196.6/1419: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in the Soviet Union (Standley)
384. The Department has been informed by the War Shipping Administration that the Soviet Government has made a practice of paying special gratuities to the officers and crews of American merchant vessels operating to north Russian ports. This practice is regarded by the War Shipping Administration as thoroughly demoralizing in that it leads to inequality of wage payments and upsets the system of bonuses agreed upon between seamen’s unions and the vessel operators in this country. It is stated that Amtorg7 notifies crews prior to their leaving United States that gratuities will be paid in addition to our own voyage and port bonuses.8
It is requested that you take this matter up with the appropriate Soviet authorities with the request that the payment of such gratuities be stopped. In this connection the War Shipping Administration [Page 616] is considering the issuance of instructions to the agents for vessels in north Russian, service requiring them to forbid masters of the vessels to accept gratuities.
- Amtorg Trading Corporation, official purchasing and sales agency in the United States of the Soviet Union, 210 Madison Avenue, New York 16, N. Y.↩
- This practice was also much resented by British crews. A bank draft on the State Bank (Gosbank) would be handed to the master of a vessel payable in the United States, and distributed as the master deemed advisable to each member of the crew. Although amounts and distribution practices varied, crew members could receive a sum approximately equal to 185% of a month’s wages, including the voyage bonus. This practice upset the wage payments and bonus system agreed upon by unions and operators, and promulgated by the War Shipping Administration.↩