But the surreal anti-union campaigns continue. The Gulf Coast Mariners Association and the allied Offshore Mariners United. The association s purpose was to give mariners a voice about safety issues, training, and working hours in the Gulf of Mexico, which are considered notoriously bad in mariners circles around the world and to gauge local interest in forming a union. Though it looks like a short trip on a map, a journey from a port town like Venice, Louisiana to a couple rigs 100 miles out in the Gulf and back can take over ten hours, often without a crew change. Twenty-hour shifts are not unheard of.
Tired crews are more prone to mistakes, accidents, and injuries.
Under-staffing can result in overworked and injured mariners. The Mariners Union of Australia claims that in that country, the same type vessels as in the Gulf of Mexico are operated with three times as many hands, on average, as in the Gulf. In Louisiana, 401k plans are the norm for offshore workers and mariners. The OMU hopes to change the face of retirement in Louisiana to conform to much of the rest of industrial America with defined pension benefits that are not so beholden to the whims of the stock market. Locals don t have to do much digging in their family tree to find a relative who was killed, disabled, or badly injured in the offshore petroleum industry.