The following is a list of the major points that we feel need to be addressed as soon as possible to fix the chronic problems that have dogged Local 333 for years. We encourage readers to e-mail us with your comments, ideas, suggestions, criticisms, etc. This is a work in progress.
1. TRANSPARENCY - Right now, union officials run the hall as if it were the Stalin-era KGB Headquarters in Moscow. This is both wrong and unacceptable. Local 333 must stop with all the secrecy and start operating in a transparent manner at all times. Every member has a right to know how decisions are made, who made them, and why. You have a right to know who was appointed by the President to serve on the By-laws Committee and the Election Committee, why, and what they do with the authority they've been entrusted with. You also have a right to know exactly where the money goes, and why. Not to mention what all salaried union officials and employees, as well as all outside contractors, are paid and what their benefits cost individually. No one should be made to feel that they're prying where they don't belong, or treated in a hostile manner, when they want to know these things. The members pay for every bit of it and the members have every right to know about it. We will use the 333 website to accomplish these goals. It will be available to you 24-7-365.
2. ACCOUNTABILITY - Right now, 333 is governed in almost complete anonymity. No one knows for sure who brought up the proposals for the By-law changes, for instance, let alone who was serving on the By-laws committee at the time and approved them to be put to a vote. Or who voted for what at any of the Executive Board meetings. And there are no minutes of the meetings recorded and made available available in a timely manner for the members to read. We believe that this is wrong and that all Local 333 officials must be held accountable for their actions and decisions at all times and without exception. One of the best ways to judge the performance of any incumbent official is to examine their voting record. We will ensure accountability by instituting a new system on the 333 website wherein the voting record of each member of the Executive Board will be posted for inspection by the members. This will serve as a constant reminder to the E.B. members to never forget that their primary duty is to work with the President to further the interests of the membership, while simultaneously serving as an important check on the power of the President. Also, knowing why an official voted a particular way can be almost as important as which way they voted. So, in addition, all E.B. members will be given the space and encouragement to post a brief explanation as to why they voted as they did. We will also record and post the minutes of every meeting of the Executive Board. Finally, there will be a comprehensive quarterly Newsletter to keep everyone up to date and informed about the activities of Local 333.
3. MODERNIZATION - Local 333 currently operates in the virtual Dark Ages. Although a website has finally been created, it is not used anywhere near its true capabilities. Updates have generally been far and few between, and sometimes months go by without anything of substance being posted. As a result, members are kept mostly in the dark about what is really going on. We will change this immediately. Except for members who request otherwise, or in other special circumstances, we will stop with the needless waste and expense of snail mail. Monthly Meeting notices will be posted on the front page of the website. In addition, we will work to compile an e-mail directory of as many members as possible and use it to send out e-mail reminders for all of the monthly and annual meetings. We will also use the website to conduct surveys to find out what the members think, where they want to see improvement, and what they are satisfied with. This will serve as a guide for future plans and activities. We will simply use the power of the internet to bring your union to you.
4. OPEN UP THE ELECTORAL PROCESS / LEVEL THE PLAYING FIELD - Right now, it is virtually impossible for anyone to run for office as an independent candidate because of the prohibitive costs of doing a mass mailing to, and communicating with, the members. Individual candidates have no real chance unless they run together as a slate so they can share the financial burden. While this may be expedient it does nothing to spur new people to run. It also stifles original thinking and weakens the democratic principles we should be trying to strengthen. We will poll the membership to find out whether there is support for partially union-financed candidacies for office. Such a system might work something like this: those desiring to run for office would have to get a minimum number of signatures on their petition to qualify. We'll have to debate what a proper number would be (10, 25, 50?). Once qualified by this petition, all candidates would get one mass-mailing to the eligible voting members for a nominal and affordable fee of $200.00 (with the union making up the difference), and a web page on the union's website with which to update information during the campaign, refine their platforms, and communicate with the membership. Candidates would be free to make as many mailings as they wish, but the rest would be at their own expense.
5. DEMOCRACY-BY-REFERENDUM - The day-to-day administration of union business may be conducted with just basic oversight from the Executive Board. But the really big decisions belong in the hands of the members. Not just the normal elections for union officers or voting on a contract. We will ensure this by bringing all major changes to a referendum vote of the members. This would include very important matters like all By-law changes.
6. BARGAINING UNIT DEMOCRACY - A proposal will be made to change the By-laws that currently allow the President to select wage-scale committee members for each bargaining unit prior to the start of contract negotiations. We feel that the members of the individual bargaining units should be able to choose whoever they want to represent them from within their own ranks, and without interference from anyone else. Consequently, we will bring to a vote of the membership a proposal to put this decision back in their hands where it belongs.
7. RESTORE FAITH IN THE ELECTORAL SYSTEM - To end the win-at-all-costs behavior of this and previous administrations we will hire a neutral third party to handle all aspects of elections, contract votes and referendums. Presently, election ballots are counted by an outside contractor. The problem is that the contractor doesn't get the ballots to count until after union officials have had a chance to screen and remove the ballots of "ineligible" members. But union officials can't be trusted to fairly determine who is or isn't entitled to vote, and this is where the opportunity for unethical behavior comes in. It is common knowledge that they will toss out the ballots of any member they think, or know, opposes them before they get sent on for the final count, regardless of eligibility. This conduct must stop and the only way to ensure fairness is to let someone who has no interest in the outcome handle the entire affair from start to finish. This will cost money, to be sure. But it won't cost near as much as the damage to the credibility of this union because of an untrustworthy voting system costs us all. In the end, it will be a small price to pay for having union-wide confidence that the true majority-will of the members will always be exercised.
8. SHOP STEWARD SYSTEM - Communications are lousy, and have been for as long as anyone can remember. By instituting a shop steward system we will create the means for open and meaningful two-way communications between the union hall and the members on the boats and barges. No longer will new-hires wander around for months (or even years) knowing nothing at all about their union. On crew-change days in the yards, in particular, the shop stewards will be a prime source of information for all members and will also answer basic questions from the green hands. In addition, they'll serve as the first point of contact if and when you have a grievance of any sort.
9. NEW-HIRE UNION ORIENTATION - To help end the problem of people never joining the union (whether due to ignorance or deliberate evasion) we will institute a mandatory orientation session for all new-hires. It will be given if and when they make it to the 30-day mark by the delegate for their particular company. It will primarily serve to educate them about their rights and responsibilities as a member of Local 333, and how the union functions. Information packages will be given out, which will include a copy of the Constitution and By-Laws. The shop stewards will assist the delegates in this effort by ensuring that no one "slips between the cracks" and gets lost within the system. We would also encourage regular members working with the new-hires to help prepare them as well.
10. NEW-HIRE BASIC TRAINING - Sending green hands off to fend for themselves on deck is a practice the needs to be ended, and we'll move aggressively to establish an entry-level seamanship training program. Recruiting young men and women into our industry, and our union, will be easier when we can offer them basic training that will ease their way through that first vulnerable year, where rookie mistakes can easily end up causing serious damage, not to mention severe injury or even death. These pre-trained personnel will also be much more attractive to the companies than the whoever-walks-in-off-the-street system used today.
11. REPRESENTATION WHERE IT COUNTS - For far too long, despite being the largest collective maritime labor force in the Northeast, Local 333 has been a no-show in the halls of power in Washington, D.C. The towing industry is largely represented by the American Waterways Operators. The oilfield workboat industry is represented by the Offshore Marine Services Association. We, on the other hand, have nothing. Important decisions are made in D.C. on a regular basis by Congressional committees and government bureaucrats from agencies like the Coast Guard and the Transportation Security Administration, and they have a profound effect on your livelihood and future. The Coast Guard also convenes regular hearings with their Towing Safety Advisory Committee (TSAC), National Offshore Safety Advisory Committee (NOSAC), Merchant Marine Personnel Advisory Committee (MERPAC), and Navigation Safety Advisory Committee (NAVSAC). The outcome of these meetings has a direct bearing on all of our working lives. Yet Local 333 leaders remain completely oblivious to it all, uninterested in anything happening beyond the Narrows. This, too, is unacceptable. We will join forces with the National Mariners Association (formerly the Gulf Coast Mariners Association) and use our strength in numbers to make sure that we have a seat at the table and real input when these decisions are being made. The concerns of our mariners will be made known to the decision-makers. This is way, way overdue.
12. MEMBER'S WELFARE COMES FIRST - All of us who work on the water for a living know that a serious injury or accident could happen at any time. Sometimes the injury can be severe enough to be career-ending, but at the very least it can put the person in a severe financial bind. Since supporting your family is the most important thing you do it stands to reason that protecting your income would be high on everyone's priority list. Many of the smaller companies are unable to offer things like disability insurance or license insurance to their employees because of their relative lack of buying power and the high costs. Local 333, however, has a lot of buying power if enough people show an interest in it. We will do everything we can to make low-cost disability, life and license/certificate insurance available to all members who want it. Without any gimmicks or kickbacks! In the last year I hated, more than anything else, hearing someone I used to work with, a longtime union loyalist, repeat to me the all-too-familiar refrain of union officials telling him "We're sorry, there's nothing we can do" after he went down with a clear cut line-of-duty injury that put him out of work indefinitely. Bullshit. There is something we can do. We can start really looking out for our own.
13. MEMBER PARTICIPATION - Even a fool can see that member participation is at an all time low. So low, in fact, that there are often not enough members in attendance at the monthly meetings to form a quorum, which renders the meetings into non-meetings for the purposes of getting things done. The long-term, consistently poor leadership from the hall has led to ever-increasing indifference and apathy on the part of the members, which has only further tempted and emboldened our union officials to do all of the wrong things, which has led to yet even greater levels of apathy. It's a vicious feedback loop that must be broken if the union is to be salvaged and then made strong again. We feel that the burden rests squarely upon the union leadership to make the first move and restore confidence in the system. President Healy, for his part, evidently feels that the best answer is to simply change the By-laws to get around inconvenient facts like low attendance. Had he been successful in reducing the number of members required to form a quorum he would have made the union even less democratic than it already is. We will go precisely in the opposite direction. As we make the changes described above it will convincingly demonstrate to all the members that we are serious about changing things for the better, and that real participation will be both possible and rewarding. It will no longer be a waste of your valuable time.
We are wide open to suggestions from all members to improve this union for all members. Please feel free to express yourselves. We want the union to be run in the best way possible and that can only happen when every member feels that they can speak their mind without fear it will be held against them. It won't. Without your direct participation and support this union is, and shall remain, worse than useless. Please help us to help yourselves.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
William Harrigan - Candidate for President
Michael Brandon - Candidate for Secretary-Treasurer
John Creevy - Candidate for Executive Board
Chris Dady - Candidate for Executive Board
Donna Manoli - Candidate for Executive Board
Larry Mennella - Candidate for Executive Board
Chris Regan - Candidate for Executive Board
Dominic Rizzo - Candidate for Executive Board
Joel Milton - Harbor Herald Editor
