AMO Currents - Seagoing labor urges U.S. Coast Guard to ensure FSO training requirements correct inequitable shore access for mariners

AMO Currents - Posted: December 7, 2012

Seagoing labor urges U.S. Coast Guard to ensure FSO training requirements correct inequitable shore access for mariners

In response to the Department of Homeland Security's proposed training requirements for facility security officers (FSOs), the presidents of America's leading seagoing unions urged the U.S. Coast Guard to ensure the training requirements encompass fair and equitable protocols for providing shore access to U.S. merchant mariners, and eliminate the inconsistency currently faced by mariners at U.S. ports and terminals.

"While we have a vital interest in security regulations that protect shipping, port facilities and the public from terrorist acts, we also have a substantial interest in attaining a fair and reasonable implementation of our national security regime that recognizes an appropriate balance between security and the safe and efficient operations of the shipping industry and the human rights of our members," wrote the presidents of American Maritime Officers, the Seafarers International Union, the Marine Engineers' Beneficial Association and the International Organization of Masters, Mates and Pilots.

In detailed commentary, supported with substantial documentation on the subject, the union presidents stated: "We strongly support mandatory training requirements for FSOs as a means to bring uniformity into the interpretation and implementation of the provisions of the ISPS (International Ship and Port Security Code) and the MTSA (U.S. Maritime Transportation Security Act). At the present time there is a lack of consistency in the implementation of security measures from terminal to terminal and from port to port. Even within the same terminal, the procedures can vary with a change of shift of the security guards or with a change in security contractors. This creates a situation where security procedures that must be followed by the ship and crew members for needed access through the terminal are both arbitrarily determined and inconsistent.

"Coupled with the lack of consistency in procedures is a lack of understanding and application by FSOs of the provisions in the ISPS Code and other international instruments that are intended to protect the safe and efficient operation of ships and the human rights of seafarers within a security regime," the union presidents wrote. "This is a subject of major concern to all ships and seafarers."

In their commentary, the union presidents cited, among other things, a key provision of the Coast Guard Authorization Act of 2010, which states: "Each facility security plan approved under section 70103(c) of title 46, United States Code, shall provide a system for seamen assigned to a vessel at that facility, pilots and representatives of seamen's welfare and labor organizations to board and depart the vessel through the facility in a timely manner at no cost to the individual."