'First responder' pension bid back on the table

Our union's long-sought proposal to allow AMO members with 20 years or more of service to collect earned monthly benefits from the defined benefit AMO Pension Plan while remaining at work and available for defense shipping service is back in view on Capitol Hill.

Under this proposal, AMO members would collect these vested benefits for direct rollover to qualified retirement savings accounts, where the money would grow through self-directed investment.

Our proposal is intended to ease a growing shortage of civilian American merchant mariners capable of serving on Military Sealift Command and Maritime Administration sealift ships and other military support vessels as "first responders" in national security emergencies and to enhance retirement security for AMO members.

We learned September 23 that the Internal Revenue Service had advised Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine that the tax rules under which the AMO Pension Plan was established do not allow the exemption sought by AMO, and that legislation is required.

Sen. Collins and her staff are preparing legislation modeled after common exemptions granted to firefighters and other emergency "first responders" in the public sector.

This update from Collins staffer Martin Menezes was forwarded to me from longtime AMO member and Maine resident Chad Morin, who brought the proposal to the Senator, and who joined me in correspondence with staff and a virtual meeting with Sen. Collins, who serves in the 117th Congress on the Appropriations and Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committees.

I had been scheduled for a strategic update from the Senator's staff on January 7, 2021, but this appointment was canceled after the storming of the Capitol Building by protesters a day earlier.

The plan now is to approach reliable contacts for bipartisan co-sponsorship in the Senate and to resume discussions I had with supportive members of the House of Representatives and their staffs - talks that were put on hold as the COVID-19 pandemic hit in March 2020, causing Congressional offices to close and many staffers to work remotely for more than a year.

Meanwhile, I extend my lasting gratitude to Chad Morin for his active interest in and pursuit of the AMO proposal and for his persistence as a Collins constituent. I also note for the record that Sen. Collins has a career record in support of the U.S. merchant fleet, civilian American merchant mariners, and Maine Maritime Academy.

In a related recent development, an AMO member and Massachusetts resident who asked to remain anonymous found through direct contact what he described as "real interest" from his state's Democratic Senators Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey.

Success here would follow major reforms of the AMO Defined Contribution Plan in 2016 and this year, each marking substantial increases in employer contributions to individual DC Plan retirement savings accounts held by AMO members, who also benefit from the AMO 401(k) Plan and the AMO Pension Plan Money Purchase Benefit, or MPB.

As always, I welcome comments, questions and personal perspective from deep-sea, Great Lakes and inland waters AMO members.

Paul Doell
President
September 24