| Print | Close Window | AMO Currents - Posted: August 4, 2009 |
U.S. officers' unions urge Congressional action to improve Coast Guard documentation processing
During the hearing held July 9 before the Subcommittee on Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation in the House of Representatives, representatives of American Maritime Officers, the International Organization of Masters, Mates and Pilots and the Marine Engineers' Beneficial Association provided oral and written testimony documenting several inefficiencies in the new system and the threats it poses to the livelihoods of American merchant mariners. The unions discussed problems endemic to the centralized processing system for Coast Guard documentation at the National Maritime Center, rather than Regional Examination Centers, as well as the cumbersome and overbearing mariner medical evaluation standards adopted last year by the Coast Guard.
In a letter to Subcommittee Chairman Rep. Elijah Cummings following the hearing, the three officers' unions noted: "The mariner licensing and documentation system put into place by the Coast Guard does not serve the nation nor does it serve the mariners it is meant to regulate. It has proved to break careers and throw hard working Americans into economic hardship.
"We know of no other maritime nation in the world that is experiencing the kind of delays in processing applications for the renewal of licenses and documents that we have in the United States," the unions stated. "Efficient, effective and fair models exist in several industrialized nations, but the Coast Guard seemingly is resisting developing its processes along these lines."
To remedy the situation, the unions, among other things, requested Congress:
- Continue vigorous oversight of the Coast Guard's licensing and documentation processes
- Consider legislation to allow an individual's license or mariner documentation be extended beyond the original five-year expiration to allow for continuity of employment while renewal applications are processed by the Coast Guard
- Support legislation that ensures medical practitioners who examine mariners for fitness-for-duty have full professional independence in exercising medical judgment -- a registry of qualified medical practitioners should conduct examinations and issue certificates as agents of the Coast Guard
- Consider a system of "trusted agents" to certify the professional qualifications of mariners after approved training and demonstration of competency
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