State Bill to Force SSA Into Binding Arbitration Riles Managers,
Islanders

By JAMES KINSELLA
Gazette Senior Writer

A proposed state bill has raised the specters of lost management
control over Steamship Authority labor costs and a possible work
slowdown at the boat line this summer.

The SSA is digging in against Senate bill 2459, which would require
the boat line under certain conditions to submit to binding arbitration
on collective bargaining disputes.

In particular, the bill would authorize an arbitrator to determine
wages, benefits and terms of employment for unionized SSA employees,
should the boat line be unable to negotiate a new collective bargaining
agreement with the union representing those employees within five months
after the prior union agreement expires.

SSA general manager Wayne C. Lamson this week called the bill
dangerous legislation.

"Senate Bill No. 2459 would entirely deprive the Islands of
their control over the most significant aspects of the Authority's
operations and finances," he said in a statement released Monday.
"The management and control of labor costs have the greatest
impact on the Authority's rates and tariffs, which Island
residents have no choice but to pay in order to travel back and forth to
the mainland and obtain their necessities of life."

On the Vineyard, where memories are still fresh of the bitter
two-year battle over legislation engineered by New Bedford that resulted
in the expansion of the SSA board in 2002, Island leaders are already
rallying against the bill. On Wednesday, the Dukes County Commission
voted 6-0 to support the boat line in its opposition to the bill.

"We need your help on this matter," Vineyard SSA
governor Marc Hanover of Oak Bluffs told the commissioners. "This
bill needs to be stopped."

County commission chairman John S. Alley echoed the sentiment,
calling the legislation reprehensible. The commissioners plan to sponsor
a public meeting in the coming weeks for Vineyard officials and
residents to discuss the bill and its ramifications.

The boat line provides the only year-round passenger and vehicle
ferry service between the mainland and the islands of Martha's
Vineyard and Nantucket.

Sen. Marc Pacheco, D-Taunton, authored the bill, which is now in the
Rules Committee - one committee vote from moving to the floor of
the Senate. The bill was originally filed in December 2004; it was then
redrafted significantly, emerging in its current form in March of this
year.

Mr. Pacheco is a known friend of labor, and the author of the
Pacheco Act, a state law intended to prevent public agencies from using
private contracts unless they can demonstrate cost savings. Boat line
compliance with the Pacheco Act was written into the same 2002 amendment
of the Authority's enabling legislation.

"The Steamship Authority and the workers have been in a labor
dispute now going on four years," Mr. Pacheco said Wednesday.
"That's an extraordinary amount of time, way outside the
reasonableness of what might be expected."

Neither of the Vineyard's two elected representatives in the
legislature - Sen. Robert O'Leary and Rep. Eric T. Turkington
- give the Pacheco bill much chance of passage.

Mr. Turkington said: "I think the negotiating should be
handled through collective bargaining, and not through the
legislature's involvement. We don't need the legislature
sticking its nose into this thing."

Senator O'Leary said the legislature does not have much
appetite to step into SSA issues following the battle to alter the
makeup of the Authority board. Even were the bill to pass the
legislature, he said, Gov. Mitt Romney would veto it.

Mr. O'Leary is, however, tracking the bill to see if Senator
Pacheco tries to attach it to the Senate budget bill now under
consideration for the coming fiscal year.

Senator Pacheco said he has not yet decided whether to try attaching
the bill to the budget legislation. So far, he said, the bill has been
moving forward on its own.

The senator also said the legislature can take the steps to resolve
the situation before employee frustration spills out beyond the
bargaining table.

Although Senator Pacheco said SSA employees are prohibited from
striking, he said they can set up informational picket lines. And he
said other boat line unions may choose not to cross those lines, which
he said could effectively close down the boat line's operations.
Such a scenario, he said, could pose a serious problem for the residents
of Martha's Vineyard and for the Island's tourism-based
businesses, especially in the summer.

Senator Pacheco filed the bill in response to the slow pace of
negotiations between the Authority and unlicensed vessel workers
represented by the Marine Engineers' Beneficial Association
(MEBA). The contract for the 230 workers included in the unit expired in
April 2003. The workers, who perform such work as taking tickets and
cleaning the vessels, haven't seen an increase in their base pay
since 2002.

The association also represents another bargaining unit of Authority
employees: the boat line's 35 marine engineers. Their contract
expired in April 2004.

MEBA representative William Campbell said the union asked Senator
Pacheco to file the bill.

The union supports the bill, Mr. Campbell said, because MEBA
believes the legislation levels the playing field. "It's a
matter of fairness. The state will not allow us to strike. There's
no incentive for the Steamship Authority to bargain in good
faith," he said

Mr. Campbell said the Authority would have no reason to fear an
arbitrator were the boat line negotiating in good faith.

Yesterday, Mr. Campbell said he was surprised to hear that the boat
line would support a fact-finder on the negotiations as a step short of
arbitration. A fact-finder would analyze the situation and publicly
state what positions on either side could be considered unreasonable.

Mr. Campbell said the union too would support a fact-finder.
"We'll support anything that gets us a contract," he
said.

The Authority, which negotiates with eight bargaining units, has
signed contractual agreements with five of them, and has reached
tentative agreement with the sixth unit, which represents the boat
line's bus drivers and parking lot employees.

Asked what is holding up deals for the two MEBA units compared with
the other unions, Mr. Campbell said the MEBA workers have been asked to
give up far more than the other units.

The bill has put a spotlight on the boat line's labor costs, a
continuing source of concern for the boat line's managers and
board of governors.

The governors and managers have said labor accounts for more than 60
per cent of the boat line's $67 million in expenses, and that the
Authority's marine engineers and unlicensed vessel employees are
among the highest paid in the nation.

MEBA representative William Campbell disputes whether the union
members in fact are paid so highly, in large part because of a number of
them are away from home during their shift and must remain on the ferry.
Mr. Campbell said they have to spend 52 1/2 hours on the ferry to
receive 42 hours of pay.

Because the SSA does not receive any operating subsidies, the boat
line managers have said, any increase in costs must be borne by the
passengers and shippers who use the boat line. Those costs, they say,
fall mostly on the residents of Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket,
who rely on SSA ferries for travel to the mainland and the necessities
of life.

The unlicensed vessel employees, who form the largest bargaining
unit at the Authority, are routinely the target of the boat line's
attempts to reduce staffing on the ferries.

Last year, Mr. Lamson said the Authority had reached severance
agreements with 23 unlicensed vessel employees. By eliminating those
positions, Mr. Lamson said, the boat line would save $1 million per
year. He said the move would reduce staffing on the large
passenger/vehicle ferries from 14 to 13 or 12 on the year-round
Nantucket run, and from 14 to 13 on the off-season Vineyard run.

But what Mr. Lamson did not say - and what was not revealed
until the Authority on Monday released a 10-page position paper on the
Pacheco bill - is that the boat line in February 2005 also reached
an agreement to otherwise maintain unlicensed employee staffing levels
through April 15, 2011.

"We agreed to those manning scales despite the fact that they
exceed the minimum manning crew complements required by the U.S. Coast
Guard for the safe operation of each vessel, including emergency
situations," the position paper states. "Indeed, our
estimate is that the additional employees required under the Manning
Agreement will cost the Authority more than $3 million each and every
year (at current wage rates and benefit costs), but we felt that such
additional expense was appropriate in the interest of maintaining labor
harmony."

The paper cited the extension of the Manning Agreement as an example
of its willingness and ability to reach agreements with MEBA.

At a boat line where the governors and managers consistently express
concerns about labor costs, the $3 million in foregone savings
translates into about 7 per cent of the Authority's labor costs
and 4 per cent of its overall expenditures.

Mr. Lamson yesterday said that while the Authority could have
dropped manning on the large boats to nine workers, he anticipated that
the union would have fought a lengthy battle on the move, including
complaints that would have drawn in the Coast Guard.

Mr. Hanover, who was chairman of the board of governors when the
boat line extended the manning agreement, said the decision helped avoid
layoffs at the boat line. He also said he had concerns about taking the
boats down to the minimum level during summer Vineyard trips when 1,200
to 1,400 people can be aboard a single vessel.

As for wages, Authority records show many of the unlicensed
employees made between $40,000 and $50,000 in boat line pay in 2004.

In its position paper, the Authority said the engineers, who
supervise the operation of the vessels' engines, receive annual
wages between $80,000 and $100,000.

According to a December 2005 letter from Mr. Lamson to the
unlicensed employees, the boat line was offering a 6 per cent wage
increase over present levels and a 3 per cent increase on the following
three anniversary dates.

But Mr. Lamson said the key issues involve work practices rather
than pay.

"In collective bargaining, the Authority has been attempting
to address with MEBA several long-standing issues aimed at improving
productivity, operational efficiencies and employee discipline, and
reducing overtime and premium pay abuses resulting from contract
restrictions," Mr. Lamson stated.

"MEBA has opposed every effort of the Authority to introduce
even limited reforms," he stated. "If Senate Bill No. 2459
becomes law, MEBA knows that it will never have to agree to any of the
long overdue reforms the Authority is seeking."

In the negotiations, the Authority has been asking the unlicensed
employees to contribute 5 per cent of their health care premiums (the
Authority now contributes 100 per cent), and to forego premium pay for
certain jobs performed during regular shifts, such as hooking up the
vessels at night to shore power.

Mr. Campbell said the unlicensed employees have agreed to the 5 per
cent contribution, pending approval of a new contract. But he defends
the use of premium pay, which he said is common through the industry.

The major sticking point so far in the stalled negotiations with the
engineers has been retirement pay.

The Authority and the union, however, describe the facts of that
dispute differently.

"MEBA insists that the Authority both continue participating
in its defined benefit pension plan that provides the Authority's
marine engineers a retirement benefit, at any age, of 88 8/9 per cent of
their base wages (the average for any three years that produces the
highest pension) after 30 years of service (or 53 1/3 per cent of their
base wages after 20 years), and continue making contributions to the
marine engineers' defined contribution plan, which, conservatively
invested, can almost double the size of the marine engineers'
retirement benefit," the Authority states.

Authority employees, the boat line states, also receive social
security benefits, unlike employees of the state and local
municipalities.

Mr. Campbell, however, said the Authority "doesn't pay
one nickle" into the defined benefit pension plan.

Yesterday, Senator Pacheco said people keep asking him why he filed
the Steamship arbitration bill.

"Legislation usually gets filed when something isn't
working," he said.