1950
The SIU Atlantic and Gulf District became the first seamen’s union to negotiate a company-financed Welfare Plan for its members. This was established in an agreement signed with nine contracted steamship companies on December 28. Although the companies will make all the contributions to the welfare fund, the agreement provides for joint administration by a committee representing the union and the steamship companies. Under the terms of the contract each company will contribute into a common fund, the sum of 25 cents per day for each man employed aboard its vessels.1960
Six of the 14 crew members of the wrecked Liberian freighter Francisco Morazan have been detained by the U.S. Immigration Service as “undesirable aliens.” The detention came after their vessel was blown on the rocks in Lake Michigan by an early winter storm. The six men were then placed in the custody of the ship’s New York agent for transportation to New York, from where they will leave the country.
The incident tends to substantiate contentions by the SIU and other U.S. maritime unions that the so-called “effective control” policy is a sham. The SIU has pointed out that runaway-flag crew members, unlike seamen on American-flag ships, do not undergo any screening. Many of them, in fact, are recruited in areas which have strong local Communist groups on the waterfront and in the local labor movements. Under the circumstances, the union has pointed out, the United States could not count on the reliability of such crews in the event of a national emergency.
1970
Rep. Gerald R. Ford (R-Mich.) said he wants more than just a minimum of America’s foreign trade cargoes carried in her ships. At a luncheon sponsored by the AFL-CIO Maritime Trades Department (with which the SIU is affiliated), the House minority leader said it is bad for this nation to be so dependent on foreign-flag ships for its import and export trade.
Ford said, “If American-flag ships are not built to transport a reasonable percentage of our expanding foreign trade, we will be totally dependent upon foreign shipping interests to move those goods. We cannot afford that dependence.”
1980
Frank Drozak has been overwhelmingly elected president of the SIU Atlantic, Gulf, Lakes and Inland Waters District in a secret mail ballot as provided for under the SIU constitution. The ballots were counted by the official union tallying committee, made up of 18 rank-and-file members. The committee consisted of two members from each of the SIU’s nine constitutional ports. They were elected by their brother members at special meetings in the nine constitutional ports on Dec. 29, 1980.
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