This article is not about Mariners it’s about cruise ship employees, not ship’s crew.
It does not sound good to be a cruise ship employee this is an interesting article about 17-hour days being treated terribly.
https://www.businessinsider.com/cruise-ship-workers-describe-grueling-conditions-job-2019-11
Let’s say there’s an accident and thousands of terrified and stupid passengers need to be evacuated. If these ‘employees, not crew’ have abandon ship duties (as opposed to simply muster and evacuate) then they are crew.
I simply meant to let readers know the article wasn’t referring to credentialed Mariners. Thank you for pointing out my critical error in terminology. You’re clearly very bright
Thanks!
That article sounds like a normal Middle East deployment to me. Someone can violate your privacy and inspect your room? The horror. Long hours? Shocking. Strict hiarchary? Awful. Few days off for months on end? Unconscionable.
The seventeen hour days were not the norm according to the article. The only part I’d object to would be the pay but it sounded like entry level jobs which is not so bad.
They did leave out the benefits like a crew bar and the fornication. When you’re young and dumb it’s not a bad life.
Right, but they’re civilians. 17 hour days are dangerous for anyone, let alone someone working at sea. Doesn’t matter if they’re a bartender, dishwasher, or housekeeper. What if after that 17 hour day theres a fire or abandon ship scenario?
The employees Business Insider spoke with reported working an average of about 11 hours per day, seven days per week, for an average of around six consecutive months.
That would be legal, and normal, for a job at sea. Don’t all of us sometimes work over 12-hour days? I can think of at least twice in the past few months where I worked twenty-two (22) hour days. Many more times I worked more than twelve hours days. It’s not normal but it can happen. I guess it makes a good gotcha headline.
Some described grueling hours, low pay, and a strict hierarchy that influences where they eat, where they sleep, and the number of months they work without a day off.
Sounds like a normal job at sea.
it’s difficult for many cruise-ship employees to raise concerns about working conditions because the cruise line can simply decline to hire them again after their contract expires
That sounds like many jobs, not just maritime.
a guest-services employee heard a knock on her door. She opened it to find four US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials, a Norwegian Cruise Line security employee, and a drug-sniffing dog.
I’ve had that happen. The entire crew sat on the fantail for hours while CBP, NCIS, immigration, DEA and whoever else went threw the ship. Divers too. The dogs went threw our rooms. Heck, we had to be escorted to the heads to pee and poop.
“I was traumatized,” she said. “I couldn’t sleep for three days. I was so depressed.”
She’s a snowflake.
The cruise-ship workers Business Insider spoke with who reported the highest monthly earnings, which fell between around $5,000 and $10,000, tended to be from the United States or Canada. Those who reported earnings of $2,000 or less tended to be from South America, Eastern Europe, or Southeast Asia.
As expected.
I don’t think it’s the point of the story. 17 hours a day for 7 days a week with very few personal rights is the issue at hand. All of us have worked some god awful hours but we have also been fairly well compensated for it. This story describes horrible working conditions for people who aren’t being well compensated. Do you really have no sympathy for that?
In my case not always that well compensated. But no matter how miserable the job I always knew there was hope for a better job around the corner. I didn’t know how long it’d take but I knew I wasn’t going to spend my whole career at the bottom of the ladder.
That’s the difference, If you’re at the bottom and you know you’re stuck there it’s a lot worse
All businesses are structured to profit, some more ruthlessly than others. Cruise ship conditions are old news. So what is the point of the story? That life’s not fair? That the cruise lines use FOCs to maximize profits? Hardly ground breaking news.
If you don’t, you have no heart. But since there’s not a hint of a solution proposed, it’s a puff piece, filler with the sole purpose of pulling at heart strings to get clicks.
What are you all talking about? There is no such thing as “third world villagers” working for peanuts anymore. All maritime employees are well compensated. Singapore is good at this, but Norway is best. You should try reading newspapers not from USA.
To a large degree the compensation issue needs to be discussed in context to what standard. Did the reported salaries include the required tipping? The article didn’t say.
It may be worth noting that the ones jumping over the side in desperation are the passengers, not the workers.
A typical Filipino worker makes about $300 a month. Call center workers are considered very well paid, relatively speaking and make about $800 a month. Foreign flag, un-licensed Mariners make about $1,800 a month.
The Filipino guys on my ship (American citizens) told me “don’t feel sorry for them (foreign flag guys we shared a ride with), they are among the highest paid workers back home in the PI”.
If these cruise ship workers are from places like Europe or the Caribbean or something I have no clue. But as far as Filipino or Indian workers, for sure they are very low paid but maybe relative to the folks back in their hometown they are not. No one is forcing them to keep that job. It may suck but it’s probably better than the alternative back home.
Oh btw while we are on cruise ship salaries. I met a young, Cal Maritime grad sailing as a mate on one of the huge Royal Caribbean ships, Oasis of the Sea or something. He works 6 months a year and makes $60,000. Absolutely loves his job.
As a point of reference, in the area where I live, retail store employees get paid about $10/hr, so $1600/mo full time but full time jobs are rare. Most are part time and most of those workers need 2 or 3 part-time jobs to survive. Those aren’t glamorous jobs either, they’re jobs working in restaurants as waiters, bartenders, cleaning rental houses,etc… It’s unskilled labor on a par with what cruise ship workers do. They have a limited time to earn even that much as it’s a tourist based economy which only thrives in summer and many have college degrees.
The normal pay levels for cruise ship staff according to Jobmonkey.com:
https://www.jobmonkey.com/cruise/earning_and_saving/
Cruiseshipjobs.com offers detailed description of the various cruise ship jobs but it appear that you have to register to get the salary range offered by various companies:
https://www.cruiseshipjob.com/position.htm
The staff on a cruise ship are mostly from developing countries. Carribean, Central America, Eastern Europe on the Atlantic cruises. The hours quoted in the article are probably close to correct as is the salary. These guys depend on tips to make enough to send back home if they are lucky enough to have a job to get tips. Out of the money they make they also have to pay money to keep their job. Assistant hotel managers, hotel managers all get off the book money to make sure one is in the right position to get the tips. There is also the need for some of these cruise staff workers to pay out of pocket for other cruise staff to help them so they can keep a job. Example; 10+ years ago a cabin steward was typically assigned 10 cabins. Then the ships got bigger but the staff did not. So the same cabin steward was assigned 15 cabins. There was no way they could properly service that amount and not receive negative feedback from guests and lose their job. So…they paid out of pocket workers from other departments to help them, their only hope was they would break even after tips and be able to keep a job.
Licensed staff have it little better.
The cruise industry is a floating mafia that answers to no one.
I think you give them too much credit.
After calling the clintons the next best place to have an an accident is a cruise ship in any water thats not the flag state.
Clinton derangement syndrome, Trump derangement syndrome, Obama Derangement syndrome. All 3 make the USA the laughing stock of the world.
As a US citizen I have always been amazed that the president of the day is blamed or credited for whatever goes on in the USA. The USA is an oligarchy in which the only 2 political parties report to the oligarchs. The citizens are just tools to be used. The oligarchs distract with BS via partisan divide over trivial shit while they pick our pockets. Meanwhile the office of the presidency devolves to that of a third world nation.
As Trump would say, “Sad”
THIS 
THIS THIS THIS 