tional Organization of Masters, Mates, and Pilots 
(MM&P) and the Marine Engineers Beneficial As- 
sociation (MEBA). An officer must belong to a 
union—or be an approved “applicant”—and meet 
union employment criteria if he or she is to get a job 
onboard a ship under union contract. These unions 
control most U.S. maritime officer jobs, In 1975 
testimony before the Congress, MarAd estimated that 
of licensed seagoing jobs on U.S. vessels displacing, 
1,000 gross tons and over, MM&P controlled 77 per- 
cen of the deck officer jobs and MEBA controlled 
79 percent of the engineering officer jobs.** 
Controversy Over Maritime Manpower 
In general, there has been little criticism of the 
ways Officers are trained for work on the Great 
Lakes and in the offshore and inland operations. 
And there is little controversy about the number of 
people being trained for this work, since the supply 
of officers seems balanced with supply. 
This has not bee the case for the deep sea mer- 
chant marine, however. Since around 1970 there has 
been a controversy over who should train officers and 
in what numbers, and especially whether engine of- 
ficers should be trained by the academies or by 
MEBA, the engineers union. The debate has died 
down somewhat in the last year, but the key issue of 
who should do the training remains unresolved. An 
associated issue is what role the Federal Government 
Table 8-4.—Enrollment and appropriated Federal 
funds for the four sources of new merchant 
marine officers 1 
Fiscal year 1976 
Source of merchant 
marine officers Average Federal 
enrollment funds 
million 
dollars 
U.S. Merchant Marine Academy.. 1,052 12.74 
State University of New York 
Maritime Academy ........... 832 1.2 
Massachusetts Maritime Academy. 768 1.2 
Maine Maritime Academy....... 513 1.1 
California Maritime Academy.... 331 7 
Texas Maritime Academy........ 93 4 
Great Lakes Maritime Academy. . 81 l 
Calhoon MEBA 
Engineering School .......... - 300 0% 
otal... el eee 3,970 17.4 
1Source: U.S. Congress, General Accounting Office. The Fed- 
_eral Role in Merchant Marine Officer Education, Report FPCD- 
77-44, June 15, 1977, p. 3. 
"The $12.7 million consists of $8.7 miilion for normal operat- 
ing costs and about $4 million for the modernization program. 
> Federal funds flow directly to the school through contribu- 
tions made to the MEBA training fund by Federally subsidized 
shipping companies. 
should play in trying to balance the demand and the 
supply of maritime personnel. 
The controversy occurred because maritime em- 
ployment dropped sharply around 1970, the result of 
a general decrease in the number of U.S. ships and 
jobs and an end of the extra employment associated 
with the Viet Nam conflict. The two principal officer 
unions, anxious to ensure that remaining jobs went 
to their senior members, largely closed their rolls to 
new academy graduates. Yet the academies—and 
MEBA’s Calhoon School—continued to turn out of- 
ficers, and a major surplus developed. 
MarAd has limited authority to resolve the con- 
troversy. Present laws have made it difficult for the 
Federal Government to ensure that the supply of new 
officers matches the demand—a demand that fluctu- 
ates over time and which was quite low during the 
early 1970s. 
MarAd does prepare plans and can limit the num- 
ber of students who receive Federal subsidies, which 
allows some contro] of enrollments. But at the same 
time the States rarely have acted to control enroll- 
ments, and, moreover, the academies possess con- 
siderable autonomy from both the Federal agencies 
and their State governments. With several sources of 
funding, plus an American tradition of keeping gov- 
ernment influence to a relative minimum, the acad- 
emies are at liberty to continue training large num- 
bers of graduates if they wish—and some of them 
have.*® 
Similarly, MarAd cannot exercise control over the 
union schools, even if it somehow wanted to. The 
schools are funded by the companies through arrange- 
ments specified in union-management contracts. 
As a result of all this, MarAd has. taken the roles 
of information-gatherer and forecaster, in order to 
inform the maritime community of possible future 
developments and of a mediator who attempts to 
bring the responsible parties together during times of 
either manpower shortage or surplus. 
44U.S. Congress, House, Committee on Merchant Marine and 
Fisheries, Maritime Education and Training, Hearings before 
the Subcommittee on Merchant Marine of the Committee on 
Merchant Marine and Fisheries on H.R. 1626 and H.R. 9864 
[and] H.R. 10413 and H.R. 10500, 94th Congress, Ist session, 
1975, p. 14. 
4 For a discussion of the autonomy of the academies, see Wil- 
liam R. Rosengren and Michael S. Basis. The Social Organization 
of Nautical Education. Lexington, Mass., Lexiton Books, 1976, 
pp. 5-7. 
VIUI-17 
