Legislature(2001 - 2002)
01/23/2002 03:20 PM House L&C
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* first hearing in first committee of referral
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
HCR 12-FOREIGN SHIPS AND U.S. LONGSHOREMEN Number 2130 CHAIR MURKOWSKI announced that the next order of business would be HOUSE CONCURRENT RESOLUTION NO. 12, Relating to the preservation of employment opportunities for United States longshoremen with respect to unloading and loading of foreign vessels. Number 2119 TIM BENINTENDI, Staff to Representative Carl Moses, Alaska State Legislature, sponsor of HCR 12, came forward to testify. He said HCR 12 addresses a longstanding and unresolved national labor issue that affects Alaskans, in that Alaskan and American longshoremen stand idle while foreign ships reflag their cargo vessels when they are entering American ports in order to use their own crews to load and unload ships. MR. BENINTENDI said that [international] reciprocity agreements, exceptions to them, enforcement activity, and the practice of reflagging cargo vessels to skirt the intention of the United States law have been the subject of considerable and unresolved political activity in Washington, D.C., for a number of years. He said HCR 12 would petition Congress and the State Department to close the loopholes exploited by reflagging. To more fully reveal the scope of the problem, he wished to introduce Pete Hendrickson, a longshoreman from Dutch Harbor, to answer questions and provide background. Number 2046 CHAIR MURKOWSKI asked Mr. Benintendi about the first "WHEREAS" in HCR 12, which appeared to highlight the port of Dutch Harbor. She asked why it was necessary to emphasize that port. MR. BENINTENDI explained that the bulk of the longshoring activity on these freighters, mostly tramp steamers, occurs in Dutch Harbor. There is a slight manifestation of the problem in Kodiak and, to an even slighter degree, in Seward. Therefore, the emphasis is on the port of Dutch Harbor. However, the other two ports would not be beyond the realm of this issue, he added. He further noted that this resolution and this problem are not related to cruise ships. CHAIR MURKOWSKI asked him to elaborate on that. She referred to two letters to the editor included in the packet, both of which mention cruise ships. MR. BENINTENDI said he could not explain those references because he has understood from the beginning that only cargo vessels are a problem, not cruise ships. Number 1958 PETE HENDRICKSON, of Unalaska/Dutch Harbor, identified himself as a longshoreman and a registered member of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union [ILWU]. He said he is currently the Alaskan representative to the international executive board of that union and safety officer for the longshore division of ILWU Unit 223 in Dutch Harbor. He also is a past president of the local. MR. HENDRICKSON said that over the past three years, a large number of foreign trampers visiting Alaskan waters to load seafood bound for Europe and Asia have been filing for the reciprocity exception to the Immigration and Nationality Act. They can then displace Alaskan longshore workers by using their own crewmembers to work cargo on the ship side of the loading operations, he explained. This is accomplished by representing to the Immigration and Nationality Service that their flag of registry and majority ownership of the visiting vessel are from countries that currently qualify for the exception. In virtually all cases, the vessels in question have changed their flags just before arrival in order to file for the exception, he said. The result has been the loss of many thousands of hours of work for Alaskans. Number 1862 MR. HENDRICKSON said he thinks the reciprocity exception no longer serves any useful purpose for the United States, as American seafarers no longer do any loading elsewhere in the world. "And as we have seen here in Alaska, all this does is provide a mechanism by which certain parties can exploit this exception in order to avoid Alaskan labor," he said. MR. HENDRICKSON explained that in the early 1990s Congress created what is known as the Alaska Exception to the Immigration and Nationality Act, which allows loading work to be done by foreign crew if Alaskan longshore workers are not available. This guarantees that the work will always get done, which is critical to the fishing industry, he stated. Alaska's Congressional delegation in general, and Senator Ted Stevens in particular, were instrumental in accomplishing this. Alaskan longshoremen do not think the reciprocity exception should apply to Alaska. "The alternative, if we must live with this exception, is to amend it so that its application is more true to the original intent, and it cannot be misused as it is today," he said. MR. HENDRICKSON said he has been working on the issue for some time, visiting the U.S. Department of State and Alaska's Congressional delegation in Washington, D.C., to speak about the growing problem. Commissioner Ed Flanagan, Alaska Department of Labor, has also been involved, he reported. He said sponsors of HCR 12 think the legislature's support of their efforts to either exempt Alaska or revise the law will be instrumental to success, "as we continue to work toward a solution to what can only be called a 'scam.'" Number 1752 CHAIR MURKOWSKI asked if there is any pending federal legislation that would address the concerns outlined in HCR 12. MR. HENDRICKSON replied, "Not at the present time. We are working in that direction." REPRESENTATIVE MEYER asked if the hope was that if HCR 12 passes, it will be taken to Alaska's congressional delegation. MR. HENDRICKSON said yes. Number 1714 CHAIR MURKOWSKI asked about the applicability of HCR 12 to cruise ships. MR. HENDRICKSON explained that the reciprocity exception does not speak to cruise ships. He said he thinks it was intended to address only the handling of cargo. CHAIR MURKOWSKI asked if it was defined somewhere that this reciprocity agreement would only relate to cargo vessels. MR. HENDRICKSON said that is his understanding. Number 1654 REPRESENTATIVE CRAWFORD observed that a lot of the problem seems to stem from the reflagging to a "flag of convenience." He asked about the process and how easy it is to reflag a vessel. MR. HENDRICKSON suggested that the frequency with which [reflagging] is done suggests that it cannot be too difficult. He explained that flags of convenience are prevalent in world shipping today. "Most ships in the world, regardless of where they're from and who owns them, are flagged in a handful of friendly countries with little or no standards for manning, safety, tax issues, etc.," he said. Ships from all over the world are being flagged to Panama, Libya, and Cyprus, for example. "There's apparently a fee that's paid in order to change flags," he explained, "and sometimes there may be issues with your insurance company ..., but because we see it happen on a ... pretty regular basis out here, ... I'd say that it's not particularly difficult." CHAIR MURKOWSKI remarked that she would like to think that those flags actually mean something, but that, apparently, they do not. She asked Mr. Hendrickson if it would be more beneficial to Alaska and Alaskan workers to exempt them from the reciprocity exception or simply to repeal the reciprocity exception. She asked if one was more possible than the other. MR. HENDRICKSON said he thought that repealing the entire reciprocity exception throughout the United States would be the better thing to do, as reciprocity does not appear to be accomplishing anything for the United States. It would be very difficult to change the federal law to that extent, he said. He thought it was more realistic to seek an Alaskan exception because something similar had been accomplished in the early 1990s as explained earlier. "We think that the process we went through that time can be gone through again without too much difficulty to create this second exception," he said. Number 1395 CHAIR MURKOWSKI commented, "Quite honestly, I can't believe that these guys get away with what they're doing." MR. BENINTENDI said that in addition to the obvious labor cost advantage, there are no standards for training or skill level on the operation of equipment, and that leads to safety issues. CHAIR MURKOWSKI asked the will of the committee on HCR 12. Number 1320 REPRESENTATIVE MEYER moved to report HCR 12 out of the House Labor and Commerce Standing Committee with individual recommendations and the accompanying zero fiscal note. There being no objection, HCR 12 was moved out of the House Labor and Commerce Standing Committee.
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