Pretty terrible…
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To answer the authors question, No, the UK & EU aren’t at the bottom yet. They will be at the bottom when there’s no middle class left to take cruises & the jobs are gone altogether. Big cruise ships are bad for the environment anyways so many will be happy to see them go. People should stay home to walk & ride bikes.
I read the article & comments following. Not the author nor any of the commenters (except Justin V) even attempted to address the cause of the low wage job. All belly aching & no root cause analysis or proposed solutions. Once the US gets rid of the Jones Act & we get more open boarders & even laxer immigration policies we will be shoulder to shoulder with the EU & UK in the race down. The EU & UK had a head start, we’ll catch up. Our socialist future…
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Well I don’t know what the job market there is particularly for 3 officer.
It’s less than I made 35 years ago. depending upon how it’s figured out. Gross remuneration or with paid leave.
Often the first mates job is the hardest one to find. How many guys are ex cadet looking for work?
If work is hard to find. An entry level mates job with some sea time may be attractive. To someone who needs one.
It’s probably 4 on 8 off based on an “average” 10 hour day with no overtime because in the UK officers are managers and are salaried not an hourly rate.
Or that’s was the way was way back when.
Uk rules. They may be tax free. Which might make it more attractive to uk residents. 100% allowance if work outside uk for more than 180 days per year.
I wouldn’t take it but then I am not a new guy looking for my first job. Needing sea-time to get my next cert. the cadet programs now they go back to school again after the get some seatime with basic watch keeping cert.
By comparison, my son is an Engineer Cadet. We figured out he was making about 4 bucks an hour. On the lakes. His sister working minimum wage at an art store was making 3 times as much.
What’s in it for him, well he got all his Sea time next time he ships out it will be as an Engineer.
Some of the guys from his class went to cruise ships, they got quite a bit higher allowance.
Some will be offered junior watch keeping engineer jobs on cruise ships. Most of the UK contracts are better than the Canadians get.
Even though they are on the same ship.
Most I have heard of are making quite a bit less than equivalent here. Still a lot more than the rate posted.
The word is there is still a shortage? If that’s true they will have hard time filling these jobs.
From what I can tell most may as well be non union. Though I think some are through whatever the British union is called these days
It changed a bunch since I was part of it. MNAOA back when Maggie sold the whole industry out.
Whatever you do. don’t vote for anyone who’s wants to get rid of the jones act.
We are screwed in Canada. The Government is allowing foreign tickets to work on Canadian ships and opening up the Canadian coast to foreign EU ships.
Former Liberal PM own CSL the fix is in.
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He’s lucky he’s making anything at all. I’ve heard of companies in the US that dont pay anything.
While I feel for foreign officers no one is forcing them to sail. I certainly wouldn’t if the wages here weren’t what they are.
Rather than ask the US to repeal it’s cabotage laws, PM Johnson should focus on his own nation.
Isn’t a third officer on a British ship a second officer on an American ship? (The junior mate is a forth officer.) Or am I wrong?
I don’t think cadets are a valid indicium. They have always been paid a minimal stipend. In the last ice age, I got $11.00/day as a cadet, probably less than $2/hr. But I was doing it for experience and would have done it for free. At the same time, I was getting $4/hr washing dishes and $20/hr sweeping trash in Shea Stadium after football games. But once I got out I was getting $50K per year working day for day as 3rd Mate when college graduates were lucky to get $20K - that’s your metric of 3rd Mate/3rd AE how pay hasn’t kept up.
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Actually the things you mentioned, more open borders, lower wages etc., are the work of the neoliberal oligarch class who are about as far removed from socialists as you can get.
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Thanks for that, “socialists” are not the ones that are driving wages down.
The few people who I know who are for open boarders & who think economic reasons & having very few job prospects abroad are justifiable reasons for asylum in the US or Europe aren’t oligarchs. The Illuminati, Freemasons & George Soros can’t be behind all the evil plots. Take a look at the unsuccessful EU exit vote in Scotland & how many opposed Brexit in the UK. Nationalism & protectionism are out of favor & even considered to be hate speech by many when talking about countries that have a majority white population.
If you want to believe the Socialists & socialist leaning voters in the US & EU are for protectionism, better boarder security & more restrictive immigration policies then I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree. That’s not my impression at all.
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Do you understand what oligarchy means?
Generally:
First officer = Chief Mate
Second officer = second mate
Third officer = third mate
I was on a Danish ship and the “First officer” was our 2/m and the “Second Officer” was our 3/m.
Doesn’t really matter though. That pay scale is still horrible.
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Was it a cruise ship?
Nope, tanker.
Interesting. I was Chief Mate on a ship and when we were overseas that equated to “first officer” in the rest of the maritime world.
Yea we had a Chief Officer and then the 1st and 2nd…it was weird.
Socialism is a word that has been so demonized in the USA that it has no meaning.
Anything that does not promote neoliberal economic policy is socialism. Social security is socialism. B visa engineers taking jobs from US engineers is legal immigration that is good business not socialism. Foreign catering crews working on drilling rigs in the Gulf of Mexico with USCG approval is not any socialist idea but it is a fact. US workers were laid off to allow the lower paid foreign workers to come in, I imagine these US workers had to apply for some socialist unemployment pay and maybe even socialist food assistance which your tax dollars pay for. BUT, the anti"socialist" crowd would rather take away the food stamps and unemployment than do anything about the legal immigration that took their jobs. Walmart workers with families qualify for food assistance due to their low income. The answer? That’s socialism ! Take away food assistance but do not increase the minimum wage. People like to say all this open border trade stuff started with NAFTA. The ultra conservative absolutely anti socialist outfit the Heritage Group has a nice article entitled “The North American Free Trade Agreement: Ronald Reagan’s Vision Realized”
15 Trillion dollars + were given to fat cat Wall St Bankers when they gambled themselves and the economy into a disaster after 2008. That 15+ trillion, the subsequent QE trillions somehow is not socialism and provokes much less righteous indignation than one person having unemployment benefits extended.
As a famous modern philosopher recently said, “They’ve got us so divided right now the conservative would burn his own house down if he thought the liberal next door would choke on the smoke.” 
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Which statute would require American catering crews on a foreign flag and foreign owned vessel?
If what you are saying is true then that is very convenient for the majority, socialist leaning populace of Europe that voted to dissolve their national boarders for nearly unrestricted migration, to strip their individual national central banks of the power of controlling their local economies & voted in sky high taxes to form the European Union. I guess all those socialists in Venezuela that were cheering & celebrating when Chaves was nationalizing all their industries & throwing the capitalists out on their rumps hold none of the responsibility for a failed Venezuela either? I’m surprised no one stands up during a Socialist meeting & points out that “neo-liberal oligarchs” takes over almost every single time shortly after the Socialists implements their socialist governments & laws. The old “bait & switch” trick over & over again on socialists.
But back to protectionism, the Jones Act & 3rd Mates making less than minimum wage with the undercover “neo-liberalism, oligarch” economic system. The U.S & EU both knows China has been breaking WTO policies by openly subsidizing their manufacturing industries & breaking international laws by stealing intellectual property. Almost everyone agrees on that. The first return salvo at China to fight back in the formally undeclared trade war were tariffs on imported steel, aluminum, solar panels & house hold appliances such as washing machines. Obviously this was done to protect American workers & investors who produced these things in the US. Most in the media, some on the right & all on the left denounced the tariffs & any protectionism for the few thousand Americans who work producing steel, aluminum, solar panels & appliances. They all hate it & want things to go back to the way they were. Even the self proclaimed hyphenated-Socialists running for President don’t support any protectionism of American workers against China if it involves tariffs or publicly acknowledging that we have been in a losing trade war that has been detrimental to the middle class. Based on how many socialist leaning politicians in the US feel about protecting American steel workers in our current trade war I can tell you that the Jones Act is hobbling on its last leg. If they exist, the “neo-liberal oligarchs” have already infiltrated the socialist leaning party in the US, again.
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16,000 USD sounds low but the article is a bit misleading. How does that salary look to Romanian or Croatian or Pole ? What age are the applicants? Whats the chance of making it to the next ranks where an experienced good candidate can be paid very well ?
On the other hand, this post in the comments really boiled my piss
"
Position that was advertised was vessel superintendent. Final offer came to my email was GBP 25,000.-/year gross with progression to GBP 27,000/year gross after 1 year.
I replied that, offer is unacceptable and low. PIC said that: “I know many people that work/ live in London with less that GBP 20,000.-/ year.”
"