Legislature(2001 - 2002)
02/07/2002 01:35 PM Senate L&C
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* first hearing in first committee of referral
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= bill was previously heard/scheduled
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
HCR 12-FOREIGN SHIPS AND U.S. LONGSHOREMEN
CHAIRMAN STEVENS announced HCR 12 to be up for consideration.
MR. TIM BENINTENDI, Staff to Representative Moses, sponsor of HCR
12, said this resolution addresses a long-standing unresolved
national labor issue which affects Alaskans whereby longshoremen
stand idle while ships of foreign registry from countries not
part of labor reciprocity agreements reflag their cargo vessels
as they pull into Alaskan ports. The problem is especially acute
in Dutch Harbor. The ships do this so that they can use their
own, often unskilled and untrained, crews to load and unload the
ships.
The reciprocity agreements and the exceptions to them and the
enforcement activity and the practice of reflagging are supposed
to be enforced by the State Department. The loopholes this is
addressing skirt the intention of the U.S. law. HCR 12 would
petition Congress and our State Department to close the loopholes
exploited by the reflagging activities.
SENATOR STEVENS asked where the ships would reflag before
entering U.S. waters.
MR. BENINTENDI replied that we have agreements with some nations
to use their labor when our ships are in their ports and we use
our labor when their ships are in our ports and then there are
countries that aren't part of these agreements. The problem is
when there are ships from countries that aren't part of these
agreements. As they approach a port, they simply reflag to be
able to use their cheaper and less skilled labor. It saves them
money and puts Alaskans out of work. When they pull out of port,
they can literally take the flag down and run their own flag back
up. He said this has been an issue for about 20 years.
CHAIRMAN STEVENS asked how much of the Bering Sea pollock that
goes over seas is being loaded on the vessels that reflag before
they enter U.S. waters.
MR. BENINTENDI replied that he didn't know for sure, but he
thought it was most of our production.
SENATOR TORGERSON asked if this affects the three-mile limit and
don't they load some of these boats a ways off-shore.
CHAIRMAN STEVENS replied that doesn't happen too much any more.
MR. BENINTENDI added that there is an Alaskan exception from
1993, which says the ships can use their own labor if there isn't
sufficient local labor, but in Dutch Harbor labor is always
available. The Alaskan exception is designed for small
communities like Togiak where there are no longshore workers.
This is not a problem there, but reflagging is being done in
Dutch Harbor, Kodiak and Seward.
SENATOR TORGESRON asked why the city doesn't sign project labor
agreements with the longshoremen.
MR. BENINTENDI said he didn't know why.
SENATOR TORGERSON asked if Dutch Harbor supported this
resolution.
MR. BENINTENDI said yes. He explained that Mr. Pete Hendrickson,
former President of the Longshoremen's Union in Dutch Harbor, is
in Washington, D.C. visiting the Alaskan delegation on this
issue. The unions, both regional and national, have participated
exhaustively over the years on this issue.
MR. PETE HENDRICKSON said he is currently representing Longshore
workers throughout Alaska on the international executive board.
Over the last three years, a large number of foreign
trampers visiting our 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
loading operations. This is accomplished by
representing to the Immigration and Naturalization
Service that their flag of registry and majority
ownership are from countries that currently qualify for
this exception. The most common registries do not
qualify.
In virtually all cases, the vessels in question have
changed their flag just prior to arrival in order to
file for this exception, but the result has been the
loss of thousands of hours of work for Alaskans and has
resulted in loss of cargo and profits for those
American companies and foreign vessels that do employ
us, but cannot effective compete against foreign labor.
We believe the reciprocity exception no longer serves
any useful purpose for the United States since
apparently no American seafarers do any loading
elsewhere in the world any more anyway. 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.
Further, in the early 1990s we were able to convince
Congress to create what is known as the Alaska
exception to the Immigration and Nationality Act, which
provides for the loading work to be done by foreign
crew if Alaskan longshore workers are unavailable. This
guarantees that the work will always get done, which is
critical to the fishing industry. Our congressional
delegation was instrumental in accomplishing this and
particularly Senator Stevens was involved in that
effort then.
Therefore, we don't think the reciprocity exception
should really apply to Alaska. The alternative, if we
must live with this exception is to amend it so that
application is more true to the original intent and it
cannot be misused as it is today. In our view and
exception is the best solution.
He said that he is in Washington D.C. talking with the U.S.
Department of State and our congressional delegation about this
growing problem. Alaska Department of Labor Commissioner Flanagan
is also involved. "We think your support of our efforts to either
exempt Alaska or revised the law will be instrumental to our
success as we continue to work toward solution to what can only
be called a scam…"
SENATOR TORGERSON said he thought flagging a vessel had to do
with the country of registry. He asked if that was true.
MR. HENDRICKSON replied that he is correct, that the registry and
flag are generally of the same country.
SENATOR TORGERSON asked how they could change their flag when
they come into port.
MR. HENDRICKSON replied that vessels infrequently change
registries and flags for various reasons, especially when they
change ownership. It's common that a new owner may prefer a
different flag. Most ships in the world don't fly the flag of the
country where they are actually from. They fly a flag of
convenience from another country, which has minimal safety,
insurance and labor standards. That's why there are thousands of
Panamanian flagged ships, even though they have never been to
Panama.
SENATOR TORGERSON asked why we don't have labor agreements with
the municipality that prohibits this activity.
MR. HENDRICKSON replied that might be a solution in one location,
but the problem is bigger than that. In Dutch Harbor, for
instance, the city dock is not the only dock where this takes
place.
SENATOR TORGERSON asked if the other docks were private docks.
MR. HENDRICKSON replied yes, there are a number of private docks
in Dutch Harbor and just one city dock.
SENATOR TORGERSON asked if one of the reasons the companies built
their own docks was so they could do their own longshoring.
MR. HENRICKSON replied in some cases that might be true, but the
Longshoremen's Union does work on a lot of them. He explained
that a lot of the small companies have a small number of people
working for them and loading ships often takes 10 - 18 people on
a foreign vessel.
SENATOR LEMAN asked if reflagging is as simple as running another
flag up, is that consistent with international law and any
protocols we have with other countries.
MR. HENDRICKSON answered that there is little that can be done
about that.
But there is something in the U.N. Convention on the
Law of the Sea about changing flags in mid-stream, but
it isn't absolutely prohibited, nor has the United
States ratified that convention. So, basically, we are
high centered. It is technically legal to change your
flag and you don't have to give a particular reason.
I'm sure there's some cost associated with it, but I
believe that the labor savings in these cases must
somewhat exceed the cost of change of flag.
MR. BENINTENDI repeated the question of how much pollock destined
for overseas actually goes out under this loophole.
MR. HENDRICKSON replied at least a third of the offshore side of
the quota. The shore plants are more likely to be using Japanese
or Korean vessels to take their product away from the shore
plants. Japan and Korea don't have reciprocity and American
longshore workers do that work.
CHAIRMAN STEVENS asked if this problem was mostly with the
offshore fleet.
MR. HENDRICKSON replied yes. It's always the offshore product
that is loaded by the foreign crews.
There were no further comments.
SENATOR DAVIS moved to pass HCR 12 from committee with individual
recommendations. There were no objections and it was so ordered.
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