(The AFL-CIO’s Transportation Trades Department issued the following news release on February 19.)
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The following statement was issued by Ed Wytkind, President of the Transportation Trades Department, AFL-CIO.
“While the recent agreement between the U.S. and Liberia, the world’s second-largest shipping registry, allowing for U.S. Navy searches of Liberian-flagged ships for terrorist weapons is wise and prudent, it is merely a band-aid approach masking a far bigger problem – the inadequate support for the U.S. Merchant Marine fleet.
“Because of unfair tax and trade policies, U.S.-flag vessels carry only about 5 percent of America’s total export and import trade. Ships with U.S. crews face strong and growing competition from corporations who fly tax-free flags of convenience. Not only does this hurt American workers, but our nation’s homeland security efforts are strained by the great challenge of monitoring the large shipment of cargo under foreign flags.
“We can strengthen both our nation’s economy and our homeland security by expanding the U.S. Merchant Marine fleet. It will mean more jobs for Americans, greater control over the cargo entering our ports, and more vessels available to the Department of Defense when national security requires the immediate transport of equipment, supplies, and personnel across the globe.
“If George W. Bush wants to do more than just wave flags – if he actually wants to raise U.S. flags above U.S. ships – he can make two long-overdue changes to job-stifling provisions in the U.S. tax code. The first would create a tonnage-based tax system for U.S.-flag vessels similar to that of their foreign competitors. And second, he should extend the foreign source income exclusion (section 911 of the Internal Revenue Code) to American merchant mariners sailing aboard U.S.-flag vessels in the foreign trades, comparable to the tax treatment granted by foreign governments to their nationals.”
TTD represents 35 member unions in the aviation, rail, transit, trucking, highway, longshore, maritime and related industries. For more information, visit www.ttd.org