Hotel Award Calculated, CIVMARS to Receive More Than $400,000Previous LOG articles notified CIVMARS that the SIU was successful in the “failure to provide adequate hotel quarters” arbitration earlier this year. The SIU convinced the arbitrator that the U.S. Military Sealift Command (MSC)-selected hotel, the Days Inn Military Circle, was unsafe, unhealthy and unsuitable. (The full decision is available in PDF format HERE)
The arbitrator held that while the hotel was clearly substandard from the start of the time CIVMARS were assigned, because MSC had signed a contract with the hotel, the arbitrator did not have the authority to determine if MSC could have cancelled the contract. As a result of this finding the arbitrator determined that the monetary awards for CIVMARS would start once the contract had been extended, from Oct. 1, 2006 and ending when CIVMARS were transferred to the Doubletree, Virginia Beach Jan. 18, 2007.
CIVMARS staying at the Days Inn Military Circle between those dates will be receiving monetary compensation of $40 for each night of their stay. The union reviewed each sign-in sheet and listed each CIVMAR and the nights stayed to calculate the amount of the award. The total award amounted to more than $400,000. This report was sent to MSC for implementation. The union will work with MSC to ensure appropriate payment and notification of CIVMARS who will receive this money.
Union Proceeding with TARS-Class Habitability Grievances
The union’s efforts to have CIVMARS paid habitability pay aboard the TARS salvage vessels USNS Grasp, USNS Grapple and USNS Salvor are proceeding. The SIU and MSC are selecting arbitration dates for the East Coast salvage ships. The Salvor grievance has been sent for a third-step review by Rear Adm. Robert Reilly, commander, MSC, in accordance with the collective bargaining agreement between the SIU and MSC for the West Coast CIVMAR unit. The union is asking for compensation for all CIVMARS assigned to these vessels at $40 per night. The SIU will keep CIVMARs posted.
Penalty Meal Hour Payments
The union has been advised by East Coast CIVMARS that they may not be getting an appropriate reimbursement for working through a meal hour. The collective bargaining agreement and the CMPI provide for penalty pay if CIVMARS are required to work through the meal hour as a result of underway replenishment duties or duties related to the navigation of the vessel. These rules do not apply to people on watch duty.
If you have been required to work during a meal hour, even if you have received 15 or 20 minutes to eat your meal, you may be entitled to this payment in addition to the overtime rate of pay.
CIVMARS must request payment for this type of penalty pay. If you do not know how to file for this pay, contact civmarsupport@seafarers.org or contact your SIU Government Services Division representative. You can call Maurice Cokes at (757) 622-1892; Kate Hunt at (718) 499-6600, extension 223, or Chet Wheeler at (510) 444-2360, extension 17.
Benefits Enrollment Period
The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) recently announced that the federal benefits enrollment period will take place from Nov. 12 through Dec. 10. Also, the agency has given the enrollment period itself a new name: Federal Benefits Open Season. Previously, it had been called the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program Open Season.
However, the new procedure involves more than signing up for basic health benefits. Federal workers also may enroll for vision and dental coverage. They may arrange “flexible spending accounts” for out-of-pocket expenses for health care and dependent care.
Updated information (including 2008 premiums) should be available by early November at the following web address: www.opm.gov/insure
2 Ports Remain on USNS Comfort Mission
By late September, only two ports remained on the hospital ship USNS Comfort’s humanitarian assistance mission, MSC reported.
The vessel is crewed by members of the SIU Government Services Division. It is on a four-month deployment to Latin America and the Caribbean providing medical assistance to patients in a dozen countries. The deployment is in support of the U.S. Southern Command’s Partnership for the Americas initiative, strengthening the ties between the United States and partner nations.
According to MSC, the Comfort has helped more than 84,000 patients to date.
Additionally, the ship departed Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago Sept. 22, having been the longest vessel to pull pier-side there. Typically, the port has a limitation for the length of ships allowed to dock, due to a small turning basin where the vessels enter and exit. The Comfort (at 894 feet) exceeds the length set in the limitations, so special accommodations were arranged. In particular, the Comfort only took on 60 percent of its fuel capacity before arriving in Trinidad and Tobago, and the ballast tanks were emptied so the ship wouldn’t run aground.
If the Comfort hadn’t been pulled pier-side, everyone arriving on and departing the ship would have had to be flown, which would have depleted the ship’s helicopter fuel supply.
Nearly 100 surgeries were performed on the ship in cooperation from Trinidad and Tobago medical professionals. Two Trinidad and Tobago doctors assisted and observed during a range of surgeries, including hernia repairs, cataract surgeries, hysterectomies and a variety of others.
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