Seafarers' International Union
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The Seafarers International Union or SIU is an organization of 12 autonomous
labor unions A trade union (British English) or labor union (American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers whose purpose is to maintain or improve the conditions of their employment, such as attaining better wages ...
of
mariner A sailor, seaman, mariner, or seafarer is a person who works aboard a watercraft as part of its crew, and may work in any one of a number of different fields that are related to the operation and maintenance of a ship. While the term ''sailor' ...
s,
fishermen A fisherman or fisher is someone who captures fish and other animals from a body of water, or gathers shellfish. Worldwide, there are about 38 million commercial and subsistence fishers and fish farmers. Fishermen may be professional or recr ...
and
boatmen A sailor, seaman, mariner, or seafarer is a person who works aboard a watercraft as part of its crew, and may work in any one of a number of different fields that are related to the operation and maintenance of a ship. While the term ''sailor'' ...
working aboard vessels flagged in the
United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...
or
Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...
.
Michael Sacco Michael Sacco (February 14, 1937 – December 28, 2023) was an American labor leader from Brooklyn, New York. He was appointed as the president of the Seafarers International Union of North America, AFL-CIO in June 1988 by the ''SIUNA Executive ...
was its president from 1988 until 2023. The organization has an estimated 35,498 members and is the largest maritime labor organization in the United States. Organizers founded the union on October 14, 1938. The Seafarers International Union arose from a charter issued to the Sailors Union of the Pacific by the
American Federation of Labor The American Federation of Labor (A.F. of L.) was a national federation of labor unions in the United States that continues today as the AFL-CIO. It was founded in Columbus, Ohio, in 1886 by an alliance of craft unions eager to provide mutual ...
as a foil against loss of jobs to the
Congress of Industrial Organizations The Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) was a federation of Labor unions in the United States, unions that organized workers in industrial unionism, industrial unions in the United States and Canada from 1935 to 1955. Originally created in ...
(CIO) and its Communist Party-aligned faction.''Brotherhood of the Sea: A History of the Sailors' Union of the Pacific'', by Stephen Schwartz. Published 1986 by Transaction Publishers. . Today the SIU represents mariners and boatmen who sail aboard U.S.-flagged vessels and Canadian- flagged vessels in deep sea, the
Great Lakes The Great Lakes, also called the Great Lakes of North America, are a series of large interconnected freshwater lakes spanning the Canada–United States border. The five lakes are Lake Superior, Superior, Lake Michigan, Michigan, Lake Huron, H ...
, and inland waterways. Membership includes workers in the deck, steward, and
engine department An engine department or engineering department is an organizational unit aboard a ship that is responsible for the operation, maintenance, and repair of the propulsion systems and the support systems for crew, passengers, and cargo. These includ ...
s. SIU members are represented aboard a wide variety of vessels, including: military support, commercial trade,
tugboat A tugboat or tug is a marine vessel that manoeuvres other vessels by pushing or pulling them, with direct contact or a tow line. These boats typically tug ships in circumstances where they cannot or should not move under their own power, suc ...
s,
passenger ship A passenger ship is a merchant ship whose primary function is to carry passengers on the sea. The category does not include cargo vessels which have accommodations for limited numbers of passengers, such as the ubiquitous twelve-passenger freig ...
s,
barge A barge is typically a flat-bottomed boat, flat-bottomed vessel which does not have its own means of mechanical propulsion. Original use was on inland waterways, while modern use is on both inland and ocean, marine water environments. The firs ...
s, and
gaming vessel A gambling ship is the term for a ship stationed offshore in or transiting to international waters to evade local anti-gambling laws that is dedicated to games of chance. This applies both to ships which are permanently moored somewhere outside ...
s. Military support vessels operated by the
U.S. Department of Defense The United States Department of Defense (DoD, USDOD, or DOD) is an executive department of the U.S. federal government charged with coordinating and supervising the six U.S. armed services: the Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, Space Force, t ...
's
Military Sealift Command The Military Sealift Command (MSC) is an organization that controls the replenishment and military transport ships of the United States Navy. Military Sealift Command has the responsibility for providing sealift and ocean transportation for all U ...
(MSC) provide a key source of jobs for seafarers. MSC operates some 110 noncombat ships that support U.S. forces around the world. SIU membership includes eligibility for access to healthcare, retirement, and education benefits. Educational facilities include the union's
Paul Hall Center for Maritime Training and Education The Paul Hall Center for Maritime Training and Education is a merchant marine educational facility in Piney Point, Maryland, which is affiliated with the Seafarers International Union. Founded in 1967 in Brooklyn, New York as "The Seafarers' Ha ...
at Piney Point, Maryland. The training center started in Brooklyn, New York, and is named after a former SIU president, Paul Hall. The
school A school is the educational institution (and, in the case of in-person learning, the Educational architecture, building) designed to provide learning environments for the teaching of students, usually under the direction of teachers. Most co ...
opened in 1967 and has trained more than 100,000 mariners. Highly active in the political arena, the SIU states that its primary focus is to maintain safe working environments for men and women working aboard vessels, and to ensure very high standards of training among its membership.


History

The Seafarers International Union's founding on October 14, 1938, came during the turbulent times of the
Great Depression The Great Depression was a severe global economic downturn from 1929 to 1939. The period was characterized by high rates of unemployment and poverty, drastic reductions in industrial production and international trade, and widespread bank and ...
, a worldwide economic slowdown, and the international rise of
communism Communism () is a political sociology, sociopolitical, political philosophy, philosophical, and economic ideology, economic ideology within the history of socialism, socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a ...
. SIU's roots, however, reach back to 1892, when delegates representing unions of the West Coast, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Great Lakes gathered at a seamen’s convention in Chicago. The convention eventually gave rise to a federation of maritime unions known as the
International Seamen's Union The International Seamen's Union (ISU) was an American maritime trade union which operated from 1892 until 1937. In its last few years, the union effectively split into the National Maritime Union and Seafarer's International Union. The early yea ...
(ISU) chartered by the
American Federation of Labor The American Federation of Labor (A.F. of L.) was a national federation of labor unions in the United States that continues today as the AFL-CIO. It was founded in Columbus, Ohio, in 1886 by an alliance of craft unions eager to provide mutual ...
(AFL). SIU's origin is portrayed by the union as an outcome of the "wreckage" of ISU. The breakup saw ISU membership plummet from more than 100,000 after
World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
to less than 3,000 by the mid-1930s."Maritime unions merge," Journal of Commerce. June 5, 2001. The article notes how on-again, off-again merger talks dated back to the 1950s, while the rivalry between the two unions extended to the late 1930s. NMU affiliated with SIU in 1999 and fully merged on March 16, 2001. The revocation of ISU's charter and the loss of 30,000 seamen in July 1937 to the
Congress of Industrial Organizations The Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) was a federation of Labor unions in the United States, unions that organized workers in industrial unionism, industrial unions in the United States and Canada from 1935 to 1955. Originally created in ...
' newly formed
National Maritime Union The National Maritime Union (NMU) was an American labor union founded in May 1937. It affiliated with the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) in July 1937. After a failed merger with a different maritime group in 1988, the union merged wit ...
(NMU) signaled ISU's death knell. Leadership of AFL, one of the first federations of labor unions, understood that the ISU was near collapse. The AFL subsequently moved to replace it by issuing a charter to the Sailors Union of the Pacific (SUP) to organize the new Seafarers International Union.
Harry Lundeberg __NOTOC__ Harrald Olaf Lundeberg (March 25, 1901 – January 28, 1957) was a Norwegian-American merchant seaman and labor leader who served as the first president of the Seafarers International Union from 1938 to 1957. Biography Lundeberg left ...
, a SUP officer and seaman who was originally from
Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the archipelago of Svalbard also form part of the Kingdom of ...
, became the Seafarers International Union's first president. The SUP remained autonomous for years within SIU. The AFL's action to form the SIU not only countered the threat of loss of seafaring jobs to the NMU but also served as a political block against the increasing Communist influence in the rival
Congress of Industrial Organizations The Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) was a federation of Labor unions in the United States, unions that organized workers in industrial unionism, industrial unions in the United States and Canada from 1935 to 1955. Originally created in ...
.De La Pedraja Tomán, 1994, p. 536. NMU, a product of the economic struggles and waterfront strikes of the times, became a longtime nemesis of SIU. The two unions fiercely competed for seafaring jobs until they merged in 2001. The Seafarers International Union membership lagged behind that of the National Maritime Union during World War II. Then Paul Hall started organizing seamen on the East Coast and the Gulf. By 1948, the surge in new membership propelled Hall to the post of SIU vice president.De La Pedraja Tomán, 1994, p. 537. This consolidation helped the SIU edge out the NMU whose earlier purging of Communist Party members or those suspected of CP association had left it weakened. Moreover, Lundeberg's death in 1957 ended a long-running power struggle between Lundeberg and Hall. Heir-apparent Hall subsequently was named SIU president and, later that year president of the AFL–CIO
Maritime Trades Department Maritime may refer to: Geography * Maritime Alps, a mountain range in the southwestern part of the Alps * Maritime Region, a region in Togo * Maritime Southeast Asia * The Maritimes, the Canadian provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Princ ...
. When Hall took over the Maritime Trades Department, it was a struggling organization made up of only six small unions. He built it into an active and effective political force in the trade union movement. At his death, Maritime Trades Department comprised 43 national and international unions representing nearly 8 million American workers. In 1967, Hall established the Seafarers Harry Lundeberg School of Seamanship in Piney Point, Maryland, to give young people the chance for a career at sea. Since then, the school has become one of the finest maritime training schools in the country. Thousands of SIU members have advanced their skills at the school. Moreover, the Harry Lundeberg School has also presented opportunities for generations of young people from deprived backgrounds to gain employment. The 1970s saw further strengthening of the SIU with acquisition through merger of the National Union of Marine Cooks and Stewards (NUMCS). After an eight-month battle with cancer, Hall died in 1980.


Controversy

In 2005, SIU and the Paul Hall Center for Maritime Training and Education were sued for age discrimination by the
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is a federal agency that was established via the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to administer and enforce civil rights laws against workplace discrimination. The EEOC investigates discrimination ...
. The SIU was restricting applicants based on age rather than ability, rejecting any apprentice applicants over the age of 35. In the opinion on the
Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit (in case citations, 4th Cir.) is a federal court located in Richmond, Virginia, with appellate jurisdiction over the district courts in the following districts: * District of Maryland * ...
, "throughout this appeal, and in the proceedings before the district court, the center and the union ... maintained that age-barriers to entry are a hallmark of apprenticeships and complained that the EEOC's regulation effectively guts that employment practice by erasing its defining characteristic." In 2006 the case remanded back to the Baltimore federal district court and that court ruled in favor of the EEOC and ordered back payments in the range of $2 million to over 180 plaintiffs and further ordered that they and all future applicants to the Paul Hall maritime school be admitted regardless of age. In testimony before the
Parliament of Canada The Parliament of Canada () is the Canadian federalism, federal legislature of Canada. The Monarchy of Canada, Crown, along with two chambers: the Senate of Canada, Senate and the House of Commons of Canada, House of Commons, form the Bicameral ...
in 1996, David Broadfoot of the Canadian Merchant Navy Association recalled that in 1946, "Our government imported a thug, a real heavy-duty gangster from Brooklyn ( Hal C. Banks), to smash our union and bring in the Seafarers' International Union ... which was no different from the
Teamsters The International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) is a trade union, labor union in the United States and Canada. Formed in 1903 by the merger of the Team Drivers International Union and the Teamsters National Union, the union now represents a di ...
at its worst and no different from the
longshoremen A dockworker (also called a longshoreman, stevedore, docker, wharfman, lumper or wharfie) is a waterfront manual laborer who loads and unloads ships. As a result of the intermodal shipping container revolution, the required number of dockworke ...
's association at its best. ... They came on our ships with baseball bats and bicycle chains. That's how they introduced their union to Canada."


Leadership


Presidents

*
Harry Lundeberg __NOTOC__ Harrald Olaf Lundeberg (March 25, 1901 – January 28, 1957) was a Norwegian-American merchant seaman and labor leader who served as the first president of the Seafarers International Union from 1938 to 1957. Biography Lundeberg left ...
(1938–1957) * Paul Hall (1957–1980) *
Frank Drozak Frank Drozak (December 24, 1927 – June 21, 1988) was an American labor leader. He was president of the Seafarers International Union (SIU) from 1980 until his death in 1988. Drozak was also president of the AFL-CIO Maritime Trades Department. ...
(1980–1988) *
Michael Sacco Michael Sacco (February 14, 1937 – December 28, 2023) was an American labor leader from Brooklyn, New York. He was appointed as the president of the Seafarers International Union of North America, AFL-CIO in June 1988 by the ''SIUNA Executive ...
(1988–2023) * David Heindel (2023–present)


Secretary-Treasurers

:1938: John Hawk :1971: Joseph DiGiorgio :1990: John Fay :1997: David Heindel :2023: Tom Orzechowski


Affiliated unions

According to its 2005 report a
The Department of Labor
total membership of all 13 affiliated unions is 35,498. Information for affiliated unions follows:


Recently terminated affiliate unions

* Seafarers' Professional Security Officers Association was terminated in 2004. * Seafarers AFL–CIO Local Union 5 Chauffeurs and Industrial Workers was terminated in 2000. * Seafarers AFL–CIO Local Union 300 United Industrial Workers - Midwest was terminated in 2000. * Seafarers AFL–CIO Local Union Marine Staff Officers Pacific District was terminated in 2002.


See also

*
Paul Hall Center for Maritime Training and Education The Paul Hall Center for Maritime Training and Education is a merchant marine educational facility in Piney Point, Maryland, which is affiliated with the Seafarers International Union. Founded in 1967 in Brooklyn, New York as "The Seafarers' Ha ...
*
United States Merchant Marine The United States Merchant Marine is an organization composed of United States civilian sailor, mariners and U.S. civilian and federally owned merchant vessels. Both the civilian mariners and the merchant vessels are managed by a combination of ...
;Related organizations * American Maritime Officers *
National Maritime Union The National Maritime Union (NMU) was an American labor union founded in May 1937. It affiliated with the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) in July 1937. After a failed merger with a different maritime group in 1988, the union merged wit ...
* Marine Engineers Benevolent Association *
Maritime Trades Department Maritime may refer to: Geography * Maritime Alps, a mountain range in the southwestern part of the Alps * Maritime Region, a region in Togo * Maritime Southeast Asia * The Maritimes, the Canadian provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Princ ...
* Sailors' Union of the Pacific * Seafarers' International Union of Canada


Notes


References

* * *


External links

*
Maritime Workers and Their Unions
from the Waterfront Workers History Project.
Election contributions at OpenSecrets

SIU 2006 PAC Summary Data


* " The Seafarers
(1953) documentary film by
Stanley Kubrick Stanley Kubrick (; July 26, 1928 – March 7, 1999) was an American filmmaker and photographer. Widely considered one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, Stanley Kubrick filmography, his films were nearly all adaptations of novels or sho ...

A case study of Seatrain Shipbuilding & the Brooklyn Navy Yard


Archives


Inland Boatmen's Union of the Pacific Records
1934-1985. Includes San Francisco and Puget Sound Divisions. 90 cubic feet. Affiliated with SIU from 1948–1979, affiliated with
International Longshore and Warehouse Union The International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) is a labor union which primarily represents dock workers on the West Coast of the United States, Hawaii, and in British Columbia, Canada; on the East Coast, the dominant union is the Intern ...
in 1980.
George E. Renner Papers.
1933–1972. 37.43 cubic feet. Contains ephemera on the Seafarers International Union from 1944.
Stephen R. Blair Papers.
1919–1996. 1 cubic foot (2 boxes). {{DEFAULTSORT:Seafarers International Union Of North America Trade unions established in 1938 AFL-CIO affiliates Canadian Labour Congress affiliates Seafarers' trade unions Maritime history of the United States Organizations based in Maryland