Reprinted from past issues of the Seafarers LOG 1953
With just three days to go to strike deadline, the Cities Service Oil Company yielded completely to all SIU demands and signed the standard SIU tanker agreement, retroactive to January 1, 1953. The contract was signed on Friday, April 17, a few hours after the Seafarers LOG came out with news about the SIU’s full strike preparations and pledges of support received from shore-side Cities Service unions such as the Lake Charles Metal Trades Council, AFL, representing Cities Service employees at the Lake Charles refinery and the Louisiana State Federation of Labor. The refusal of the membership and the union negotiating committee to accept anything less than a full settlement paid off after several weeks of negotiations at which the company unsuccessfully argued for special treatment.
1965
The Seafarers International Union of North America told a subcommittee of the U.S. Senate Joint Economic Committee recently that the cost to the government of shipping government-generated cargoes could be substantially reduced by building new American-flag bulk carriers which would be able to carry these cargoes at low rates and still operate gainfully. “We believe,” said the SIU in a written statement to the Subcommittee on Federal Procurement and Regulation, “that a vigorous and affirmative policy by the government, to facilitate the construction of a new bulk carrier fleet, would not only pay dividends to the government in the form of lower cargo preference costs, but would restore our tramp fleet to a position in which, even while carrying cargo at lower rates, it could operate profitably.”
1980
Members of the SIU joined picket lines in San Francisco recently, to show solidarity with unions striking local TV station KRON. Local unions belonging to the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA) and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) have been on strike for nearly three months, seeking improved wages and working conditions.
The management of the TV station had publicly claimed that the striking unions did not have the support of organized labor in San Francisco. The SIU’s response was to publicly demonstrate that the IBEW and AFTRA certainly did have labor’s support by joining the picket line.
1997
In an endeavor described by the U.S. Coast Guard as “an extraordinary display of seamanship” and a “nearly impossible rescue,” the SIU-crewed Sea Wolf saved six people stuck in a disabled sailboat, despite 30-foot seas and 50-knot winds. The rescue happened April 2, approximately 280 miles southeast of Cape Hatteras, N.C., where the containership maneuvered alongside the 34-foot sloop Allegra and helped its passengers to safety.
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