After an absence of 29 years, SUP-contracted American President Lines resumed U.S.-flag liner service to the East Coast with the arrival of the C-10 class vessel President Adams at Port Newark Container Terminal, New Jersey, on August 27.
West Coast Sailors
Just prior to the Congress recessing for a month, Senator Trent Lott (R-Mississippi) added language to the pension reform bill that exempts U.S.-flag operators from paying the 50 percent ad valorem duty on equipment purchase abroad for repairs made in U.S.-flag vessels by U.S. mariners outside of the United States.
Matson Navigation Company?s fourth new vessel in three years was delivered to the company from her builder, Aker Philadelphia Shipyard, on July 12.
In response to the U.S. government?s proposal to issue Transportation Workers? Identification Credentials and the Coast Guard?s proposal to issue Merchant Mariners? Credentials to replace Merchant Mariner?s Documents, SUP Vice President Dave Connolly testified before representatives of the Department of Homeland Security?s Transportation Security Agency and the Coast Guard at a public hearing in Long Beach, California, on June 7, giving the Sailors? Union?s views on the regulatory changes.
Company officials informed the Sailors? Union on May 5, that it had entered into a long-term bareboat charter arrangement to acquire three U.S.-built Double Eagle class tankers. The Company intends to operate the ships in the Jones Act trade with SUP crews in all three unlicensed departments.
United States merchant mariners won a historic victory this month when Congress stripped language from the Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation Act of 2005 (H.R. 889) that would have permitted the unlimited use of foreign nationals to perform maintenance and repair work in U.S.-flag vessels in the international trades.
The International Labor Organization, overwhelmingly adopted a comprehensive new labor standard for the world?s maritime sector.
The prospect of Dubai Ports World, a company owned by the government of the United Arab Emirates (U.A.E.), operating six United States seaports has sparked outrage across the country and strong bipartisan opposition in both houses of Congress.
In one of the worst injury incidents aboard an SUP-contracted ship in recent memory, the Matsonia on the 19th of December, took a wave over the bow while four sailors and the Chief Mate were working there to secure a hatch. Miraculously, none were swept over the side, and though all sustained serious injuries they remain in stable condition.
Legislators from both houses of Congress?and political parties?are turning up the heat on the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) for its now infamous $236 million contract with Carnival Cruise Lines to house Hurricane Katrina evacuees from New Orleans and the Gulf Coast.
Among the Union's objectives is "to support a journal which shall voice the sentiments of the seafaring class, and through its columns seek to maintain the knowledge of and interest in maritime affairs." The first issue of the West Coast Sailors, in June of 1937, noted that "Common sense, fearlessly applied, brings success to a Union."