Interlake Steamship Revisited

Davis and Crew are overwhelming the Membership with details regarding the notion that Mike Jewell's protests regarding the last election is the cause of the sad state of the Union financial solvency yet last weeks FRC Committe Reveiw gave Davis and his Crew outstanding marks for maintaining the Union finances on sound footing. Let's look at the possible cost (note bold and italiced section) that the Interlake Steamship Contract could reflect if MEBA were to lose this battle. Should not the Union Leadership be more concerned with keeping the Membership updated on this issue?


From April AMO Newspaper

Interlake saga in new twist as 'raid' dispute spreads to tug-barge unit.

By DANIEL L. SMITH

Another front has opened in the ongoing controversy involving American Maritime Officers, the Marine Engineers Beneficial Association and Interlake Steamship Co. on the Great Lakes.


In a letter to me dated March 8, Interlake Senior Vice President Robert Dorn said a collective bargaining agreement between our union and Interlake Transportation Inc.--a separate company owned by Interlake Steamship--would not be renewed. AMO had been attempting to settle on a successor agreement with Interlake Transportation, which owned and operated a single vessel--the tug-barge combination Dorothy Ann and Pathfinder.

Dorn wrote: "For business reasons, Interlake Steamship Co. and Interlake Transportation Inc. has (sic) changed their corporate structure. Interlake Transportation has been dissolved and the tug Dorothy Ann is now owned and operated directly by Interlake Steamship. As you know, the contract between Interlake Transportation and the American Maritime Officers has expired. Since the Interlake Steamship Co. fleet, now including the Dorothy Ann, is being operated as an integrated whole under Interlake's contract with MEBA, the Dorothy Ann officers have been accreted into the Interlake Steamship Co. fleet as part of the Interlake Steamship's bargaining unit. Accordingly, effective immediately, the Dorothy Ann's officers will be covered under Interlake Steamship's contract with MEBA and MEBA will be the bargaining agent of the officers aboard the Dorothy Ann."

This structural sleight-of-hand was the work of James Barker, the chairman and principal owner of Interlake Steamship Co., after apparent prompting from MEBA President Ron Davis. Barker is already known to AMO members everywhere for the bedtime bargain he made with Davis--the collusive, concessionary 10-year Interlake-MEBA contract signed in July 2003, six days before the expiration of a three-year collective bargaining agreement between AMO and Interlake. The Interlake Steamship Co.-MEBA contract--brokered by former AMO National Executive Vice President Jerry Joseph and signed at Barker's home, where Davis and others were overnight guests--covered the engineers and mates aboard the company's seven active, self-propelled, self-unloading Great Lakes bulk carriers.

The AMO-Interlake Transportation collective bargaining agreement covering the captains, mates, engineers and stewards (including reliefs) aboard the Dorothy Ann-Pathfinder expired in March 2005. AMO agreed to extend the contract through December 2005 and sought repeatedly to negotiate a successor agreement. But there was no movement all through the winter or into March 2006, when the Dorothy Ann officers returned to Sturgeon Bay to fit the vessel out for the new Great Lakes shipping season.

In the case of the Interlake self-unloaders, Davis agreed easily to steep wage, benefit and work-rule concessions that saved Barker a bundle and cost the Interlake vessel officers plenty. We were not surprised to learn that Barker had wrung the same concessions from Davis in the Dorothy Ann case. Nor were we surprised to learn that Davis was quick to accommodate the man who had intimidated so many of the Interlake self-unloader engineers and mates into MEBA membership nearly three years ago.

As an affiliate of the Seafarers International Union of North America, American Maritime Officers this time was able to call upon the SIUNA to file a formal complaint against MEBA with American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations President John Sweeney. The complaint alleged that, in the Dorothy Ann case, MEBA violated Article XX of the AFL-CIO Constitution, which protects established union jurisdictions from encroachment by other unions. We believe we have a strong case, and we will report the outcome to everyone in our union immediately.

Meanwhile, we are exploring other options. For example, the Dorothy Ann case could factor into the lawsuit filed by AMO against MEBA at the end of 2005. That action charges MEBA, Davis, MEBA Vice President Don Keefe and five MEBA benefit funds with interfering with the legitimate collective bargaining agreement between our union and Interlake Steamship Co. in 2002 and 2003. AMO has asked for a jury trial, a minimum of $60 million in "direct and consequential" damages, $280 million in punitive damages, attorneys' fees and court costs, and "any further relief in law or equity to which (AMO) is entitled." The public record--a court-ordered arbitration won by AMO against Interlake Steamship Co. and a judgment won by our union against Jerry Joseph in a civil "trade secrets" case that focused in part on the Interlake-MEBA self-unloader contract--supports our argument, and we are confident that AMO will prevail

Redefining the 'company union'

Ron Davis has said many times that the Interlake-MEBA contract signed in 2003 was the result of "organizing" in the Interlake Steamship Co. by MEBA.

We have said many times in response that a legitimate union organizing drive begins with pledge cards signed voluntarily by the employees in the potential bargaining unit, provides for a vote by employees to accept or reject representation by the union, involves often stiff resistance from the employer, and ends with a signed contract.

The Interlake Steamship Co.-MEBA example was nothing like that. A contract was signed first, and there was no resistance at all from the employer--indeed, Barker and other Interlake executives ordered the vessel officers to choose between signing MEBA pledge cards and losing their jobs (Barker proved to be Davis's most effective "organizer"). There was no vote by the Interlake engineers and mates to accept MEBA as their collective bargaining agent.

Davis's slur against every honorable union organizer in U.S. history was compounded in Dorn's Dorothy Ann letter. Dorn referred to the Dorothy Ann officers as "part of the Interlake Steamship's bargaining unit." The Interlake officers actually comprise a MEBA bargaining unit, but no one at MEBA appears willing to distinguish between the company and the union. Poor choice of words by Dorn, or a subconscious slip confirming the nature of the Interlake-MEBA relationship?