MIKE JEWELL REPLYS TO ARTICLE IN MARINE OFFICER

MIKE JEWELL REPLYS TO ARTICLE IN MARINE OFFICER

The latest Marine Officer is now out and I see that the Davis Administration is willing to mention my name for the first time in 4 years in our Union paper. Wow – 8 pages devoted to none other than ME!!! I’m almost flattered!

When looking at Ron Davis and the DEC crow about MEBA's getting the DOL to give them a clean bill of health, one should remember that 4 years ago the DOL did the same to AMO (nothing wrong with their election) and now look at the events of the interim: top officials indicted with charges that include ballot tampering and mail fraud.

This is an attempt by Davis to blame me for the disastrous condition of our union and its treasury.
This article is a complete waste of our time and dues money. It is true that the DoL rejected my initial challenge on Sept 6th 2005 to the 2004 MEBA Election. But maybe you need to ask yourself why Ron Davis and crew waited until now 6 months later to report this.

Davis most likely has spent many thousands of our MEBA dollars defending himself against my challenge as MEBA General Counsel Ed Gleason had been camped out at the DoL for months to make sure certain facts concerning our 2004 election never came out. I question why Davis did not use his own personal or campaign funds during this challenge as I did. My challenge was never against the MEBA. It was only against Ron Davis and the way in which he manipulated our 2004 union election.

Now, with the pending FRC review of our union finances, Davis is willing to spend even more our dues dollars by running this 8 page special insert in an attempt to discredit me and deflect from the problems he has caused.

OK, let’s go over the history of the 2004 MEBA election one more time.

MEBA United ran a good, although not perfect, campaign and by taking the High Road we left plenty of real estate between us and MT2.

Early on, Davis made it clear that he would use every legal encumbrance available to him in the event MEBA United won to prevent me from becoming President. It’s important to consider this because it makes him a hypocrite.

We were accused by Davis of having an illegal mailing list of Members. It was not an illegal list and besides, it was the same one Davis used to get elected in 2001. We spent an enormous effort trying to correct the list where we could.

We telephoned Members to survey them first and canvas them later. How did we obtain these telephone numbers? MEBA United candidates obtained Members phone numbers individually and the rest we looked up in a national public database. Based on our conversations with Members, we had a comfortable lead to win the election.

How many of you told us you would vote for MEBA United but in the end did not vote or voted for Davis?

We saw there were problems with the election. Many of you must have wondered what happened to those 400 ballots that went missing.

How many of you came forward?

The DEC conducted an “investigation” to determine if they should risk running a second election. I had absolutely zero faith that the investigation would be un-biased. The outcome of the “investigation” was therefore no surprise. Bud Jacque told Seattle Members the report cost the Union $10,000. I did not tell Davis to spend that kind of money to run a phony cover-up. Davis claimed I did not cooperate. Davis did not talk with a single person outside his star-chamber to come up with the DEC conclusion. Not one interview with anyone from MEBAUNITED.

How many of you actually read the 29-page DEC report?

Davis flew officials and shills all over the country to attend the April 2005 meetings where Members “overwhelmingly” would vote to turn down a re-election. I did not tell Davis he needed to spend your dues money on that. 95 percent of the active Members did not attend those meetings. Davis also refused to put any of my letters into this meeting package.

I sent our allegations to the DoL where they were investigated. I did not tell Davis he needed to have Ed Gleason, MEBA’s General Legal counsel, camped out at the DoL to put the kibosh on the DoL inquiry and to make sure that certain issues never got looked at. A new election would have been conducted at no charge to the MEBA. But Davis was not about to risk a re-election. What was he afraid of?

So now Davis comes out with this diatribe in the MO. Davis whines about me exercising my rights under the MEBA Constitution and By-Laws as well as the Federal Laws pertaining to Union elections. Davis seeks to blame me for the costs he incurred defending his position. Any costs that he saddled the Members with were on his own behalf, not that of the Members.

Davis spent $100,000 and ran a tainted election and then spent even more to cover it up.

Davis complains that this process took a long time during which the reputation of the MEBA was “muddied” Here too he attempts to place the blame on me for that. The fact is that Davis ran out the time limits for as long and as often as he could, delaying the complaint to the DoL. Then the DoL requested permission from Davis to extend the investigation by 2 more months, which Davis readily granted. Every attempt I have made to obtain information about violations has been met with delay and obfuscation by Davis. One has to wonder just how much Davis had to do with extending the DoL investigation as it was clearly postponing that evil day of reckoning which could have been the outcome. Remember, for somebody like Davis, every day he remains in power is a small victory. The fact is that this whole thing could have been decided as early as March 2005.

Also, and for the record, I did not have the assistance of four attorneys in presenting my case. I spent less than $100 in bringing this election challenge. All the material to the DoL was written by me and a few active and retired MEBA Members who wanted to help me get elected. These were people whose experience, integrity, wisdom and counsel would have been at your service had I been elected. But thanks for the compliment anyway!

Even at this juncture Davis takes every chance to distort the truth or outright lie to the Members.

Many facts still remain unanswered such as why were 2004, expense accounts, and phone bills, union transportation were significantly higher than those in 2003. As seen in the LM-2, transportation up approximately $50,000, phone expenses up approximately $45,000. What about Seattle Agent, Jon Anderson’s unexplained use of the union credit card for campaign purposes? Why did the Davis Administration start requiring officials and appointed representatives to start paying a portion of their mobile phone bills starting in January 2005? Is it because they used these phones to campaign with in 2004? Why didn’t the DoL review the phone records of the Peach Orchard estate in Easton and why didn’t they investigate the use of this union property during the election cycle? Why was there such a big difference between the number of ballots mailed out and the number of names on the union provided membership list during the election?

And, while I’m on the subject of finances. What about the $216,000 that Davis gave to Walter Browne? What about the hundreds of thousands that Davis paid to ex AMO Officials Jerry Joseph and Tom Kelly?

Davis also states that my election challenge caused confusion in the maritime community and government. Davis must be the only one confused on this issue as all my industry and government contacts know full well that Davis is only looking out for his own selfish interests.

The fact is, Davis should be using our dues dollars for a Marine Officer that advances the interests of ALL members. There’s nothing in this February-March 2006 issue about the sale of the San Francisco Union Hall. I guess Davis doesn’t want to take credit for that deal. There’s nothing in this issue about the Medical Plan Changes. Remember those election campaign promises and statements by Davis and Doyle during the election campaign period?? There’s nothing in this issue about ANY specific maritime legislation but Davis still wants our PAF money!

The future is not certain. As you have already learned, the Medical Plan is not in the rosy shape Davis said it was in order to get elected. The MEBA is looking at a huge lawsuit, thanks to Davis, which if the AMO wins, will most likely result in the wholesale lowering of benefits across the board including pensions. What other horrible truths is Davis hiding from you?

The decisions that the Membership makes as a whole are the collective of many individual decisions. Some of you will retire, take the money and run. Some of you will simply leave and seek your livelihood elsewhere. But how many of you will be saying to yourselves, “I was given several chances to help turn things around, but I let the opportunities pass.”


Yours in Unity,
Mike Jewell
Phone - 253-380-7557
Email - seadogmbj@aol.com