Staten Island?
That seems like very good pay for a ferry, but with NY state and city income tax, and a requirement to live in the city, it might not be so great.
I’m guessing it’s 48 weeks a year to start.
Always hard to work out the day-pay equivalent without full data. But making the assumption of weekends off, one month vacation a year, and six annual holidays off, and disregarding any overtime, the pay comes down to (on a daily-pay equivalent basis):
LDO $553 to $774 day
Unlicensed $298 to $413 day
Marine Construction on the Great lakes
A few different companies, 4-5 tugs each.
Master of Tow, 65-110’ tugs
$700-1$200 a day depending on contract and type of work. But paid by the hour, scheduled 84 hours a week. No work some days due to weather or breakdown.
Deckhands start at @$38 an hour. Scheduled 84 a week. No work some days due to weather or breakdown.
Stay in hotels 90% of the time. Occasional live aboard jobs.
Seasonal. Usually May to December. Some guys work out a rotation, many work straight through.
The $1200 a day part sounds pretty good. No off watch call outs. No thrashing , banging and rolling while sleeping. Commuting to hotels is a pain. Being able to go out to eat in good restaurants and having visitors from home is nice. Hotel living can be good or awful depending on the hotel and location.
That’s low pay, except for the Tankerman.
A good example of what a feckless excuse for a marine union the MM&P Inland is.
Always thought Reinauer was tops when it comes to pay/benefits. Seems like wages have stagnated across a lot of the industry. Interestingly enough, Centerline just announced big pay bumps..
It was the same at the 333 & RTBU. The majority of the members/voters were AB-Tankmen which made them de facto AB-Tankerman Unions. Maybe it’s the same at MM&P Inland?
That dosen’t quite match what I have and there’s no way they would have the Captain’s rates in the contract since they’re not part of the bargaining unit. And frankly I can tell you the Capt rates are wrong on the low side.
I’ve posted this multiple times, the rates do not include an additional $50 per day for travel.
So how big of a bump are they expecting in 2027 with the next contract?
They haven’t sat down to talk yet.
A mate that can run a large ATB on his watch (New York style - doing whatever without calling the captain) is worth at least $1000 a day.
Captains ought to be at least $1200.
A real engineer (that can change a power pack, etc.) and has a license, is worth at least $1000.
The Tankermen are overpaid compared to the licensed officers.
Actual Inflation (which is usually a lot more than the government claims) exceeds the typical tiny annual union wage increases. Wage rates should go up at least 10% a year.
It’s supposed to be a supply and demand situation.The supply of licensed officers is in decline, the demand remains about the same. That means that licensed officers are increasingly valuable, and worth increases based upon demand that are well above the rate of inflation.
Even though I’ve worked with a lot of primadonna tankermen, I have to say their wage justifies their responsibility.
Yeah, it doesn’t take much to get a PIC but let’s face it..it’s not exactly a job that’s highly sought after. Lots of people flat out say no to the notion of getting it. Officer responsibility without the officer title.
agreed, tankerman job is no joke and takes a special individual to make a career out of it. Career tankerman are interesting folks to talk with. Ill leave it at that.
The variability in tankerman performance is astounding and part of the problem is absolutely the low bar to entry and the variability of what defines acceptable performance, often within the same company.
Generally when someone says that any afloat position is overpaid in our industry, it’s a red flag; they have a disconnect between reality, their relative value, and the business side of the industry… No company throws money around without need and stays solvent, which absolutely should be obvious.
Are there any tankermen in the bargaining unit of MMP/IBU? Last I heard, no. We should be honest with ourselves.
I left MMP and a New York job to work a local non-union job in Florida. The day rate is only slightly lower. The health insurance benefits are roughly the same, but significantly cheaper. I now get paid for travel. I have a higher company match and a more flexible 401k. I have an HSA. The grub allotment is significantly higher. I get a full extra day for holidays instead of only a half day extra.
I don’t have to surrender 1 % of my pay to a union whose representatives promised a regular presence on the boats, and haven’t been seen or heard from since that promise which was over a year ago.
When I factor in the savings of no longer flying every 2 weeks and the costs associated with that, the benefits savings and the union fees (dues), I now essentially make more at a sweet local job in Florida than I did in New York for a union.
How in the sweet flying f*** is that even allowed to happen?!?
I did get that sweet generic MMP t-shirt though.
Did MMP send that tattood biker ex-con to kick your door open when you were sleeping on your off watch, and demand ‘dues’ but not write anything down, like 333 did?
I miss that guy. And by miss I mean missed my dream to see him brained with a shackle.
Maybe we keep this thread for firsthand accounts of pay rates?
Here is a chart showing firsthand accounts of pay at various limited license companies, as reported by posters here on GCaptain, Dec. 2025-Jan. 2026. The table is taken from a report used where I work. The column on the right shows averages between the non-CTI companies, giving a good snapshot of where industry wages were at the beginning of the year.
As part of an annual report here at CTI my staff prepares an estimate of what unlimited tonnage companies pay their mariners, compared to what we pay.
This was always a pain. The information out there is difficult to extract and analyze. Unlimited tonnage companies usually pay a base pay plus overtime, and this varies union-by-union. That takes a lot of time and effort to research.
Not that we’re alone in looking for pay data. For some years now, MSC has reached out to various companies, including where I work, to get data on mariner pay. They do it for the same reason we do: to find out what the prevailing wages are in the industry. They claim to pay the ‘prevailing wage’, which must be an average of some sort.
I finally understood what the implications were for our research here: I could simply take MSC’s pay as the average for the ‘deep-sea union’ industry, and cut down on our own parallel research.
So, here is the first draft. The fine print contains the method.
