Ok? The Spirit is a Keystone ship.
All OSG ships are company mates and MEBA engineers. The deck officers who are on the ships going to Keystone may go with the ship, but the senior guys have a lot of seniority in the company and I wouldn’t expect them to leave.
I wouldn’t. With this addition that gives MEBA what, 6 tankers? MEBA has been trying to poach tanker guys for years but there just isn’t any draw to it.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe some/most of the Captains on the affected ships are young/newly promoted? If the choice is go with the ship and stay a Captain or stay with OSG and bump back down to C/M, I bet they’ll go (I would).
In fact, if I were a newly promoted CM or a senior CM, I’d be contacting Keystone now to drop my resume for CM/Captain respectively.
From what I’ve heard, it’s not just these 3 ships but the New York and Houston could also be hitting free agency after their one year extensions are up. Gonna be mighty interesting in the next 6-18 months.
For the senior officers or those holding the license to be a senior officer, they should be calling Keystone. I haven’t seen their contract but I would assume the company has right to hire for the top 4.
One ‘draw to it’ would have been that all the OSG guys would now have varying levels of seniority in MEBA which would give them a leg up for jobs on the Keystone vessels, other MEBA vessels, and pass through opportunities with MMP. But since they didn’t join MEBA, they’ll enter as group 3 applicants right next to the fresh academy graduates. To that, I say GOOD. They’ve been enjoying the pay raises that MEBA has negotiated without having to pay any dues for a long time so now finally they can see what’s the ‘draw to it’.
But tanker guys want tanker jobs (usually). MEBA hasn’t really had any tanker jobs over the years, and really not that many deck jobs overall.
As far as I’ve heard the New York is one of the ones going back. The senior guys on there have been around for a while, and the senior guys on the other one have been too. I would think less than half would go over to Keystone. Except, of course, I’m sure OSG is telling everybody nothing as usual, so lots of hurt feelings there.
I wouldn’t say trying for years. 15 years ago the meba east coast vp had enough signed pledge cards and handed them to Ron Davis who at the 11th hour was informed that a bunch of the mates rescinded their pledge under pressure from senior officers on the existing osg ships. Im not sure poaching is really signing up an officer when they keep their job.
In this situation I would expect all the officers on the ships going to ksc would be given an opportunity to join meba and keep their jobs. Meba traditionally has all sr officers as company right of selection with one permanent 2nd and 3rd. The other two being rotary. Considering tankerman pic, all jobs may be company right of selection.
So did some investigating. The Seakay Spirit is not sailing and was last sailing in possibly 2018? But Keystone operates 11 ROS ships that occasionally go FOS. 6 in Charleston, 2 in New Orleans and 3 in Norfolk. They also operate have the M/v Rocketship.
Other than Keystone MEBA junior and senior deck officers are on 4 Liberty ROROs, 2 Alliance ROROs (maersk), 1 pride of American, 1 Express Container Vessel.
MEBA senior officer are also on the other 4 express vessels.
MEBA officers are also on Chevron too but it might be junior officers?
I also know they have the cross over with MMP and there’s a need for PICs on the three tankers Patriot/SNLC have.
Like I said. Not a lot of deck jobs, and between MEBA and MMP, very few tanker jobs.
Also I thought I heard the Seakay Spirit got scrapped?
Yeah I think the Seakay Spirit is scrapped. There’s about 15 MEBA deck officer vessels not including ROS, opportunities in MMP and Chevron.
MEBA seems like the place to be especially if OSG is downsizing and Keystone growing. If Keystone grabs some TSP tankers might be good if the pay is the same but benefits better. Seems weird that OSG Deckies just wouldn’t vote to join MEBA. Then people would have to worry as much.
Although maybe OSG is paying the Deck officers a lot more than the engineers to encourage them to stay non-union??
I don’t know what the pay is currently but I sailed with 3rd mate that was being cold called to come to OSG but he denied them. He said the pay was lower and the benefits worse than the containerships he’s been working on. He said they were desperate for people with PICs and calling mates in MMP with PICs. But this was more than 6 months ago. For some reason I just assumed OSG was MEBA. Not unheard of of union companies calling union guys if they need jobs filled.
The rates between Deck and Engine are comparable, until MEBA gets involved and starts taking a cut.
OSG has always been non union for the ships. The ATBs have been AMO for a long time.
The OSG rates of pay are exactly the same except for 1. The Captain makes more than the Chief Engineer which is pretty standard, and 2. The MEBA guys have a deduction (I believe 3.7%) to fund the pension plan. This varies company to company with billets at some contacted companies paying 0%, some paying more. This plan will pay you 40% of your base pay after 20 years of service and goes up from there for additional years of service. So it’s not really MEBA taking a cut as it is the employee funding his own pension. BTW, all of MEBA plans info is publicly available if anyone would like to look it over.
Anyway, that little misleading statement aside, this general attitude of “we don’t need no money grubbing union” which I’ve seen many mates at OSG display is exactly why I really hope that MEBA offers them no special deal to come with the ships to Keystone. They’ve had plenty of opportunity over the years to join up but have elected to not join while also reaping the benefits of raises negotiated by MEBA, so let them be group 3 applicants and pay the full initiation fee just like everyone else who has yet to earn their place in our union.
What about the 12% nonsense that happened a few years ago? Man the engine side was sure grumpy after that.
The pension contribution mentioned above began in 2012 as 11.7%. Over the past 10 years, it has been whittled down to it’s current level.
And yes, it sucked mainly because it was completely avoidable had proper management and planning been done in the preceding years.
Big picture, yes, there are costs associated with MEBA membership. Off the top of my head, in addition to the above, there’s $600 annually for dues, initiation fee of (I believe) $4000 which is payable over your first 2 years of sailing (and only payable if you are working), the and 6% of your vacation pay. One has to weigh all of these vs. the various benefits and decide if it’s for them.
The point I was making is that OSG mates have had many opportunities over the years to join but elected to stay unorganized. Now that they find themselves in a pinch, they should be given no special deal. I’d prefer to struggle for a couple years to fill the jobs while we train up a new batch of pro union guys rather than give special treatment to the current batch who have shown themselves to be anti-union opportunists.
I’m sure you’re aware of this, but there has been zero talk of unionizing since at least 2010.
And like I said - I don’t see a lot of the folks on these ships going to MEBA. I know I wouldn’t, but I guess time will tell.
The application fee for the MEBA is 4K not 6k and payable over 2 years according to the deep sea application packet on the MEBA website.
Your right the MEBA may struggle to fill some of those jobs bc most mates in the MMP and MEBA with PICs aren’t interested in working on lower paying tankers vs containerships especially when the containership jobs are easy to get and keep going open board. Also the 11.7% is almost not a factor anymore. For example the Express/ Crowley contract which MMP & MEBA mates work on, don’t have to pay any percentage to the pension fund. It’s completely paid for by the company and the wages are higher than that of OSG.
Maybe OSG shedded these vessels bc they have a hard time crewing them but may have made their problem worse?. For a second or third mate making the switch seems like a no brainer. More opportunity and their chief mate courses and training would be entirely paid for. The cost for lodging and training for MEBA mates is covered at Calhoun which has some courses throughout the year and/ or at MITAGs which ever they choose. Also I heard MEBA mates can get those chief mate courses reimbursed if they choose to take them elsewhere not at those schools.
Whenever I had a choice, regardless of what WELL run union, took the pledge…Their benefits far outweighed the company shit sandwich. Especially training, medical, and pension.
Yeah that’s right, thx for the correction.
OSG, like Keystone, Mormac, MTL, and Mormac were MM&P until 1984. MEBA took the draconian 40% pay cut the companies were offering. The MM&P declined, called for a “job action” and told their members to stay on the ships. The companies supplied scabs and those who would not take the offer were forcibly taken off the ships, some in hand cuffs. The MM&P’s efforts were undermined by the lack of solidarity among the senior deck officers. One Captain at OSG said at the time: “…I have to stay, if I was to go back to the hall I would probably have to sail as 3rd Mate…” If you weren’t around then and wonder why your pay isn’t commensurate with the skills, responsibility and long absences from home required in this line of work, this kick in the groin back in 1984 by the tanker companies to their officers is a big reason.
It’s also why a large number of MMP officers I have worked with over the years absolutely despise MEBA mates/masters, young or old, as well as Calhoun.
‘84 made a hell of a mess.