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Ship pilots file for rate increase
By Laura Elder
The Daily News
Published May 5, 2009
Pilots who steer passenger liners, oil tankers and other vessels into island and Texas City ports are asking for pay increases after negotiations with ship owners, operators and agents drifted into impasse.
The 16-member Galveston-Texas City Pilot Association has filed for multiyear rate increases that would begin June 1 with an 8 percent hike. The filing also calls for an 8 percent increase the following year and 7 percent hikes each of the next three years.
The proposed increases are certain to meet resistance from West Gulf Maritime Association, a trade group.
Pilots and the association have for years been at odds about rates and tariffs. The association has about 100 members with businesses at Texas ports. It plans a private meeting Friday about the filing.
Pilot representatives could not be reached for comment. But in a filing submitted Friday to the Board of Pilot Commissioners, a governing board of five volunteers appointed by Gov. Rick Perry, pilots argue they have not been adequately paid since 2000.
Failure to adjust rates in nine years has created an “illegal subsidy” of pilotage costs to industry, according to the filing.
In 2007, after six days of sometimes hostile hearings, the commissioners approved a 4.9 percent rate increase, which did not increase the pilots’ net income, but was meant to allow the group to recover expenses such as fuel, insurance and replacing boats. The pilots had wanted a 30.6 percent rate increase.
In August, the association stunned the industry with a pre-emptive filing for a cost-of-living raise on behalf of the pilots. The filing called for a 3 percent rate increase for each of the next three years.
After Hurricane Ike wreaked havoc on the upper Texas coast, the association agreed to withdraw the filing and to enter talks with the pilots.
Pilots say they are seeking pay parity with their peers across Texas and Louisiana.
Niels Aalund, vice president of maritime affairs for the association, said the group likely would file an objection.
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