Seafarer wages have been frozen until some time next year, following an agreement between representatives of many leading shipowners and the main maritime trade Unions.
West Coast Sailors
Delegates to the AFL-CIO?s Convention in Pittsburgh enthusiastically adopted an ambitious series of resolutions that set forth a strategy aimed at restarting the economy and creating and sustaining good jobs.
Our nation is now engaged in a great debate about the future of health care in America. Millions of Americans quietly struggle every day with a system that often works better for the health-insurance companies than it does for them.
Members of the House Subcommittee on the Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation expressed disappointment during a hearing on July 9, concerning the time necessary for the Coast Guard to process Merchant Mariner Credentials and license processing.
This year marks the 75th anniversary of the Pacific Coast Maritime Strike of 1934 and the General Strike in San Francisco?events which sparked the resurgence of the maritime labor movement and the labor movement as a whole.
Bob Filner (D-California), Chairman of the House Committee on Veterans? Affairs, announced on May 12, that the full House of Representatives by voice vote, had passed legislation to assist U.S. merchant mariners of World War II. This is the fifth time the bill has been submitted to Congress by Chairman Filner.
As the West Coast Sailors goes to press, SUP sailors are preparing to board the APL Agate in Norfolk, Virginia, where the vessel will be reflagged from Singapore to U.S.-flag. Next month the same thing will occur in the APL Japan.
On March 16 the U.S. Coast Guard issued a final rule to consolidate the regulations covering the issuance of merchant mariner qualification credentials, to reduce the burden on mariners
President Obama wasted no time in beginning to fulfill his campaign pledges to assist American workers.
On January 29, he signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act which reversed a 2007 Supreme Court Decision on discriminatory pay practices
The financial markets are in tatters, consumer spending is anemic and the recession continues to deepen, but corporate America is keeping its eyes on the prize: crushing organized labor.
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."