The tie that blinds Since he assumed the American Maritime Officers presidency in 2007, Tom Bethel has put inordinate focus on advancing the AMO career of one employee — the unaccomplished Yolanda “Phree” Baker. As every AMO official, representative and employee knows, Tom Bethel and Phree Baker are in a longstanding intimate relationship. They live together, dine together and travel together. They also spend office time together — Phree draws a six-figure salary, benefits and expenses from AMO in a senior administrative position at headquarters in Dania Beach. Phree Baker was working a clerical job described loosely as “office manager” with AMO in Washington DC in 2007 when Tom appointed her to the position of assistant editor of AMO publications — a difficult job she clearly was not fit for. Phree was enrolled at AMO expense in journalism classes, which proved pointless. Not long into the job, Phree took to complaining bitterly in DC about her boss, Matt Burke, a longtime AMO employee who takes his work seriously. In 2008, Bethel took an unhappy Phree Baker out of the editorial department and appointed her as assistant legislative director. In this job, Phree showed no initiative and no real interest in understanding the critical maritime policy challenges that emerged within the year. By 2012, Phree was taking a lot of no-notice, unexplained time off and, at one point, she refused a routine Capitol Hill assignment in connection with a developing legislative threat to the Maritime Security Program. Despite Phree’s glaring, sequential failures on the newspaper staff as a writer/editor and on the legislative staff as a lobbyist, Tom two years ago created the position of “director of human resources” exclusively for Phree Baker. This is the job she holds today. Phree’s HR job soon grew into its own department. Bethel and Baker elevated Judy Sallaberry, an accounting department clerical temp, to another new position — assistant HR director. Judy was given a pay increase, a full package of benefits and an office on the elite, exclusive access 3rd floor at headquarters (Tom’s “open door, closed floor” policy). This arrangement allows Phree to keep her own hours (as she always has), to travel with Tom when he is on union business, to shuttle easily between her condominium in a Washington suburb and the home she shares with Bethel in South Florida, and to leave the HR workload (such as it is) to Judy. The HR position also lets Phree exploit her relationship with Tom openly and gleefully to project authority she hasn’t earned and isn’t qualified to claim. It allows her to intimidate other AMO employees — all of whom understand that to cross Phree Baker in any personal or professional way is to risk “moving on” to unemployment. All of this occurs behind the thinnest veneer of professionalism. All of this occurs at the expense of the seagoing AMO membership — the money AMO spends on these two jobs could have easily prevented the $156,000 operating deficit our union suffered in the 4th quarter of the last fiscal year. Never mind that AMO went 63 years without a “human resources” department and did just fine, or that the AMO payroll is at fewer than 50 people; never mind that HR is a complex, specialized field in which community colleges and top universities offer degrees, or business degrees with HR credit concentrations. Never mind that no responsible business would hire the unqualified Phree Baker as HR manager, or that Phree’s emails and policy forms appear to be copy-and-paste samples from an online HR 101 workbook; never mind that Phree’s internal “Attention Required” notices draw discreet laughter from AMO employees. These notices now arrive under the subject line “Attention Requested.” Now there are indications that Phree Baker is growing weary of the HR position. In a written report prepared for the AMO executive board meetings the week of June 23, Tom Bethel said Phree and Judy are “training” to “eventually assume” the duties of Jack Branthover, Tom’s special assistant at headquarters. This is, of course, contingent upon Tom’s re-election this year. Jack — the longest-serving AMO employee — doesn’t appear eager to retire, but he may be getting the subtle nudge to the door from Tom and Phree. In his report to the board, Tom didn’t say whether the HR jobs would stand once Phree and Judy settle into the administrative work done solo for years by Jack. This raises two immediate questions — if these jobs remain, will they go to qualified individuals or to friends of Phree (or maybe even to relatives of Phree)? If the HR jobs are eliminated, why were they deemed essential to begin with? And where will Phree Baker go when she tires of Jack’s job? Wherever her whim and Tom Bethel take her. Tom Bethel sees no complications arising from his tie to Phree Baker. He sees no financial waste in HR salaries, benefits, expenses and training for unqualified people in jobs of questionable necessity. He sees no possibility of conflict of interest in personnel and policy matters. He sees no threat to employee morale and no consequent potential decline in the quality of services the AMO support staff provides to AMO members and their families. With deep-sea AMO jobs at their lowest number in many years, with indications of widespread discontent among AMO members in the deep-sea, Great Lakes and inland waters fleets, with a staggering decline in employer contributions to the AMO benefit funds, Tom Bethel’s preoccupation is with the care, comfort and convenience of Phree Baker. Tom’s is one of many age-old stories of men in prominent positions blinded by obsessive relationships that threaten productive order in the workplace, or which bear even a hint of cronyism, favoritism or nepotism. These stories seldom end well for the individuals involved. The personal lives of Tom Bethel and Phree Baker are just that — personal. The issue here is not the Bethel-Baker relationship — none of our business. But when personal lives impair high-level judgment on the job in our union, when personal entanglements interfere with professional responsibilities, it’s everyone’s business in AMO. Paul Doell pauldoell2014 pauldoell51@yahoo pauldoell2014@gmail facebook/AMO truth 954-881-5651 Charles Murdock pauldoell-charlesmurdock2014 [email protected] 954-531-9977
Posted on: Fri, 01 Aug 2014 20:08:26 +0000
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