Posted:
October 6, 2011
By Tom Bethel
National President
During his successful campaign last year for the presidency of the Marine Engineers' Beneficial Association, Mike Jewell made an issue of MEBA's status as a "rogue union" - Jewell's words, not mine - because of punitive sanctions imposed upon MEBA by the Executive Council of the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations. The Executive Council concluded in May 2007 that MEBA had twice violated the "no-raid" Article XX of the AFL-CIO Constitution in connection with its July 2003 stealth contract with Interlake Steamship Co., a longtime employer of American Maritime Officers on the Great Lakes.
Jewell's specific campaign complaint was that the incumbent MEBA president had made no attempt to settle the Interlake Steamship jurisdictional dispute with AMO, a prerequisite to removing the sanctions and restoring MEBA's damaged reputation in the labor community. Jewell pointed out correctly that, under the sanctions, MEBA was fair game for devastating "raids" by other unions.
While Jewell was right about the potential consequences of the labor sanctions, he was dead wrong about his predecessor's actions on this issue. The incumbent, Don Keefe, met with me often to discuss ending the dispute and moving on, but the settlement terms Keefe proposed were unacceptable to me as national president of AMO - I wanted a settlement to be in reasonable and just proportion to the damage done to our union by the secretive, concessionary Interlake-MEBA contract, and Keefe never came close.
But at least Keefe tried. Jewell, who as a candidate in 2010 had promised to "resolve these Article XX issues," has said nothing at all to me about the sanctions or a settlement since he took office in January 2011 after what was in fact a nine-year campaign.
This is relevant because Jewell now paints me publicly as a predator, and he characterizes American Maritime Officers as a "scab" union, all because I did my job when he did not or could not do his. I signed a collective bargaining agreement with Liberty Maritime Corp. after MEBA failed to secure a successor agreement to a MEBA-Liberty contract that expired Sept. 30. Negotiations between MEBA and Liberty broke down at the deadline over a key economic issue.
Jewell presents MEBA's loss of jobs to AMO on five oceangoing bulk carriers not as a consequence of inexperience and inept bargaining, but as a consequence of AMO aggression; however, he refuses to acknowledge that it is MEBA - not AMO - that is blacklisted in the AFL-CIO.
But the labor sanctions themselves were not even a factor here. There was no "raid" of the MEBA membership because there was no contract between MEBA and Liberty when Liberty signed with AMO, and there was no organizing of Liberty's engine and deck officers by AMO. Liberty was under no legal obligation to sign a successor agreement with MEBA, and AMO was under no ethical obligation to turn down a new employment opportunity.
The same cannot be said for the circumstances under which MEBA and Interlake came to terms eight years ago. The MEBA-Interlake contract was the result of collusion, not collective bargaining.
Ron Davis, the president of MEBA at the time and Mike Jewell's initial political target, met secretly with Interlake executives over several weeks in the summer of 2003 to discuss ways of displacing AMO from the Interlake fleet.
One week before the AMO-Interlake collective bargaining agreement expired on August 1, 2003, Davis and other MEBA officials joined James Barker, the principal owner of Interlake Steamship Co., at Barker's home to sign a 10-year contract estimated at 35-40 percent less expensive than the legitimate AMO-Interlake agreement. This contract was concealed from the AMO members in the Interlake fleet until August 1, when MEBA officials and Interlake executives swarmed the fleet's vessels at anchor in Lake Michigan and coerced these engineers, mates and stewards under threat of dismissal into signing MEBA pledge cards and withdrawing from AMO membership.
AMO later secured an arbitrator's ruling against Interlake in a class action grievance, won a civil court financial judgment against MEBA for interfering with a valid AMO contract and pursued the Article XX sanctions against MEBA.
But the damage had been done - AMO lost 160 jobs in the Interlake fleet and the dues revenue that resulted from these jobs, and the AMO benefit funds lost hundreds of millions of dollars in employer contributions. All other deep-sea, Great Lakes and inland waters employers under AMO contract were left with an unfunded pension liability totaling tens of millions of dollars to cover benefits earned by Interlake engineers, mates and stewards vested at the time in the defined benefit AMO Pension Plan.
And the harmful fallout from the Interlake-MEBA contract continues. Interlake's steep cut-rate cost advantage and the company's clear intent to monopolize Great Lakes dry bulk markets was the most significant barrier this year to a successor agreement between our union and American Steamship Co., Interlake's principal competitor. AMO members in the ASC fleet returned to work two months ago under an extended contract following a brief strike, and negotiations between AMO and ASC will resume soon.
Instead of clinging to a dishonest, hypocritical public relations strategy in response to the contract between AMO and Liberty Maritime, Mike Jewell ought to give serious thought to what caused the MEBA-Liberty negotiations to collapse - the declining state of the once-overfunded MEBA Pension Trust and the staggering, unsustainable sum MEBA demanded from Liberty to help cover the large and growing gap between the trust's assets and its benefit commitments to vested participants.
Instead of pushing the myth that AMO had meddled in MEBA matters, Jewell and his associates should develop a credible plan to restore the MEBA Pension Trust. Jewell should be honest, direct and comprehensive with the MEBA membership on this critical, turning-point issue - an issue certain to arise in MEBA's subsequent contract negotiations.
As always, I welcome comments and questions from AMO members on this or any other matter - feel free to call me on my cell at 202-251-0349.
AMO and Liberty: once more for the record
By Tom Bethel
National President
During his successful campaign last year for the presidency of the Marine Engineers' Beneficial Association, Mike Jewell made an issue of MEBA's status as a "rogue union" - Jewell's words, not mine - because of punitive sanctions imposed upon MEBA by the Executive Council of the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations. The Executive Council concluded in May 2007 that MEBA had twice violated the "no-raid" Article XX of the AFL-CIO Constitution in connection with its July 2003 stealth contract with Interlake Steamship Co., a longtime employer of American Maritime Officers on the Great Lakes.
Jewell's specific campaign complaint was that the incumbent MEBA president had made no attempt to settle the Interlake Steamship jurisdictional dispute with AMO, a prerequisite to removing the sanctions and restoring MEBA's damaged reputation in the labor community. Jewell pointed out correctly that, under the sanctions, MEBA was fair game for devastating "raids" by other unions.
While Jewell was right about the potential consequences of the labor sanctions, he was dead wrong about his predecessor's actions on this issue. The incumbent, Don Keefe, met with me often to discuss ending the dispute and moving on, but the settlement terms Keefe proposed were unacceptable to me as national president of AMO - I wanted a settlement to be in reasonable and just proportion to the damage done to our union by the secretive, concessionary Interlake-MEBA contract, and Keefe never came close.
But at least Keefe tried. Jewell, who as a candidate in 2010 had promised to "resolve these Article XX issues," has said nothing at all to me about the sanctions or a settlement since he took office in January 2011 after what was in fact a nine-year campaign.
This is relevant because Jewell now paints me publicly as a predator, and he characterizes American Maritime Officers as a "scab" union, all because I did my job when he did not or could not do his. I signed a collective bargaining agreement with Liberty Maritime Corp. after MEBA failed to secure a successor agreement to a MEBA-Liberty contract that expired Sept. 30. Negotiations between MEBA and Liberty broke down at the deadline over a key economic issue.
Jewell presents MEBA's loss of jobs to AMO on five oceangoing bulk carriers not as a consequence of inexperience and inept bargaining, but as a consequence of AMO aggression; however, he refuses to acknowledge that it is MEBA - not AMO - that is blacklisted in the AFL-CIO.
But the labor sanctions themselves were not even a factor here. There was no "raid" of the MEBA membership because there was no contract between MEBA and Liberty when Liberty signed with AMO, and there was no organizing of Liberty's engine and deck officers by AMO. Liberty was under no legal obligation to sign a successor agreement with MEBA, and AMO was under no ethical obligation to turn down a new employment opportunity.
The same cannot be said for the circumstances under which MEBA and Interlake came to terms eight years ago. The MEBA-Interlake contract was the result of collusion, not collective bargaining.
Ron Davis, the president of MEBA at the time and Mike Jewell's initial political target, met secretly with Interlake executives over several weeks in the summer of 2003 to discuss ways of displacing AMO from the Interlake fleet.
One week before the AMO-Interlake collective bargaining agreement expired on August 1, 2003, Davis and other MEBA officials joined James Barker, the principal owner of Interlake Steamship Co., at Barker's home to sign a 10-year contract estimated at 35-40 percent less expensive than the legitimate AMO-Interlake agreement. This contract was concealed from the AMO members in the Interlake fleet until August 1, when MEBA officials and Interlake executives swarmed the fleet's vessels at anchor in Lake Michigan and coerced these engineers, mates and stewards under threat of dismissal into signing MEBA pledge cards and withdrawing from AMO membership.
AMO later secured an arbitrator's ruling against Interlake in a class action grievance, won a civil court financial judgment against MEBA for interfering with a valid AMO contract and pursued the Article XX sanctions against MEBA.
But the damage had been done - AMO lost 160 jobs in the Interlake fleet and the dues revenue that resulted from these jobs, and the AMO benefit funds lost hundreds of millions of dollars in employer contributions. All other deep-sea, Great Lakes and inland waters employers under AMO contract were left with an unfunded pension liability totaling tens of millions of dollars to cover benefits earned by Interlake engineers, mates and stewards vested at the time in the defined benefit AMO Pension Plan.
And the harmful fallout from the Interlake-MEBA contract continues. Interlake's steep cut-rate cost advantage and the company's clear intent to monopolize Great Lakes dry bulk markets was the most significant barrier this year to a successor agreement between our union and American Steamship Co., Interlake's principal competitor. AMO members in the ASC fleet returned to work two months ago under an extended contract following a brief strike, and negotiations between AMO and ASC will resume soon.
Instead of clinging to a dishonest, hypocritical public relations strategy in response to the contract between AMO and Liberty Maritime, Mike Jewell ought to give serious thought to what caused the MEBA-Liberty negotiations to collapse - the declining state of the once-overfunded MEBA Pension Trust and the staggering, unsustainable sum MEBA demanded from Liberty to help cover the large and growing gap between the trust's assets and its benefit commitments to vested participants.
Instead of pushing the myth that AMO had meddled in MEBA matters, Jewell and his associates should develop a credible plan to restore the MEBA Pension Trust. Jewell should be honest, direct and comprehensive with the MEBA membership on this critical, turning-point issue - an issue certain to arise in MEBA's subsequent contract negotiations.
As always, I welcome comments and questions from AMO members on this or any other matter - feel free to call me on my cell at 202-251-0349.