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The decline of the U. S. Merchant Marine is no longer a truism; it is a cliche. This decline is well known to both strategic sealift planners and the commercial maritime industry.1 Of the two groups, the strategic sealift planners are more discouraged. The numbers and tonnage of U. S.-flag merchant ships are fewer and less, respectively, and these remaining ships are not •uimediately adaptable to military sealift use. Container ships and barge-carrying vessels cannot replace general- cargo break-bulk ships capable of transporting a wide range of cargoes, from ammunition to vehicles.
The commercial steamships are now obsolescent; the ruaritime industry is replacing them with diesel motorships containing automated propulsion and cargo-handling machinery. Thus, there are fewer seagoing jobs and a smaller Pool of experienced merchant mariners. Average merchant ship manning has declined 35% in the past 20 years, to an average of 35 mariners per ship, and the most modern ships sail regularly with crews of 21-24.2
Meanwhile, the U. S. Maritime Administration (MarAd), working closely with the U. S. Navy’s strategic sealift planners, has been acquiring many of the older steam-propelled ships. These vessels join the Ready Reserve Force (RRF) of the National Defense Reserve Fleet (NDRF). As the size of the RRF/NDRF grows, the number of qualified seamen to man these ships decreases and their average age increases.
In early 1985, a MarAd study of the availability of merchant mariners to meet peacetime and mobilization (MOB) requirements reached the following conclusions: ^ The active peacetime seafaring work force will be adequate at MOB to crew fully all RRF, Military Sealift Command, and reduced operating status vessels, as well as the Privately owned fleet and the active civilian-manned, government-owned fleet.
7 Full activation of all sealift ships in the NDRF, includ- lng the RRF, will be hampered by shortages of unlicensed engine-department seafarers in the active oceangoing w°rk force, particularly until the inventory of steam- Propelled vessels in the RRF/NDRF declines.
* Specific skill requirements within shipboard departments (deck, engine, steward, radio) must be analyzed to find potential sources of seafaring work-force augmentation at MOB and possible obstacles to timely work-force marshalling. The study recommended developing a systematic plan to overcome weaknesses and shortfalls.3
In October 1985, MarAd conducted command post exercise (CPX) Breakout 85, a simulated simultaneous activation of the entire RRF—at that time 74 ships. The exercise tested the actions during the period between the Navy’s request to MarAd to activate the ships and the start of sea trials. In the exercise, MarAd notified the general agents of each vessel, then monitored and assisted the general agents in activating and crewing the ships.4 The general agents filled the crewing requirements by working with the maritime unions in accordance with collective bargaining agreements. The unions, in turn, checked their rolls for the required skills and reported to the general agents. The unions and general agents reported to MarAd that full crewing of all 74 RRF ships was achieved before the start of sea trials. Thus, Breakout 85 tended to show that manpower for the full activation of the RRF was adequate and ready.
However, in Breakout 85 the unions and general agents did not actually locate or contact any of the hundreds of seafarers who were being called to war by the CPX. The exercise players relied on the accuracy of the unions’ rolls. No one knows how many of the mariners could be located, whether they were physically fit for duty, and whether they would accept the job if offered.
A year later MarAd conducted Breakout 86, similar to Breakout 85 but with no plan to involve the unions. Indeed, Breakout 86 appeared to ignore the manning problem or discount it. “The principal lesson learned from Breakout 85 was the need for improved communications, and recommendations were made to conduct a future CPX in conjunction with a JCS [Joint Chiefs of Staff] mobilization scenario and expand USCG [U. S. Coast Guard], ABS [American Bureau of Shipping], FCC [Federal Communications Commission], and MMR [Merchant Marine Reserve, USNR] participation.”5 Union involvement was not mentioned.
Breakout 87, conducted in October 1987, involved neither general agents nor maritime labor unions. Like Breakout 85, Breakout 87 was an activation of the entire RRF— then 88 vessels. Although Breakout 87 included a determination of the manning requirements for the RRF, there was no provision in the exercise plan to determine whether the requirements could be satisfied. MarAd did not conduct a breakout CPX in 1988.
Before Breakout 86, the General Accounting Office expressed concern in its review of Breakout 85 that there appeared to be shortages of certain classes of merchant mariners, as well as unresolved logistics problems in locating and assembling the approximately 6,000 seafarers needed in fiscal year 1992 and beyond to crew the projected 136 RRF ships.6 MarAd is also concerned about crewing shortages, but projects that full crewing of the RRF is possible after 1988 if the Victory-class ships are eliminated from the RRF.7 The Transportation Institute, a maritime industry research and education organization
associated with organized maritime labor, projects a major shortfall in the seafarer work force in 1992, with an estimate of nearly 15,000 unfilled billets after MOB.8
The Presidential Commission on Merchant Marine and National Defense determined that there would be a shortfall of 1,400 skilled seamen to man the ships needed to meet the total sealift requirement in a single-theater conflict today. The Commission also determined that this shortfall would increase to 12,000 by the year 2000.9 Senator Ted Stevens (D-AK) has written that RRF manning “is the most serious challenge facing sealift strategy.”10
There probably is no one solution to the manpower problem. And no single solution will be fully acceptable to the Navy, MarAd, the maritime industry, the unions, and Congress. One spark of optimism can be inferred from the increased awareness of the problem. As MarAd disengages from its duties as financial administrator of the operating differential subsidies (ODS) and the construction differential subsidies (CDS) for the maritime industry, it can focus its attention more on the needs of strategic sealift, including manpower shortfalls.
The Transportation Institute has recommended reinstituting the ODS. The ODS, so the proposal goes, would increase the number of peacetime crew billets on U. S.-flag vessels, resulting in an increased number of trained mariners.11 Another proposal, involving a suggested government-sponsored shipbuilding program, calls for training welfare recipients and the unemployed in shipyard skills, with the funds coming from the unemployment insurance reserve and the Department of Health and
Human Services.12 The inclusion of seafaring personnel in this proposal should not be overlooked.
The Presidential Commission on Merchant Marine and National Defense is discouragingly quiet on recommended solutions to the problems of recruiting and training mariners for the RRF. The Commission’s second report calls for a sufficient cadre of skilled shipyard workers, but
makes no recommendation concerning blue-water sea- 13
men.
MarAd identifies a potential source of seafarers in the offshore oil industry and the tug and barge industry. Although there are thousands of experienced people in these industries, MarAd has no data on them.14 Trying to identify these brown-water mariners in a time of national emergency and to screen them for blue-water jobs would create unacceptable delays in activating the RRF.
There are at least two other possible sources of seafarers for the RRF of the 1990s. First, the immediate needs, especially in the engine department, can be met by members of the U. S. Naval Fleet Reserve. The Fleet Reserve consists of those regular Navy members no longer on active duty who have served at least 20, but fewer than 30, years of active duty.15 They are subject to recall to active duty when the need is determined by the President.16 The shortfall in engine department personnel skilled in steam systems could be remedied by the recall of experienced Fleet Reserve petty officers with such ratings as machinist’s mate and boiler technician. The Fleet Reserve contains a large number of experienced seafarers whose location, physical condition, and skills are readily known.
There are, of course, problems in the recall at MOB of U. S. Navy personnel to serve on board ships being operated by commercial civilian operators. The general agency agreement between the general agent and MarAd makes the civilian contractor responsible for manning the vessel.17 There has been a historical disdain for ordering
Navy men to serve on board ship under a civilian master, ihe master is the employee of the general agent, the ship- Plng company that employs him. The general agency agreement provides that the officers and members of the crew “shall be subject only to the orders of the master.”18 Although this clause in the contract may create legal difficulties, including the question of jurisdiction of the Uni- .0rm Code of Military Justice, the problems are hardly insurmountable. Most civilian master mariners hold or nave held U. S. Naval Reserve commissions. Appropriate legislation that could authorize designating the master as ne naval officer-in-charge of the recalled fleet reserve sailors on board his ship is reasonable and feasible.
A second (long-term) solution is educating and training young people to be mobilized as seafarers on RRF ships. Many public and private institutions offer education and gaining for those interested in learning seagoing skills.
ue U. S. Merchant Marine Academy, the six state-run Maritime academies, schools operated by the maritime Unions, community colleges, and vocational-technical schools now offering such courses provide the physical ases for instituting a nationwide program.
The long-dormant U. S. Maritime Service (USMS) pro- v'des an organizational matrix for implementing a nationwide training program. The matrix of statutes and regulations enables the Secretary of Transportation and the Maritime Administrator “to establish and maintain a voluntary organization for the training of citizens of the United States to serve on merchant marine vessels of the United States.”19 This quasi-military organization is akin other government-subsidized work-training projects— he Civilian Conservation Corps and the Job Corps.
A revitalized USMS could be implemented at the academies and other schools for the primary purpose of training Young people for unlicensed billets on board RRF ships. It should be made clear to all involved—from the members °f Congress who vote to fund the project; to Mar Ad, Miich will administer it; to the schools that will conduct he training; to the trainees who are selected—that the Program is primarily for national defense, i.e., strategic sealift. There can be no promise of immediate maritime employment. The unskilled person selected for the pro- 8ram, however, will receive the benefit of learning discipline and skills, particularly those involving machinery, e*ectricity, and electronics, that will make the trainee more attractive in the civilian job market generally.
After the initial training period, these new mariners could return for periodic, possibly annual, refresher courses or for actual activation of RRF ships. Incentives could include paid training and refresher periods, paid •ravel expenses, and the opportunity to upgrade the skills Previously learned. The periodic refresher courses also •fould give MarAd the opportunity to update its data concerning the physical condition and skill levels of these mariners.
Maritime unions and private and public training schools should welcome a revitalized USMS for obvious reasons, •he infusion of young people and fresh money into an ■ndustry described by the former Maritime Administrator as experiencing the worst depression in 50 years would be as revitalizing as a blood transfusion administered to an anemic patient.20
MarAd is dispersing the RRF. Instead of mooring all RRF ships at the main fleet sites in Suisun Bay, California, Beaumont, Texas, and James River, Virginia, MarAd now “outports” many RRF ships, mooring them closer to the yards that will service them when they are activated for sealift. It is not also feasible to outport RRF ships at or near the various schools for unlicensed mariners? One RRF ship, the Patriot State, is the school ship of the Massachusetts State Maritime Academy. Giving neophyte seafarers the opportunity to learn and train on board RRF ships would provide an obvious degree of realism in preparing them for MOB.
In the past several years, MarAd has transformed the reserve fleet from a mothball fleet to one that is ready to carry out its strategic sealift mission. The improvement in numbers and modernization continues as the pool of skilled, able seafarers dwindles. But the Ready Reserve Force will not be ready until an adequate number of competent, skilled seamen are available to answer the call “when the balloon goes up.” 'Adm. James L. Holloway III, USN, “Sealift,” U. S. Naval Institute Proceedings, June 1983, p. 28; Harlan K. Ullman and Paula J. Pettavino, “The Dreary Future of U. S. Maritime Industries,” U. S. Naval Institute Proceedings Naval Review 1985, p. 137; Cdr. David H. Grover, USN, “A Lost Generation of Mariners,” U. S. Naval Institute Proceedings, December 1983, p. 71.
transportation Institute publication, “America’s Vanishing Merchant Mariners: Diagnosis, Prognosis and Prescription for A Strong National Defense,” October 1986.
3MarAd Office of Maritime Labor and Training, “Reserve Fleet Crewing Feasibility, 1984-1995,” 23 April 1985.
4A general agent is a maritime company or firm that holds a contract with MarAd for activating, crewing, and operating one or more NDRF ships. See 46 C.F.R. §315 et seq. (1987). MarAd is in the process of replacing general agency agreements with ship management agreements, in compliance with federal acquisition regulations. For purposes of strategic sealift, the contracts are the same.
5MarAd, Final Report, “BREAKOUT-86, Activation of the Ready Reserve Force,” 28 February 1987.
6GAO, Report to the Assistant Secretary of the Navy (Shipbuilding and Logistics), “Navy Sealift: Observations on the Navy’s Ready Reserve Force,” 18 August 1986.
7MarAd Office of Maritime Labor and Training, p. 9.
“Transportation Institute, pp. 14-15.
9First Report of the Commission on Merchant Marine and Defense: Findings of Fact and Conclusions, 30 September 1987, pp. 49-50.
I0Navy League of the United States, The Almanac of Seapower 1987, p. 89. “Transportation Institute, pp. 15-17.
l2Morris Guralnick, “Rebuilding the Merchant Marine,” U. S. Naval Institute Proceedings, August 1986, p. 74.
,3Second Report of the Commission on Merchant Marine and Defense: Recommendations, 30 December 1987.
“MarAd Office of Maritime Labor and Training, p. 6.
,510 U.S.C. §§6330, 6331.
,610 U.S.C. §6485.
,746 C.F.R. §315, Art. 3(d) (1987).
,8Ibid.
1946 U.S.C. §1295e; see 46 C.F.R. §310.13 et seq. (1987).
20VAdm. Harold Shear, USN (Ret.), guest lecture to the University of Virginia Center for Law and Oceans Policy, May 1984.
Commander Higgins is an attorney employed as Assistant Director of the Staff Counsel’s Office, U. S. Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit, and for several years has been a member of Merchant Marine Reserve Operational Command Headquarters 0310, a Naval Reserve unit drilling and mobilizing with MarAd’s central region office. An NROTC graduate of Tulane University, he served four years at sea on active duty, then joined the Naval Reserve and drilled with Military Sealift Command reserve units for several years.
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