by Rick Eyerdam
Who wants a discount pilot with limited experience docking your overloaded cruise ship in a torrential gale with a litigious bunch of blue hairs on board?
How many captains, if they were allowed to speak freely, would testify that they would really prefer to turn over their ship to those high paid, extremely dependable, salty pilots with their up-to-date local knowledge when they arrive at a port to deliver their precious cargo?
All of a sudden the State of Florida is swollen with special interest groups who expect to pick the bones of the maritime industry now that the Florida Ports Council’s John LeCapra has announced his retirement.
LeCapra’s staff hired some Jacksonville PR firm to form the Maritime Leadership Coalition which declared that its purpose is to charge cargo interests and ports to be on its board of directors. Together they would make the legislature smarter than was possible through the Florida Ports Council. Together they would push for the repeal of the stupid Florida law that required Florida Port workers to get a different security ID for each port and another one from the federal government.
With much fanfare the Leadership Coalition mounted a non-campaign to change the law knowing all the while the Florida legislature planned to change the law anyway. It’s the opposite of a self-fulfilling prophecy. It is the lobbying equivalent of shooting large fish in a small barrel.
Dueling maritime associations
Now that is done, the Leadership Coalition has only one other task and that is to fight the Florida Maritime Council and the Florida Alliance of Maritime Organizations to see who gets the most money and influence. The FAMO is the tool of a team of lobbyists with tons of money and wonderfully meshed client lists including most of the state’s prosperous cities and big-donor corporations. The Florida Maritime Counil is a spawn of Associated Industries which once wielded a mighty sword in Florida politics and now packs a potent pocket book.
The FAMO bunch was hired by the cruise lines as the stalking horse to go after the Florida Harbor Pilots, a group of high skill and integrity which is about to celebrate its 100th anniversary serving Florida ports. The cruise industry and struggling Jones Act carriers want to use the legislature and public opinion to leverage the Harbor Pilots into lower fees by threatening to expand their ranks with less trained, lower paid individuals.
Today, everywhere in the US and most other modern port states, no ship can enter a port or leave port without a pilot and that means no ship can get away without paying the pilot’s substantial fees. The Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation already regulates the pilots. The pilots set their own fees with state review and their substantial pay.
DBPR designed to limit competition
The DBPR is the agency set up by the legislature to reduce competition and protect powerful Florida professional occupations from competition from outside the state. Its purpose is to create stumbling blocks and stacks of red tape to prevent snowbird Architects, Asbestos Contractors and Consultants, Athlete Agents, Auctioneers, Barbers, Building Code Administrators and Inspectors, Certified Public Accountants, Community Association Managers, Construction managers, Cosmetologists, Electrical and Alarm Contractors, Employee Leasing Companies, Geologists, Harbor Pilots, Interior Designers, Landscape Architects, Real Estate Agents, Talent Agencies and Veterinarians from setting up shop in Florida without first spending several years jumping through impossible hoops.
Double bad idea
You would think these high-powered lobbyists would understand the Pandora’s box they are about to open.
If the FAMO coalition succeeds, that will open the door for anti-regulators to attack all those other protected professions using the same argument and strategy.
Here is what FAMO did so far. First FAMO hired the Washington Economics Group of Miami, which, like Moody’s and J.D. Powers, will find a way to justify anything you are willing to pay it to justify.
Washington Economics of Miami concluded after an enormous in depth study of the 88 Harbor Pilots, “A more open and market-driven system would result in more jobs and lower consumer costs.”
Because most of the states 88 veteran harbor pilots earn more than $300,000, and because the cruise lines are big advertisers, some newspapers decided this insight is news and published news stories suggesting somebody ought to look into these pilots.
Who says?
Florida Harbour Pilots' Association spokeswoman Sarah Bascom said the study is an attempt by the cruise industry to cut costs and damage port security by eliminating the requirement of pilots who understand the local waters.
The very interesting Michelle Paige said, “The pilot system needs to be transformed from a state protected monopoly to a competitive system that is both safe and efficient. Paige is the president of FAMO, among other things.
An end to accountant and veterinary monopolies
But the lobbyist don’t understand the harm they are about to do to Florida’s professional associations just to collect some cash from the cruise lines.
Someone who hates accountants or those pricey veterinarians could take the word “pilot” from the FAMO mantra. Then you have a situation where the expert Washington Economics Group Miami and the FAMO could equally argue, “ The certified public accounting system needs to be transformed from a state protected monopoly to a competitive system that is both safe and efficient.”
Or one could argue, “The veterinarian system needs to be transformed from a state protected monopoly to a competitive system that is both safe and efficient.”
Paige’s statement: “The time has come to level the playing field, so that a larger pool of maritime professionals can help ships safely port in Florida,” is absurd.
Who wants a discount pilot with limited experience docking your overloaded cruise ship in a torrential gale with a bunch of litigious blue hairs on board?
This fight to undercut the pilots goes on everywhere across the country when the locals briefly go brain dead or in an election year when politicians can promise to consider the “pilot problem” in exchange for piles of special interest cash.
Outside the Port of New Orleans there are three separate sets of pilots, one for the risky, always shifting mouth of the Mississippi River. Another set handles ships entering the Port of New Orleans and another different pilot handles the ship if it moves a few miles up the Mississippi River. Three pilots, three fees.
The real world
Florida port access is far less complex than New Orleans or the Savannah River, for example. You hang a left at the Gulfstream and line up the markers, unless there is another ship in the channel, or a sailboat is struggling against the tide under sail. Ships don’t have brakes and channels are narrow by nature.
It is easy to hold course in a Florida ship channel unless the wind is blowing so hard the wheel must be turned into the wind to hold the course or it is raining so hard you cannot see the bow, or there is a wind against the tide condition that frustrates the propulsion pods, or there is fog, or a radical neap tide or there are two ships trying to beat the low tide and a fishing tournament underway departing the local marina.
Cruise ship captains are mayors, not pilots.
A ship’s captain, especially a cruise ship captain, is like the mayor of a city. He must worry about Swine flu, pork roast and the number of Kosher and Rasta passengers on board and the amount of fuel in the tanks. He must focus on security of the crew and passengers, fire drills, entertainment, the quality of water in the pool and whether the plants got watered in the faux park. And he must know what speed and what trim it takes to move the ship comfortably to get it from Florida to its next destination when it is due. He must monitor the engines and the engineers and respond promptly when the parent company decides on a change of ports. He must handle risky navigation in poorly marked waters in the Caribbean Sea just to get to the rendezvous with the local pilot.
What lobbyist in his right mind would want to afflict his client cruise ship line or ocean cargo carrier with a captain who must run the ship’s functions and learn-- then remember-every one of the characteristics of every port under all sea, wind and visibility conditions or risk wrecking the ship?
How many captains, if they were allowed to speak freely, would testify that they would prefer to turn over their ship to those high paid, extremely dependable, salty pilots with their up-to-date local knowledge when they arrive at a port to deliver their precious cargo?
How many of them want to turn over the ship in a fog to guy who got the job following the FAMO-advocated “leveling of the playing field” from a larger pool of pilots who winter in Florida when not piloting in Alaska or New Jersey.
Trial lawyer joy
You can hear the trail lawyers slavering. “Members of the jury, Norwegian Polish Line must be made to pay a zillion dollars in damages to compensate the passengers who suffered whip lash when the captain, after 20 hours on duty, ran the Vomit of the Sea into the pier because his pilot had only been working a few days in Florida and had never seen a tropical rain shower before.”
Or the happy litigator might say, “Members of the jury, a highly-trained, competent pilot was on hand with years of local knowledge to safely berth the ship but the cruise line choose to risk the passengers just to save a few bucks.”
Study recommends harbor pilot program be restructure
By TED JACKOVICS | The Tampa Tribune
Published: October 20, 2009
A study commissioned by the Florida Alliance of Maritime Organizations, whose members include cruise and cargo ship companies, has recommended that the state's harbor pilot program be restructured to allow a competitive system for hiring and paying harbor pilots.
The report issued Tuesday said the average harbor pilot pay in Florida is $368,717, including a median salary of $342,498 at the Port of Tampa.
The report by The Washington Economic Group of Miami suggested the pilot system be transformed from a "state protected monopoly to a competitive system that is both safe and efficient."
Most non-U.S.registered cargo and passenger vessels are required to obtain the services of a state-licensed harbor pilot when entering or leaving the state's 14 seaports. The state's 88 harbor pilots are regulated by the
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