Strategy targets Anderson-Kelly on 'fit-for-duty'

Chief Engineer Bob Ring is now an inspirational figure in an emerging strategy to overcome complications forced upon AMO members under service provider contracts between AMO employers and health status arbiter Anderson-Kelly Associates Inc.

Ring has drawn Congressional attention to Anderson-Kelly's disruptive practices of flatly denying AMO members jobs they are well qualified for and delaying jobs indefinitely under its own "fit for duty" standards, which often supersede those established by the U.S. Coast Guard, Military Sealift Command, family physicians and health care specialists.

Ring had been denied AMO covered employment for more than a year because of decisions made exclusively by Anderson-Kelly. Ring had just completed a seagoing job elsewhere, having been found fit for duty by the Coast Guard. He is now employed as an adjunct instructor at the AMO Safety & Education Plan's STAR Center.

But Ring began making a federal case of Anderson-Kelly issues early this year when he brought his case to Senator Susan Collins, a Maine Republican with a career-long record of support for the U.S. merchant fleet, American merchant mariners and Ring's alma mater, Maine Maritime Academy. Sen. Collins also has a rich history of resolving constituent concerns.

In a January 25 letter to Sen. Collins, Ring - a Maine resident in a town where Sen. Collins has an office - acknowledged the Senator's earlier assistance when his mariner credentials were delayed at the Coast Guard's National Maritime Center in West Virginia.

"I should note as well that I am a member of American Maritime Officers," Ring added proudly.

Ring provided one example of Anderson-Kelly's inappropriate business practices is to require "clearance letters" from primary care physicians - letters Ring said are then altered to fit Anderson-Kelly's preferred format.

"I have done this on numerous occasions over the last 15 months," Ring explained. "Getting test after test done at their insistence when I hold a USCG Med Cert seems that there may be some malfeasance at play."

The Senator's staff in Ring's hometown of Caribou responded to Ring's letter only two days later. Collins aide Pamela Gerow told Ring her office had just contacted "the liaison for the United States Coast Guard and have asked for information about the USCG's policies on fit for duty standards and information on the role of third-party companies in these standards."

Gerow added: "Please be assured that I will contact you with any information as it becomes available. If you have questions or concerns in the meantime, please do not hesitate to contact me at Senator Collins's office in Caribou."

Gerow later advised Ring that the Senator's office had also contacted the Maritime Administration in the Department of Transportation on Anderson-Kelly issues.

"Bob Ring's action here brings the Anderson-Kelly discussion to an entirely new level," said AMO President Paul Doell. "We are encouraged by the immediate response Bob received from the Senator, and the hope here is that other AMO members will follow Bob's example by letting their Congressional Representatives know of their experiences with Anderson-Kelly - which must be held accountable."

Members of the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives "are far more likely to draw accurate, thorough and important information from Anderson-Kelly than AMO and its contracted employers are," Doell said. "This will take time, but real and lasting reform is well worth patient pursuit."

Doell concluded: "Making a federal case of Anderson-Kelly issues could also result in easing the industry-wide shortage of U.S. merchant mariners in all trades and serve a legitimate national security interest by expanding the number of available and qualified mariners to provide strategic sealift and other military support services in distant defense emergencies - a tested and proven seagoing labor force the Department of Defense cannot provide."