Word: merchant
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That is what Calhoon and his maritime cohorts want most of all-a guaranteed share of U.S. trade. Such a guarantee might rejuvenate the American merchant fleet, but in the long run it would harm the nation's overall trading position by making U.S. exports more expensive. In return for Carter's promise, the union promptly raised $200,000 for his campaign...
...their own, the 13 surviving U.S. merchant shipping lines and 14 shipyards could never survive. Partly as a result of high wages won by the unions, the U.S. long ago virtually priced itself out of the ocean cargo transport business. According to the U.S. Maritime Administration, the daily operating cost on a 90,000-dead-weight-ton U.S. ship is $14,300, v. $10,800 for a Norwegian and $9,700 for some Liberian-flag ships. Over the years, dozens of American shipowners have switched their colors to the so-called flags of convenience, notably Panama and Liberia, whose regulations...
...replace and need far fewer crew members. The unions thus battle to keep every job they can. MEBA President Jesse Calhoon has set up his union's own engineer-training institute in Baltimore, and its graduates receive preferential treatment for the few available engineering berths in the U.S. merchant marine...
That is only one example of the kind of favor the maritime unions have been able to grab for themselves. In 1970 former President Richard Nixon signed the Merchant Marine Act, which provided federal subsidies for the construction of 300 new ships in U.S. yards within the next ten years. In 1974 the unions scored an even greater coup; they persuaded Congress to pass a bill that would require 30% of all U.S. petroleum imports to be carried in U.S. tankers by 1977. The bill was an especially important piece of revenge for the unions: they deeply resent...
...knows you've got to have friends in this business, and he's good at finding them." After Ford's apostasy, Calhoon threw the union's support behind Washington Democratic Senator Henry Jackson, who for defense reasons is a strong advocate of a healthy American merchant marine. Later, when Jackson's presidential chances began to fade, Calhoon approached another potential friend: Jimmy Carter. After several meetings, Carter gave Calhoon a letter in which he pledged, among other things, to help the U.S. merchant marine "win a right to haul a major portion...