Weighing my options of staying at Reinauer after hearing Kirby advertise on 80, anyone know the benefits Kirby Offshore offers?
I can’t speak to their benefits, but they don’t seem to have a ton of openings.
What did they advertise… I guess it depends on your position
They said many opening available, looking for a mates position….heard the next few raises would be 10, 10 and 5
Isn’t Reinauer also looking for mates with good pay raises every year for the next couple years . Mates do cargo at Kirby
Reinauer is doing 4, 5, 3 and 3. Stuck in a laughable contract for a total of 5 years. No retro pay, no pension, no extra day for travel.
How do the day rates compare? 10% might not be a great raise if it’s less than where you’re at plus your percentage. A day for crew change is nice though
Full pay on crew change day has been standard at a good percentage of companies for a long time. I’ve noticed that even marginal companies are recently touting that they pay it.
Union tug companies in particular, seem to have gotten the feckless union officials to negotiate away crew change day full pay, and fully paid travel costs.
What’s this crap that too many companies do not pay baggage fees, meals, Ubers, hotels, rental cars, etc while traveling for crew change?
Maybe 10% of tug companies pay full day rate door to door. The unions (and the rest of us) should be negotiating for this.
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10 years ago when I was trying to make a move Kirby, Reinauer, Vane, etc would barely acknowledge you if you sent in an application.
Now they are all begging for people.
How times change.
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Reinauer has active ads on LinkedIn. That was always the company “you had to have an in” for…
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No kidding. I hear Vane is actually doing hiring bonuses now.
Vane was always one of the lower paying companies too. Wonder if that has changed?
And a big ass sign that says Hiring Mates at the end of the dock.
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Still not on par with others the longevity bonus are good I hear for the guys with ten plus years there
It never ceases to amaze me that these companies can’t understand the most basic of concepts to attract and retain talent.
If you want to keep and bring in new Mariners just give them a reason to be there (good pay, equipment schedule, benefits) and give them something to aspire to (opportunities for advancement) paid travel would be pretty nice too.
I was there for a bit. A motivated AB, wanting to advance, holding a big new license I got on my own with no help from a union or company, I couldn’t get my TOAR on the boat I was on so had to go outside of Vane to do so and subsequently my Mate of Towing, grabbed my PIC just to try to make myself more valuable to them also on my own dime, odd for a tug/barge company to make their employees pay for these two things themselves and not offer any sort of structured advancement opportunities but okay.
I was there, willing and with no help from them had all the papers. I mean all they had to do was rubber stamp me and let me loose…
I asked to move up several times and was swept under the ol’ rug. I watched them hire several other “experienced” Mates instead of promoting myself. I was literally told “I had to wait my turn” by management, I gave them a few years on deck then decided to moved on.
Besides their equipment being pretty good as far as small tow boats go, the pay is low and benefits are okay’ish if not sub-par and below industry standard.
I can’t imagine that has changed at all, they’re proud of that fact and flaunt it pretty liberally.
Honestly I find it more and more difficult to stay in the industry at all, we should be making much more than we are especially someone with the skills to meet the ever demanding workload they put on us.
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I got out of tugs. And my story is similar to yours.
I’m still on a boat but I go home at night, I still have an equal time schedule, I’m not stressed out, I have good benefits, and a retirement. The money isn’t as good as tugs but for me the trade off was worth it.
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Where you working now days bay runner
Most are hurting for people and will do anything to get top talent, except pay them.
The self-inflicted training programs need to go. Having a clearly defined path of advancement does help keep crew around. I’m sorry it didn’t work out for you.
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One thing I can say is that leaving Kirby was the best thing I ever did for my career. Eleven years there was a few too long.
In today’s world, the best way to move up and make more money is to change jobs. Many companies expect the “hometown discount” from their current workforce and will only try to entice new hires with more money, which kills morale and enthusiasm among current employees.
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I’m an AB Special (OSV) (STOS with SIU) and I was with Kirby for about 11 months before I left to join SIU. I’m starting to notice things on the ship that I’m on that I don’t like. But I’d rather be here than at Kirby or on a tug. I personally have no real desire to advance to Mate or Captain as I see the current ones have a lot of paperwork and multitude of rules and regulations to deal with.
As an AB deckhand with Kirby, I made $347/day, no real benefits, 401k - no pension. I’m just out here to make money and eventually move onto to something better back on land. Ships are just a little better than tugs, but not drastically different.
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