonment for up to 20 years,” the Coast Guard release said.
Coast Guard officials said anyone with information about the incident should contact Sector Columbia River Command Center watchstanders in Warrenton at 503-861-6211.
Jennifer Sargent, a longshore union spokeswoman, said strikebreaking companies often try to malign workers during labor disputes. “The manner in which the barge broke free from the dock is
pure speculation until the investigation concludes,” Sargent wrote in an e-mail, “and the employer’s
private security and strikebreaking firm should be as closely examined
as anyone else during that process.”
Sargent noted that last week, a Clark County prosecutor decline to press charges against Vancouver longshore local official Todd Walker, who was accused by United Grain in March of sabotaging operations at the terminal. “The company had used that one fabricated allegation to justify locking out an entire local workforce,” Sargent said.
But Pat McCormick, a spokesman for the grain handlers, said Monday that, “We remain convinced the the video evidence shows Mr. Walker attempting to sabotage critical operating equipment last December, and the civil case against Mr. Walker will now move forward…”
Ironically the new York companies offering 400$ a day are non-union. Any company paying over 500$ a day is 333. This isn’t bullshit. All you have to do is look at the contracts vs. what mcallister and vane bros. are offering people.
For some reason I cannot post a new thread. Perhaps someone else can
Dan Magone has sold Magone Marine in Dutch Harbor to Resolve of Fort Lauderdale. The Resolve Pioneer and a Resolve Derrick barge are already in Dutch
I bet Resolve is paying a lot less than Dan has been
Anyone have the current day rates at vane? I could ask a friend but what fun is that. I know they had a $30 New York special anti-union stipend. Interesting to compare. Beyond harbor mates at Mcallister there is very little across the board rate set, most people are usually paid based on whatever deal they made.