Bethel’s $500,000 boondoggle Four AMO executive board and AMO Plans trustees’ meetings have passed since June 2013 without even fleeting reference to the joint AMO-STAR Center “media drive” — Tom Bethel’s failed strategy to expand AMO jobs through public outreach. This poorly planned project resulted in only one brief cable news appearance for Bethel — Fox & Friends, in a live feed from STAR Center’s 360-degree bridge — and it caused AMO and STAR Center to lose a combined $500,000 in about one month. Equally important and equally damning, the $500,000 spent by AMO and STAR Center did not result in a single AMO job in the sectors targeted specifically by Bethel — the U.S.-based international cruise industry and offshore energy production, service and supply in the Gulf of Mexico. Indeed, this project didn’t produce a single AMO job anywhere in domestic or international markets. At Tom’s request in April 2013, I listened to a promotional pitch from the consultant selected to manage the media drive, and I reviewed this consultant’s cost proposal. I had strong doubts about both, and I told Bethel of my concerns — including the real risk of cost far exceeding Tom’s projections. I advised Tom to give “serious second thought” to the project under this consultant. Tom leaned toward me and whispered, “I already signed the contract.” Tom then asked me to sell the project to those whose support would be most important — the seagoing AMO membership and the AMO executive board. I did so in Bethel’s column in the May 2013 issue of the AMO newspaper. In his emailed response to my first draft, Tom said the article was “perfect” and had “set the right tone” (this would prove to be my last assignment as Tom Bethel’s official ghostwriter). Meanwhile, the consultant in clear charge of the initiative approached me with two naïve, politically impractical proposals. First, the consultant asked if I thought a prominent member of the U.S. House of Representatives from a coastal district in Florida would join Bethel in a second appearance on Fox & Friends to urge the cruise industry to hire AMO members in senior engine and deck positions. I pointed out to the consultant that this representative’s specific Congressional district included a major cruise port, that this House member likely had constituents employed in the port by the cruise lines and that the industry likely accounted for considerable cruise consumer spending in the district’s hotels, restaurants and retail businesses; I also noted the strong possibility that this lawmaker had received campaign contributions from the cruise industry during a long legislative career. Under these circumstances, I said, this particular House member would probably not want to join Bethel or anyone else to comment on cruise industry issues in any public forum — especially one without counterpoints from a cruise fleet representative for balance. The consultant then asked if I could arrange for a high-profile senior U.S. Senator to join Bethel in a press conference at the pricey National Press Club in Washington, possibly on May 22, National Maritime Day, to discuss cruise ship safety issues. This Senator had emerged at that point as the cruise industry’s toughest, most visible and most persistent public critic. I cited at least two logistical difficulties. One was that I had no direct contact with this Senator or anyone on his staff, which would mean a cold call to the office and a potentially long wait for a reply from the Senator’s press office; the other was that the cruise industry had been openly defiant of this Senator on safety and other issues — as I saw it, the industry wouldn’t hesitate to defy Bethel as well (the Washington-based Cruise Lines International Association had already replied to Bethel after his Fox & Friends comments by closing the door to AMO members and all other U.S. merchant marine officers aboard the cruise majors’ ships). Days later, the consultant told me he had a contact in Washington that knew the Senator personally. I told him to exploit this connection to AMO’s advantage. As far as I know, nothing came of this specific development. My strong sense and political reality had convinced me that the press conference envisioned by the consultant would’ve been little more than an expensive stunt that wouldn’t have produced one job for our union. Meanwhile, we learned that this consultant had been placing unauthorized calls to Congressional offices, claiming to represent AMO and seeking to stage Capitol Hill meetings between Congressmen and AMO representatives — with the cameras rolling. This time, Bethel and Mike Murphy — the AMO vice president in Washington — agreed with me that the consultant had to be reined in. Murphy summoned the consultant to a meeting in AMO’s DC office on the morning of May 9, 2013, and he asked that I be there. I arrived late because an earlier meeting I had scheduled previously with a key Congressman on U.S.-flag cargo preference and the Export-Import Bank began late and ran long. Murphy’s meeting was mostly theatrical. The consultant shouted and Murphy bellowed (“I am the ultimate authority!” Mike roared repeatedly, his right arm raised and his index finger pointed skyward). Murphy’s angry demeanor changed only when the consultant suggested “action footage of Mike Murphy running up the steps of the Capitol Building.” Mike’s meeting ended inconclusively as Bethel and Murphy headed to Norfolk for a Military Sealift Command ceremony, leaving behind even more administrative confusion and unanswered questions. I went to my office and was followed by the consultant, who showed me a press release he had sent out that morning. I objected to language I saw as damaging to Tom Bethel personally and politically, and the volume rose during the conversation — just as it had earlier in the exchange between the consultant and Murphy. I left for a scheduled meeting with another Congressman on Jones Act issues — and I learned from a Bethel aide that afternoon that I had been suspended for 30 days; this spoken notice provided no specific cause for this adverse action. When I met with Bethel in the DC office upon my return to work on June 11, Tom handed me a letter that began by describing me as “a very talented writer, a skillful lobbyist and very loyal and trusted friend.” But the letter went on to charge that I had been “disruptive” and “aggressive” during my May 9 confrontation with the consultant — one hour after Mike Murphy lost his temper with the same man in the same way for the same reasons. This letter also said specifically that I had done “absolutely nothing” to support the media project, even though I had done everything I was asked specifically to do and everything I was able to do. Bethel’s letter said additionally that I had “caused us to cancel our media event.” Just as I knew nothing about the media drive until after Tom Bethel signed the consulting contract, I knew nothing about a specific event being scheduled or canceled. Was Tom referring to the proposed National Maritime Day press conference? Had Bethel booked a room at the National Press Club without completing the necessary arrangements with the Senator? I don’t know, because Tom’s letter didn’t clarify, and because Tom resisted many of my questions and did not elaborate during our meeting. Moreover, I had been out of the information loop for 30 days and did not know whether the logistical obstacles to confirmed press conference participation by the senior Senator had been overcome. What struck me most about the Bethel letter was its disturbing drift into psychoanalytical quackery. The letter set up a bizarre narrative suggesting I had crossed the 40-year mark in AMO at that point and became unhinged. “Dr.” Bethel diagnosed in me “a serious change in (my) personality,” marked primarily by “forgetfulness.” Digging deep into his cliché bag, Tom said I appeared to be “on a downward spiral” (I believe Tom Bethel understands by now that his problem with me is not that I forget things, but that Tom forgets what I remember). This developing story line was the groundwork for a strategy to deflect responsibility for the media drive’s fast failure from Bethel to me. It was a telling example of how Tom Bethel opts for self-interest and political preservation at all costs when his decisions have harmful impacts on AMO. That this issue hasn’t been discussed openly by the AMO executive board or by the AMO Safety & Education Plan trustees reveals even more about Bethel’s tendency to forsake “transparency” when transparency is inconvenient — Tom Bethel apparently believes that, if it isn’t on the agenda, it never happened. Meanwhile, key questions stand. Are AMO and STAR Center still on the financial hook with the media consultant, who is known to have called Mike Murphy in Dania Beach as recently as March 2014? If the public relations project remains in place, how much money have AMO and STAR Center spent on it since Tom fessed up in writing to me about the waste of “approximately $500,000” more than a year ago? What was the money spent on? What were the results? If I had the answers, I’d pass them on. But Tom Bethel and Mike Murphy are the only people who know the truth about what went wrong here and how it went wrong, and — so far — they’re not saying. Paul Doell Candidate for National President pauldoell51@yahoo pauldoell2014 954-881-5651 (cell) Charles Murdock Candidate for National Secretary-Treasurer [email protected] 954-531-9977 (cell)
Posted on: Mon, 29 Sep 2014 21:58:45 +0000
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