“So, the Jones Act is killing merchant sailors? How is that? And how come the market doesn’t take care of those labor issues?”

Boats grimaced and pushed the wreckage of his beef-on-weck sandwich toward the side of the bar where Jasper and Liz-S were working. It is a little poignant; Liz-S got dressed up in her lawyer suit and scored a paid internship with the Inspector General of the National Association of Associations down the street.

Jasper smirked when I asked him if things would be harder for him once she was on our side of the bar. “Nah, I will just get more hours. I can work as much as Tracey needs. I like it.”

“I want fewer hours, or at least a couple fewer jobs,” I said with a sigh. “I had a retired FBI Special Agent come and visit me when I got back from Michigan,” I said. “He was doing what I fervently hope is my last five-year background investigation.”

“You think you are going to retire? I am not sure anyone can ever retire anymore. We will stay in the harness until we drop.”

Old Jim snorted. “Not me. You have to work the angles.”

“And have a wife who is still working,” I said.

“Screw you,” he said thoughtfully, and took a deep draft of his Budweiser. “I bet you that Special Agent works exactly as much as he wants and then takes vacations.”

Jon-Without finished his Sodoku and gave a whoop of satisfaction. No one looks better doing number puzzles at the bar than Jon-without.

Senior Executive Jeff and his son were chowing down on the new fish and chips, which doesn’t look like the tempura fantasy anymore, but more like…well, fish and chips. Jerry-the-Barrister was eating tuna sliders next to me.

“So this guy is asking me about the little unpleasantness that happened in Aurora, Colorado, in 1977. I am getting tired of hearing about that night every five years. But anyway, he starts off on a thing about Recreational Vehicles. He swore by his Class A RV- a full-out motor-coach, with satellite internet and television and a king-sized bed.”

“I can just see you on the highway in one of those, Vic. King of the Road,” said Jon-without.

“Hey, he said the $200K price for a nice Class A is a mortgage write-off, he can use it as an office for his investigation business, so that is a write-off, too, and it can go wherever he wants in the south in the winter.

“Sounds like an unsinkable boat,” said Jim.

“I have really been trying to crack the code on where to go in the winters once I am not working. Oh, he says the price means the places these things show up are not filled with trailer-trash. I see them parked for the winter on the beach at the Dam Neck Navy Base and sit and drink wine from the Class Six store and watch the surf….”

“Yeah, but you would still be on the highway,” said Boats. “What is happening out there on the roads is like what is happening on the waterways. With all the oil exploration, there are thousands more accidents in the trucking business that supports the activity in the oilfields. Fatalities have gone up almost twenty percent since the middle of the last decade.  Shifts are longer, more inexperienced workers are being hired and older rigs are being pulled out of mothballs to exploit the fracking technology. More people are dying on the roads and in the fields.”

Boats nodded. “Not surprising. People want jobs and they want a paycheck, and they will take chances to get them. They will try to regulate that out of Washington, I imagine. That is what the National Mariners Association is trying to get in changes to the watch bill, among other things.”

“Unless changes are made to increase worker safety, the high fatality rates will be fact of life out there in Western Pennsylvania and in the west. A buddy of mine just came back from South Dakota, and he said there were gigantic trucks everywhere.”

“Well,” said boats, fortifying himself with a sip of crisp happy Hour White, “imagine the same thing happening on America’s original superhighway system. You landlubbers don’t see what is happing out there on the great rivers. It is still far cheaper to tow big barges with cargo that it is to load them on a railcar or haul over the rods. The merchant sailors are the life blood of commerce on the waters, and we are killing them.”

“That is the problem with the merchant sailors,” said Boats. “In any for-profit situation, the owners will try to exploit the situation. With the credentialing of crewmen, there is a finite pool of sailors on which to draw. The two-watch system mandated under the Jones Act have the crews on the tow-boats working port-and-starboard watches. They fall asleep and accidents happen. Working around the clock for a career kills your body rhythm. I can’t tell you the number of merchant sailors I know that died in their fifties. It is just not a sustainable system.”

“I hated standing watch in the Navy,” I said. “It screws up your body. I am glad I only had to do it for three years full time.”

“Well, yeah. The Association represents 120,000 American professionals who stand watch for a career. Here is some of what is going on: crew sizes are plummeting to chase profits. Human beings are expensive, so billets for cooks are going away. That means a guy on watch has to eat whatever he can get from the galley. Fast food or cold cuts. No vegetables or anything healthy. That is just one aspect of the problem. Body clock issues can contribute to crewmen falling asleep on watch and crashing into bridges or other barges. It is a crisis.”

“So, you left the Government to go fight the Jones Act?”

“Not all of it. The point of legislating the rules of the road is to protect American industry in ship-building and commerce. But when it comes to work-rules, we need to update ‘em to protect a precious national resource. I wonder if I should try another one of those sandwiches. Those are pretty good for up-north food.”

“Tracey is thinking about putting it on the menu as a special once a month.”

Boats seemed to support the idea, as did the rest of The Amen Corner. “Is there any chance Kate Jansen would sell the kummelweck rolls? “ I asked. “I would buy some to freeze. That pretzel salt and caraway seed crust is to die for. Kate burshes them with egg white to keep the coating in place. Fluffy and tasty.”

“That’s a great idea,” growled Old Jim. “But what would you put in them?”

“Cold cuts or cheese,” I said. “That would be all right straight from the galley.”

“It would be a lot better if you had a two-man watch,” said Boats. “And I guarantee the sandwiches would be better.”

“That is an association I would be happy to join,” I said.

“We are just asserting our right to petition the government for the redress of grievances,” said Boats.

“Right on,” I said. “And ask for another glass of wine.” I waved hopefully at Liz-S down the bar. Life without hope ain’t worth it.

Copyright 2012 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com