AMO membership meetings to resume at STAR Center as conditions allow
Monthly AMO membership meetings in Dania Beach will resume outside at the STAR Center campus across Federal Highway from AMO headquarters in Dania Beach as pandemic conditions allow.
This new setting for the meetings will allow our union to comply with state, county and local restrictions on gatherings of 10 or more people in response to the nationwide COVID-19 health emergency declared by the federal government in mid-March 2020. This crisis forced the cancellation of regularly scheduled AMO membership meetings at headquarters in April, May, June, July, August and September.
Dania Beach has since April been in the middle of Florida's COVID-19 epicenter - the connected counties of Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade. However, there are indications that the coronavirus infection rate here is declining. By September 1, the statewide proportion of new diagnoses through testing in the tri-county area had fallen substantially to 5.8 percent. State, county and municipal health authorities agree that a "positivity rate" of 5 percent or lower is required before preventive measures - including the ban on indoor gatherings of 10 or more - can be eased.
Nevertheless, uncertainty persists. As a September 1 report from Associated Press said: "As the summer of COVID-19 draws to a close, many experts fear an even bleaker fall and suggest that American families should start planning for Thanksgiving by Zoom."
All of this is complicated by pandemic politics - the deep public division over how to limit contagion, how and when to reopen schools and businesses, the validity of test data and the diverse testing methodologies, the development of reliable therapeutics and the advance and distribution of a safe, effective vaccine.
Under these circumstances, the AMO Executive Board today cannot project a specific date for the resumption of regularly scheduled monthly membership meetings.
This administration's foremost priority from the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak has been to protect the health of all AMO members and their families, and the cancellation of the six AMO membership meetings at headquarters reflected this urgency.
The AMO Executive Board had considered alternatives to membership meetings at headquarters, including bringing meetings to key locations known to have large numbers of AMO member residents and positivity rates below 2 percent. This plan was scrapped when it was learned from authorities in these states that AMO personnel arriving from Florida or from Washington DC would be subject to 14-day quarantine before holding meetings or conducting other business.
The STAR Center option arose late in August, and it stands as the most practical way to resume monthly AMO membership meetings in a safe, comfortable location.
With its open-air space and tents, STAR Center would not be bound by restrictions imposed on indoor venues.
Moreover, STAR Center can accommodate our average attendance at regularly scheduled monthly membership meetings while enforcing the COVID-19 safety protocols in place at its campus since June 1 - masks, temperature checks, restriction to campus, "social distancing" and coronavirus screening and quarantine as necessary.
AMO members enrolled in training and housed safely at STAR Center on an AMO membership meeting date would already be in compliance with these protocols and would be encouraged to participate in this meeting.
AMO members who live locally or who arrive for a membership meeting at STAR Center from other U.S. or foreign points would have to complete questionnaires, submit to temperature checks on site, remain in the meeting area while on campus and wear masks, which would be available on site.
Meanwhile, this administration is trying to get our vessel boarding representatives back on the road to visit AMO members safely aboard their deep-sea ships on three coasts, on the Great Lakes - where 12 vessels are idle in the pandemic economy - and along the inland waterways. These representatives are fielding phone calls and replying to emails from AMO members each day from their offices or from home until they can return to their routine schedules.
AMO membership meetings and direct personal contact through shipboard visits are increasingly important to everyone in our union. But we in the administration have to be cautious while keeping faith with our responsibilities to the seagoing AMO membership under unprecedented and unpredictable circumstances.
We also have to continue to address other professional and personal COVID-19 consequences - restriction to ship, "gangway up," travel restrictions, unforeseen sea time extensions, and unanticipated delays getting relief officers to their vessels. This requires daily contact with employers and the tracking of ever-changing advisories and procedural updates from government agencies.
As always, I welcome your comments, questions, opinions and perspectives. I also ask sustained moral support for AMO members who have had to miss important family milestones or events or who have had to assist family members dismissed from their jobs through no fault of their own during this pandemic.
Thank you for listening ...
Paul Doell
September 4, 2020