Where Are The Unions?

You guys wondering off course. No political talk please

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It’s hard to say exactly where the maritime unions should be in this case. It’s a commonly held view among some mariners the maritime unions exist to extort dues from members while "controlling jobs’ In that case the unions will be silent because they don’t care if a ship goes down from time to time. That might be the point of the OP.

In reality unions, somewhat imperfectly, represent mariners who’s paychecks depend upon cooperation with management. The regulators on the other hand are not as dependent upon management. Maritime union members also have incentives to maintain good relationships with regulators.

The public is in better position to demand change than unions.

Mariners and unions should try to leverage public opinion. Unions biggest asset in this case will be expertise.

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Unions should do a few things:

  1. Merge into one trustworthy Union for officers and one trustworthy union for unlicensed.

  2. Cultivate strong relationships with both Democrats and Republicans, not just Democrats. Actively campaign for the most helpful candidates. Support mariners running for state offices and Congress. Encourage federal hiring of mariners at the USCG, MSC, Marad , etc., bureaucracies

  3. Raise wages. No more cheap contracts.

  4. Vigorously, promptly, and reliably represent mariners with legitimate beefs, i.e., unpaid, injured, etc., without hesitation.

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If someone wanted to know the maritime union’s view’s on, say the Jones Act it can be easily found. Without that maybe some mariners’ association or something? One of the Academies? Some random mariner?

The statement from the maritime union is going to be the working mariners viewpoint and be in usable form.

Or for example something like CG’s policy on TWIC.

Absolutely, and without a single unified officers union, none of that can happen. Too many contracts trying to undercut the opposition to get what little amount of work there is for their members.

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This is basically saying unions have a principle-agent problem, which is true, it’s also true of just about any organization from a church to a motorcycle gang.

I didn’t mean to claim that the collective expertise that maritime unions represent would cause them to survive. My point was the with regards to regulation reform post El Faro a useful role of the unions is to provide expertise based on the knowledge of many working mariners who are out there every day.

No idea on the other unions, but the MEBA contributed to 25 Republican candidates in 2016. The top two recipients were a Republican from New Jersey and a Democrat from Louisiana.

I get that the total contributions aren’t balanced, but that’s fairly understandable with the increasingly anti-labor stance of many elements of the Republican party. Look at the book “Building a New Majority” for some background on how relations between maritime unions and Republicans were before that shift.

SIU has 30,000+ members, the political contributions amount to a couple dollars a member. If you think the two bucks to the wrong party is going to destroy American you can offset by sending $2 to the other party, then it’d be a wash.

So, SIU isn’t really a maritime union anymore?

Not sure what your getting at? Shipping companies lobby etc, they are still considered shipping companies.

Anyone remember how much Chouest has been giving to Don Young? Isn’t it something approaching $200,000 a year?

$200,000 a year seems more like what it would take to get a senior Congressmen interested in really advocating for your issues.

There are only something like 50,000 mariners that hold MMCs.

At least half of them are retired or have changed careers. The vast majority of working mariners are in the Jones Act small vessel trade. So, SIU certainly does not have 30,000 mariners as members.

SIU has contracts for unlicensed crew on about 70 US flag ships? 70 x 20 = 1400 jobs, with two crews plus 50% slack, that totals about 4200 members. I don’t know how many Tug members SIU has, but I’m guessing about 1000.

I don’t see how the SIU could have much more than 5000 mariners as members.

I do recall hearing a few years ago that SIU was organizing secretaries, bookkeepers, and various other types of shoreside clerks and jerks.

If SIU only has 5000 Mariner members, but 30,000 total members, then I certainly would not call it a maritime union, not anymore.

I got the number from wikipedia, if SIU has 3000 members then the offset will be ten time more, so $20.

EDIT looks like 11,714 members, so about $3.

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Everything that can be said about the views of maritime unions can also be said about just about any organization that represents it’s members.

As an example here is the American Medical Association statement on the Affordable Care Act

Does that view differ from the rank and file? Does it represent the broad spectrum of the medical profession?

People are in fact more predisposed to consider the viewpoints of people with higher social status, doctors vs mariners. The official views of the AMA (for example) are more likely to be taken seriously than from an organization which represents blue (or khaki) collar workers.

This predisposition is reflected in the language used to describe union leadership as bosses and thugs.

The AMA is a very strong and powerful cartel that does right for it’s members. The AMA limits the number of medical schools and limits the number of accepted applicants (or limited number of residencies), thus creating an artificial “shortage” of physicians. Limiting the supply side is the dream of every man that wants more $$$. The Evil-Mongering Of The American Medical Association

Airline pilots have ALPA…one union that represents all of them.

But perhaps the modern officer union needs to take a model more like SAG (Screen Actors Guild). The argument can be made that officers are not “blue collar” workers, and a guild may be more appropriate than a union. It’s more than semantics.

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11,714 SIU members for about 70 ships, plus maybe 100 tugboats. SIU jobs must be difficult to get. I wonder how many A books, B books, and C books? How many non-mariners?

The Canadian Merchant Service Guild (CMSG), commonly called “The Guild” represents all union officers in Canada.

I believe they represent all Canadian ships including the Coast Guard (which is civilian), all the OSVs, and all the large tug companies, plus all the pilots.

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The 30,000 number was from Wikipedia and SIU. This is what it says:

The Seafarers International Union or SIU is an organization of 12 autonomous labor unions of mariners, fishermen and boatmen working aboard vessels flagged in the United States or Canada. Michael Sacco has been its president since 1988. The organization has an estimated 35,498 members and is the largest maritime labor organization in the United States

But scrolling down what we would call the SIU is

Seafarers International Union of North America Atlantic, Gulf, Lakes & Inland Waters District/National Maritime Union

It shows 11,714 as of 2015.

From talking to the crew it doesn’t seem like they have a hard time getting work. In general the unions try to keep membership size roughly in portion to number of jobs.

Gov employees union- 289,000
Inlandboatman- 103,000
Marine Engineers- 0???
Masters, Mates and Pilots- 257,000
Seafarers- 101,000

These are some of the top union official pays reported by unionfacts.com

A couple of these unions seem over the top with the pay and amount of employees. Others seem very reasonable for the service they provide.

I am not sure what the deal is with the Marine Engineers. If they run a volunteer office that would be amazing, maybe they are paid in other ways.

The total compensation for the President of the MEBA is $224,276. By the way Mike Sacco gets a substantial salary for being the head of the Maritime Trade Department in addition to his salary from the SIU.