AMO Currents - Membership makes all things possible for AMO

AMO Currents - Posted: June 4, 2009

Membership makes all things possible for AMO

By Tom Bethel
National President

In American Maritime Officers, we take opportunity where we find it — and we make opportunity where none exists. As a result, AMO is the largest and strongest of the three U.S. merchant marine officers’ unions.

My administration has earned a share of the credit for this, but the greater truth is that our union would not have its substantial and enduring advantages were it not for the class and character of the seagoing AMO membership in all international and domestic maritime markets.

It’s no fluke that AMO is the only U.S. officers’ union with steady and growing employment in the international liquefied natural gas trade, which most analysts say will expand quickly and significantly in the next few years.

It wasn’t luck that led to the diverse and rewarding career paths available to AMO members — including combined time as officers at sea and executives ashore in the U.S. and/or abroad — under our union’s unique, unprecedented agreement with the world’s most respected maritime industry recruiting firm.

It’s not by chance that the AMO fleet continues to grow in commercial cargo and government charter trades. In the most recent examples, our union has welcomed the containerships APL Cyprine and APL Pearl and the product tankers Golden State and Pelican State to the deep-sea roster.

These qualities — and the many others that distinguish American Maritime Officers among the licensed unions — endure in part because of administrative initiative and policy. But the more conspicuous influence is the hard, honest work done each day by each AMO member (and each applicant for AMO membership) on each deep-sea, Great Lakes and inland waters merchant vessel.

AMO officials can identify potential opportunity, angle for the greatest advantage in competition for commercial jobs, and strike the right strategic note to enable AMO employers to win and keep government vessel operating charters, but the deal is always sealed by the AMO membership’s reputation for excellence and the highest standard of seagoing professionalism. Merchant vessel operators signing agreements with AMO know that the officers responsible for their tonnage, their cargoes and their crews are the finest in the world. Government agencies are confident that their ships are in the best possible hands when the companies selected to manage, maintain and operate them employ licensed officers represented by AMO.

One of the most compelling things about the AMO membership is that these men and women adapt so easily. They do their jobs — and they do them well — despite daily difficulties and complications arising from excessive regulation, international convention, the emerging prospect of lost employment because of rigid, unrealistic health requirements, business decisions that too often do not reflect the realities of life and work at sea and the often petty and pointless demands of bureaucrats and bosses who could never even attempt to meet the responsibilities AMO members accept routinely.

The typical AMO member must navigate the vessel, supervise the loading and discharging of cargo, meet departure and arrival schedules, operate and maintain the propulsion and electrical systems, keep accurate daily logs and make certain that the oily water separator system meets U.S. Coast Guard standards.

The typical AMO member must manage the crew, confirm individual qualifications, administer the payroll and keep payroll records, and serve as a medical officer capable of swift, skilled response when vessel personnel become ill or are injured far from port.

The typical AMO member must control the vessel’s waste, ensure that pollutants do not leach from hull paint or wash from the deck into the sea during storm, keep the vessel’s systems in compliance with U.S. and international environmental mandates, and address port state control issues.

These days, the typical AMO member must also ensure that a vessel is not easily accessible by pirates and that no one aboard is injured while evading or confronting these criminals in the Gulf of Aden and elsewhere.

It’s all in a long day’s work for the AMO member in service to the U.S. economy, national security and humanitarian need.

Now some people will read this and ask: “Isn’t that what all U.S. merchant marine officers do, regardless of union membership? Isn’t that what all U.S. merchant marine officers must contend with in the course of their jobs?”

Fair questions — and I can say comfortably that we in the AMO administration have the deepest possible respect for all U.S. merchant marine officers, whether they are dues-paying members of the International Organization of Masters, Mates and Pilots or the Marine Engineers’ Beneficial Association or whether they work without benefit of a union contract. Each of these officers is critical to legitimate and lasting U.S. interests, and each has chosen a working life many Americans would never even consider.

But we hold our greatest admiration for the men and women we are privileged to represent in American Maritime Officers. We know from practical experience that, because of the grace, dignity and strength AMO members bring to their jobs, all things are possible for our union.