AMO Currents - Vote reflects sound judgment of AMO membership

AMO Currents - Posted: August 6, 2009

Vote reflects sound judgment of AMO membership

By Tom Bethel
National President

For the second time this year, the voting membership majority in American Maritime Officers has acted in our union's best professional interest while affirming the lasting value of greater participatory democracy in AMO under my administration.

The action this time was to authorize construction of a new AMO headquarters building on AMO-owned property in Dania Beach, across from the cramped, crowded two-story building that now functions - to the extent that it can - as AMO's principal place of administrative business. Deep-sea, Great Lakes and inland waters AMO members approved the project by a persuasive 66 percent margin in a union-wide 90-day secret ballot referendum that ended July 16.

In a union-wide 90-day secret ballot referendum that ended four months earlier, the voting AMO membership majority approved comprehensive amendments to the American Maritime Officers National Constitution - including a 50-percent reduction in the size of our union's National Executive Board, beginning with the term of official office that will start in January 2011.

Both votes were in keeping with my pledge to give the seagoing AMO membership a greater voice in union policy, and both votes mean enhanced operating efficiency in AMO and improved service to all deep-sea, Great Lakes and inland waters AMO members and their families.

One truth about the new AMO headquarters building is that our union needs it desperately. AMO members sacrifice comfort, convenience and confidentiality to conduct routine business in the hopelessly confined space of the existing building, and they deserve better. The voting membership majority saw this appropriately as a matter of principle.

Another truth is that the new building will not be paid for from existing AMO resources. The money will come from a portion of the proceeds from the imminent sale of debt-free land in Dania Beach by American Maritime Officers - the union - to the AMO Safety and Education Plan, and the remaining profit from the sale of the property will count as a substantial cash windfall to the AMO treasury. This was seen fittingly as a practical consideration.

The next step is to complete the temporary relocation of the AMO accounting department and the AMO membership services desk from the one-story building - a former bank - on the site where the new building will rise to yet another AMO-owned property nearby.

Once this is done, the bank building will be demolished, the lot will be cleared and construction of the new building will begin in accordance with an architectural design, preliminary plans and permits already in place - all of which will shave an estimated 18 months from the projected construction time.

Licensed, insured and reliable local union contractors selected through competitive bidding will do all of this work at rates indicative of today's difficult economy - bids received thus far quote costs much lower than had been projected.

When the building is completed, each AMO official, representative and employee will have sufficient space to do his or her job effectively, and AMO members will be able to meet with union officials, representatives and employees privately and in a professional and accommodating atmosphere - no more pedestrian traffic jams like those common in the existing headquarters building.

In addition, AMO will - for the first time ever - hold its regularly scheduled headquarters membership meetings and the special meetings required in specific circumstances under the AMO National Constitution in its own spacious hall, which we expect will also host industry and labor conferences. Our union now leases space from the AMO Safety and Education Plan for its Dania Beach membership meetings.

The new headquarters building will host collective bargaining with current AMO employers and meetings with prospective employers, thereby reducing the need for and the frequency and expense of official business travel.

With all AMO headquarters officials, representatives, dispatchers, accountants and administrative support personnel in one place, deep-sea, Great Lakes and inland waters AMO members and their families would experience seamless, one-stop service.

Meanwhile, the AMO Safety and Education Plan will proceed with its plans to expand the training programs available at no cost to all AMO deep-sea, Great Lakes and inland waters member at the Plan's Simulation, Training, Assessment and Research Center - STAR Center, which already provides the most advanced, most far-reaching merchant marine officers' training in the world.

Because of this project, American Maritime Officers will at long last have a headquarters building more accurately reflective of its status as the nation's largest and strongest union of merchant marine officers, and we have the AMO membership to thank for that. As they had in the earlier referendum on the AMO National Constitution, AMO members proved that, given the facts and open discussion, they will do the right thing.