[QUOTE=c.captain;157378] I love Joe, Joe loves me…we’re a happy fam-i-lee!
[/QUOTE]
This is a job only. I do enjoy who I work for now and I enjoyed my 10 years at ECO. It was always about money for me, but being happy with my employer was the cherry on the top. I was never under the impression that my salary was a gift because Joe Boss felt like I deserved it. I have earned every penny. The industry drives the salaries and benefits. I believe that most good companies try to do the right thing by their employees with or without a union but only to retain the level of workers and minimize turnover. It is not done for love. Speaking the truth is a stretch in itself. You are giving your opinion based on your experiences. Many have had great experiences. For mariners worldwide, not only in the US GOM this is a tough time. I have always been grateful for my employment. Even more so now. Without it I would not be able to provide for my family or secure my future. To say I am grateful does not imply that I love Joe Boss. It means I have a job to do and if I bitch, moan, whine and complain instead of focusing on my job then Joe Boss will find someone to tow the company line. Whether you want to admit it or not you also are working for a Joe Boss and if he isn’t getting his money’s worth out of any of us that too will evaporate and disappear. Many of us have a lot to be thanful for. These cuts are temporary and may be slow to come back, but they will come back for those companies that were willing to make the necessary sacrifices to get through these tough times. I can promise you these cuts were not done without contemplation. I don’t like it anymore than the next guy, but you have to stay focused and thankful for what you have. This is coming from a typical guy that is never satisfied and always wants more. If a company does not survive then it means even more people will be affected. You have turned this thread into a shooting gallery for your negative opinion of the bayou mafia, but they are no different from any other company. They are in it to turn a profit and if I can make a living on that then great.
[QUOTE=Capt. Lee;157384]They are in it to turn a profit and if I can make a living on that then great.[/QUOTE]
here’s the thing…you are supposed to make that good living BEFORE they turn that profit (unless you are in the South were Joe’s money comes before your’s…bassackwards doesn’t even begin to describe y’all)
[QUOTE=Capt. Lee;157376]I have been following this thread for several weeks now. I have been back to work for two weeks. I can tell you that no matter what is taken away from benefits, schedule or pay, anyone that has a job right now should be grateful. There are many lay offs and there are no jobs. Get through this tough time and be thankful to be employed. It could get much worse before the end of the year.[/QUOTE]
I’ve made it through a few of these and I hope my luck holds out again.
[QUOTE=Fid;157382]I don’t see many folks leaving right now because where you gonna go but when things get better and mariners are again a valued commodity then I won’t be surprised to see some change…[/QUOTE]
you have never been a “valued” commodity to Joe…only an unfortunately necessary one he has to hire and spend money on. If he could run his boats with foreign mariners he’s do it in a heartbeat but never at the cost of giving up the Jones Act because that protects him from foreign companies invading his turf so he clings to the law as his salvation and road to growth and profits in a world of only limited competition.
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[QUOTE=AHTS Master;157387]I’ve made it through a few of these and I hope my luck holds out again.[/QUOTE]
so you know who I am…that makes you one of at least a dozen here who do and who have not done what you have done now even though most of those dozen do not agree with my positions…please explain how you are not over the line here and a very, very small person as a result?
[QUOTE=c.captain;157386]here’s the thing…you are supposed to make that good living BEFORE they turn that profit (unless you are in the South were Joe’s money comes before your’s…bassackwards doesn’t even begin to describe y’all)[/QUOTE]
I can see why you don’t own a boat company.
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[QUOTE=c.captain;157388]
sir…you are over the line[/QUOTE]
Unfortunately I am going to have to side with C-Captain on this one. AHTS Master, Although funny (I laughed out loud) the avatar needs to go.
[QUOTE=Capt. Lee;157384] You have turned this thread into a shooting gallery for your negative opinion of the bayou mafia, but they are no different from any other company…[/QUOTE]
That really sums it up for me. It has become a shooting gallery mostly because of Gary’s minions proclaiming how great they are and how great Chouest is. Oh and while they are at it, they bash the unions. This kind of holier than thou crap tends to entice the other side to take quite a few shots at you in the shooting gallery.
Heres the thing…we are way way ahead of the game. If things pick back up sooner than 5 or 7 years, we will still be way ahead.
thats why douche bag c captain is soo damn jealous. He has been eating shit for the last 5 yrs or so,seeing pay rates go up, knowing
he tried to work down here but he just couldnt cut it. He is soo damn jealous that the end result of it all wearing on him is what u see today.
Just look at his posts lately…the poor bastard is miserable. HA HA HAHA Miserable.
I was smart enough to pay all my shit off while things were GOOD, working for JOE BOSS!
Ha ha ha c captain u old miserable fuk! If my kids werent in college id prolly just retire at 45.
All thanks to joe boss and the bayou mafia…
Oh yea… and i dont work for chouest. I guess it was about 8 yrs ago i quit. But they are the reason i went from os to 1600master in a very short time.
damn near for free…5 mins from the house. THANKS JOE BOSS!
[QUOTE=c.captain;157388]you have never been a “valued” commodity to Joe…only an unfortunately necessary one he has to hire and spend money on. If he could run his boats with foreign mariners he’s do it in a heartbeat but never at the cost of giving up the Jones Act because that protects him from foreign companies invading his turf so he clings to the law as his salvation and road to growth and profits in a world of only limited competition.
Updated - - -
so you know who I am…that makes you one of at least a dozen here who do and who have not done what you have done now even though most of those dozen do not agree with my positions…please explain how you are not over the line here and a very, very small person as a result?[/QUOTE]
I’m no more over the line than you are Scooter when you talk down to other people. Consider your self lucky that I’m a nice guy.
[QUOTE=greenhorn;157392]Just look at his posts lately…the poor bastard is miserable. HA HA HAHA Miserable.[/QUOTE]
of course I miss the money and wish I could be making the same here in the NW, but I do not miss that world down there having been gone from it for more than a year. Btw, wasn’t that I couldn’t cut it, was that before I had professional principles that I stood for and a loud voice here now which I know fully is why I am not wanted back down there…the important thing is that I value being able to speak hard truths then others fear to more than being granted Joe’s big fat check at the price of sucking up and regurgitating a company line. Of course, knowing I am not wanted back has liberated me to speak even more loudly than I might otherwise. I ain’t no naive boob…I know that I’m no longer going to get any offers to work in the offshore so serving that sentiment right back. as they say “what goes around…come around” and if my words piss off Joe’s office minions then I feel my words are worth it if they don’t like someone like me saying them for others to read. Best thing one of them could do is hire me for big bucks for an operations job in the NW and ban me from contributing here any further as a condition of employment. I ain’t no saint, even I have a price I will sell out for. It’s gotta be alot though…I ain’t no cheap street walker, rather I am a high class escort only serving a discerning well heeled clientele.
Right now if there is one thing that is killing me it is that Shell refuses to demand Alaskan mariners on the vessels working in the Chukchi Sea. With all these vessels enroute, I may end up being wrong about them drilling this summer. For Shell to stay the course and not insist on a different approach to how the fleet is operated up in the Arctic is a vile outrage to me. And yes, before y’all call me a hypocrite for it, I want in on that work and some of Joe’s money. Pissing me off bigtime that it might not come my way. I don’t want back into YOUR Gulf but I don’t want you in MY Alaska either.
[QUOTE=RespectMyAuthority;157391] they bash the unions. [/QUOTE]
No one is bashing unions. How can they bash something they know nothing about? In my opinion a union is not the answer to any of the problems this industry has. If anything it could make it worse.
But that is just my opinion. I really don’t know much about them either. I have never worked in one, but I have worked with several ex-union members or retired union members and they weren’t very happy people.
Your statement has no weight. If someone is proud of who they work for, and self confident enough to express it doesn’t mean they drank the kool aid. It just means they are happy employees at a great company.
[QUOTE=greenhorn;157392]Heres the thing…we are way way ahead of the game. If things pick back up sooner than 5 or 7 years, we will still be way ahead.
thats why douche bag c captain is soo damn jealous. He has been eating shit for the last 5 yrs or so,seeing pay rates go up, knowing
[B]he tried to work down here but he just couldnt cut it. [/B]He is soo damn jealous that the end result of it all wearing on him is what u see today.
Just look at his posts lately…the poor bastard is miserable. HA HA HAHA Miserable.
I was smart enough to pay all my shit off while things were GOOD, working for JOE BOSS!
Ha ha ha c captain u old miserable fuk! If my kids werent in college id prolly just retire at 45.
All thanks to joe boss and the bayou mafia…[/QUOTE]
I don’t think any one but CC himself knows all the reasons why he no longer works down here.
However, there are plenty of unscrupulous if not down right unethical and/or illegal procedures and practices that go on in the GOM (OSVs and MODUs) that do not go on in shipping. I have conversed with him a few times regarding these matters. We’ve shared the same stories happening at multiple different companies. More than a few of those scenarios contribute to some degree as to why he is not down here anymore.
It’s no where near as black and white as you portray.
Who gives a shit? The issue is not that he couldnt make it down here, the issue is that he is a sorry sob for making fun of people who are getting laid off,taking cuts,loosing bonuses…and whatever else… going thru a rough time.
U just shouldnt do shit like that.
[QUOTE=greenhorn;157399]Who gives a shit? The issue is not that he couldnt make it down here, the issue is that he is a sorry sob for making fun of people who are getting laid off,taking cuts,loosing bonuses…and whatever else… going thru a rough time.
U just shouldnt do shit like that.[/QUOTE]
not sorry you’re losing benefits…I’m just sorry that you don’t realize you don’t have to. Hell, wasn’t I the one saying how y’all should be getting pensions from Joe a year ago and how many people did that piss off…DOZENS! I am not anti worker…I am anti Joe Boss and there is no Joe Boss a bigger and more controlling Joe Boss than those in the GoM…and they all hate me saying it. TOO FUCKING BAD!
You dont know what i have or dont have. Knock on wood and thank God…I an not yet affected by any of the slow down…
Again, you dont know what you are talking about.
Btw…how is your dad?
[QUOTE=Fid;157382]Okay, I’m coming to this discussion late and while I read most of the 28 pages of posts I did skip a few pages to side step some of C. Captain’s regurgitations so if someone has already made my point, well, keel haul me. All talk of unions and history aside and back to the original point, what blows me away and what I haven’t seen discussed is that we lost our matching contributions and safety bonus points for 2014, a generally good year. You can bet we won’t see these for 2015 either of course so if, for example, this ends up being a year long downturn and things pick up towards the end of the year then at best we will have sacrificed two years worth of benefits for a one year downturn! That is if the benefits are subsequently restored, which I now doubt. Unfortunately what it looks like this is all about is ECO taking advantage of the situation by “re-setting” their employee costs to a much lower level so instead of giving raises in the future they might, or might not, give back small portions of what we already had. I came to ECO from another company with the mindset that I would be here until I retire but this is a pretty big let down. I don’t see many folks leaving right now because where you gonna go but when things get better and mariners are again a valued commodity then I won’t be surprised to see some change…[/QUOTE]
Absolutely! The company has been hailing itself as a champion of the industry over the last year - gobbling up Beemar, Bollinger, in addition to investing in Port of Acu in Brazil ($431 million) and buying Westport Shipyard (Yachts - which is not even a core business). Just to point out the level of unprofessionalism, the company even asked a few shipyard engineers to help design Dionne’s garage. I left the company (design office) in 2014, but I truly sympathize with my old co-workers - who are pretty disgruntled with the way things are run. All that money into all these acquisitions and excesses, and a single email informing them of their denied rightful benefits? Come on… I’m not sure if it is even legal - I’m surprised there are no class-action lawsuits against the company for its action. Chouest thinks that “benefits” are “handouts”, but no, they are what we have earned by working with the company for the past year though a legally binding contract.
I guess that congratulations are in order for you then
Again, you dont know what you are talking about.
BULLSHIT…working in the GoM from August 2006 through December 2013 opened my eyes to the filthiness of a sector of the US maritime industry that I do not need to be soiled by again
Btw…how is your dad?
this some crass pitiful joke trying to wound me? We had a long thread saluting him two months ago after he DIED an awful death from cancer!
While I do think c.captain may be a little quick with the pointy stick, he does (and did) raise a very good point, at least as it pertains to the original post. What I’m taking away from this thread, aside from all the oil patch v. everyone else rhetoric, is that ECO made the decision to take away the 401(k) match from 2014. More to the point, they made that decision in 2015. In other words, most employees would reasonably believe that particular benefit had already been earned. To then have that taken away [I]after the fact[/I] seems to be a little bit shady.
The follow-on question then: is there any sort of contract in place? What is the employment agreement with ECO? What gives ECO the right to take away a benefit like this? Like unions or not, at least the contract is a known quantity and employers simply CANNOT take away already-earned benefits, which is the point I think CC (in his pointy-stick way) was trying to make. At the absolute minimum, ECO might have been a bit more transparent about why they elected to cut benefits.
I know “union” is not a popular word or concept in the GOM, but maybe it’s time for the workers down there to at least consider the concept of collective bargaining. And don’t limit yourselves to the well-known maritime unions–it’s okay to start your own union. Call it a “trade association” if you like. Workers have a tough-enough time getting their interests represented, all the more so in an industry such as ours. Never be afraid to claim your piece of the pie–you know damn well the shipowners are.
I don’t have to say it for him but go fuck yourself for bringing his recently departed into this. That’s enough to get the ban hammer at most places, you small minded pissant.