STAR-BULLETIN / FILE
Norwegian Cruise Line will base three cruise ships in Hawaii by the end of 2005, and hire for hundreds of jobs. Local unions are jockeying to represent crew members for the ships.
Unions seek boost American unions representing shipboard workers -- from officers, mates and engine room technicians to deck hands, stewards and restaurant wait help -- are ready to work their way aboard three new Hawaii-based U.S.-flagged ships authorized by an act of Congress.
from cruise line
Norwegian has been talking
to Seafarers International but
other unions also want to
represent crew members
By Russ Lynch
CORRECTION
Friday, February 28, 2003» Russell Rippetoe is a local representative of the Marine Engineers Beneficial Association. His name was misspelled as Lippetoe in an article on Page C1 on Tuesday.
The Honolulu Star-Bulletin strives to make its news report fair and accurate. If you have a question or comment about news coverage, call Editor Frank Bridgewater at 529-4791 or email him at corrections@starbulletin.com.
rlynch@starbulletin.comThe ships could provide several thousand jobs when they are fully in operation in about two years, and the jobs seem likely to be represented by the Seafarers International Union, the same union that had most of the jobs on the American Classic Voyages vessels.
Under the act signed Friday by President Bush, Norwegian Cruise Line will be able to use foreign-built ships under an American flag in round-the-islands cruises in Hawaii. Unions see that as an opportunity, since the law requires the ships to have U.S. crews.
"It's up to the unions to get aboard these vessels and organize those people," said Jonathan "Lono" Kane, Hawaii regional director of the Inlandboatmen's Union, the seagoing branch of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union.
Kane and other officials of the local branches of seagoing unions said there is no guarantee so far that Norwegian will be unionized at all.
But Steve Hirano, a Hawaii spokesman for Norwegian, said the company has been working closely at a national level with the SIU. Jennifer Goto Sabas, chief of staff to Sen. Daniel K. Inouye, said the SIU was represented in meetings in Washington that led to act allowing Norwegian to use foreign-built ships under the American flag.
U.S. labor law allows a business to make its own union arrangements, but allows competition if other unions can win representation elections.
Several unions say they have their eyes open for opportunities.
American Classic Voyages, which went into bankruptcy in October 2001, had about 1,200 unionized crew members.
They were almost all members of the SIU, which had union jurisdiction over the vast majority of workers on the two ships that operated in Hawaii, the SS Independence and ms Patriot.
All workers lost their jobs. Many were Hawaii residents from the start and had their own homes and families in the islands. Others were from the mainland, lived aboard ship during the cruises and had temporary accommodations when they were on shore.
At the SIU, deck hands had shifts that called for four months' work and two months off. Room stewards and general utility workers would be aboard ship for three months and then take six weeks off on shore, said Frank Iverson, a dispatcher and a local SIU spokesman.
The union will seek to represent Norwegian crew members, he said.
"Absolutely," Iverson said. "It will mean a lot of American jobs and will help out the people of Hawaii."
Norwegian says it will need about 700 workers aboard each voyage of the first ship allowed under the new exemption. The unnamed ship is being built in Germany and is expected to go into service in the early summer of 2004.
Norwegian should need the same number or more for the second ship, for delivery in the spring of 2005 and for the third ship, an existing Norwegian vessel to be re-flagged as an American vessel in late 2005.
Several unions are interested in representing crew members. American Classic Voyages had and almost-exclusive deal with the SIU, union executives said. A dozen or so officers on the American Classic ships were represented by the American Maritime Officers union, but everyone else was SIU.
But it might be an uphill fight for outside unions, who could end up working against each other to organize the vessels.
"I wouldn't think these big corporations would like to go union at this time, but in the future they might consider it," said Carmella Gomez, Hawaii representative of the International Organization of Masters Mates & Pilots.
The schooling and Coast Guard licenses of the officers who make up the MM&P should be an attraction to a U.S. ship operator and the fact that Norwegian has to hire American workers should help the union, Gomez said.
There is an effort to get all the seagoing unions represented in Hawaii to work through a Port Council for maximum representation on the Norwegian vessels but the outcome is uncertain, she said.
"It's kind of opening a new equal opportunity field for everybody," said Russell Lippetoe, a local representative of the Marine Engineers Beneficial Association. "I know Inouye's intent was to help the American merchant marine," by giving Norwegian an exemption to operate under the U.S. flag.
