…at near poverty level wages no less.
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Then there is a need to bring back the draft or quit fighting other peoples wars.
When there was a draft the pay was minuscule and everyone served except of course for the privileged. Wars were fewer and most members of congress had served so were less inclined to send their kids off to some BS war. Now? Chicken hawks rule congress and the ‘defense’ budget is over a trillion dollars which makes the defense contractors and their cronies in congress wealthy. Third world BS.
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Spot on!!
Ireland has the same problem.
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Yes, and Britain, France Germany, Australia, etc. Also, all employers in any industry in developed countries. All are short on workers. All compete with each other for the limited number of young adults. Each industry/military thinks they alone are suffering, when in fact it is just demographics: i.e. the developed world is good at producing jobs and bad at producing babies.
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I, being white, was told I wouldn’t be promoted so I quit.
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I retired before Biden took office, but I can only imagine the sway EEO now holds over N1. Everyone should familiarize themselves with Klaus Schwab’s World Economic Forum merger with the UN in accomplishing the Marxist UN Project 2030 for Sustainability. “You will own nothing in 2030 and be happy”.
Destabilizing the Globe using race is one of their tools. I can easily see a most qualified white candidate not being selected due to the EQUITY pressure being applied by the Government. Identify Politics have a true goal of division while inculcated folllowers believe it is right and just not to advance people on Merit. Just refer to Karl Marx.
MSC has many problems but has the potential to be so much better without external political pressure. The 4 on/2 off measure is as big a step as reducing 6 months on to 4 months on in the year 2000.
With the wide disparity in the KSA and work ethics of similar ratings being assigned to ships, Department Heads will lean over backwards to retain a core group of crew members. This is achieved through use of Ship’s Leave and Ship’s Funded Leave.
But if you were in charge of the Command and looking at National Security, you would have to admit that the ability to assign any crew member to any ship is essential. That exposure to work on other Classes of ships is essential.
If MSC is truly going to put the 50 year old complaint of Late Reliefs to rest, the Unions will have to agree to Crew Rotations after 4 months aboard. Gone will be the “Fiefdoms”. Operations would become more standardized. But accomplishing this with the Department Heads will be like pulling teeth. Yes it will be a long and painful adjustment but it needs to be done if you truly want to improve MSC and National Security overall.
Another thing is that if you want to improve MSC, they will not respond to anecdotal complaints. Everything is done using Metrics. Do you want to justify that amount of manpower to retain in the Shipyard? Do you need more M&R Funds? Do you need more Supply funding?Then your ship’s SAMM had better be fully documented with every open Work Item in the Ship’s Force Work List Module in SAMM. Be prepared to accept that meticulous management of the SFWL is a fact of Life.
METRICS is the keyword. Back up your case with data when making your request.
Another thing is everyone complaining that the SAMM job description is not accurate or does not apply to their ship. Most have a negative opinion of SAMM with shoddy or gundecked preventive maintenance being the result.
The SAMM Contractors pretty much cut and pasted generic maintenance procedures into the SAMM Scope of Work. You need to involve everyone in submitting SAMM Feedbacks to the Department Head with the correct information to TAILOR SAMM to your vessel. This includes ADDING extra preventative maintenance.
Once your ship’s SAMM has the correct ship specific information and maintenance procedures, the Crew will begin to see SAMM pay off. They will respect SAMM more than the burden they perceive it to be now.
You will then have greatly reduced emergent reactive maintenance and repairs to scheduled and less stressful preventive maintenance.
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Many industries are happy to offer more to defence personnel than defence can afford to pay. In today’s highly technical environment you can recruit a college trained person with practical training who was being paid a fraction of what he or she was earning in the navy.
With MSC I assume that it is not unlike the Royal Fleet Auxiliary in the UK and quite a lot of time is spent tied up somewhere. Leave at 2 for 1 is the bare minimum. You get your weekends back and not much more than 4 weeks annual leave. Woo Hoo.
One for one is the minimum for normal shipping where you’re working cargo of ar sea.
In some ways going to sea can be selfish and you have to enjoy it. You need a strong and resourceful partner and you miss out on many of the milestones that your children move through as they grow.
There is not much recognition out there for what the job entails.
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This in a nutshell. 100% the reason I could never make a career with MSC. I miss enough already.
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At first I thought you were smokin‘ crack about the hiring but as I read on I see what you are saying.
An interesting viewpoint that applies right now when we introduce newer (non MSC) chiefs and captains to their responsibilities.
As for MSC - I walked in 1990 after my relief was promised and promised and promised and didn’t show up. Never looked back. I was quite dedicated and enjoyed the work, advancement, comradeship, adventure and money, but it definitely was not a gig for a married guy. Except for Pete …. good bless his soul. We all miss him.
There are proposals being worked on to make life better; however, some do literally take an act of congress. Congress doesn’t like to function well either. And all government offices operate at a snails pace.
Hiring quality people is not just an MSC problem. As others stated, ours and many other countries military can’t get enough people. Nor can the local grocery store and restaurant in your home town. Especially good hard working people.
As we boomers continue die out, the problem will just get worse. That was predicted back in the 1970’s. So why are people now surprised it’s happening? Add in people now days don’t want to do physical labor. The housing industry has bemoaned about this for years. But why should anyone want to do physical labor, when kids can make a good living playing video games all day.
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True, military deployment is far, far less time away from home than even time.
Why bother? They’re are dozens of threads on here talking about how to fix the problems, the solutions are known, MSC doesn’t seem to care.
Not anymore.
That’s not why no one was talking about the solutions.
Have it run by people that know how to run shipping companies, not retired admirals. Fire all the moron detailers and use professional crew coordinators that actually know how to get reliefs to the vessels, get rid of the bullshit “pool” that some people manage to sit in for months while their rate is overdue on multiple ships, increase paid leave or increase base pay so they can afford unpaid leave, guarantee a steady rotation (preferably back to the same ship if you and the ship all agree). None of this is particularly complicated.
Doubtful. The usual response from the idiotic admirals in charge is to double down on what they’re doing wrong and also make it more like the Navy. Can’t get reliefs to the vessels, permanent two year assignments with a month of leave here or there at the captain’s discretion! GTFO
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More manpower than they currently have maybe, but it requires less than equal time. That’s probably why they’re at least starting there.
Are they really proposing 2 year assignments to a ship with little leave or captain discretion again? Pilot program has been brought back from the dead?
4 on 2 off is an “ok” idea but even then you will spend part of that in training, so what does it really end up being 4 months on and 1 off? Years ago they went from 6 month tours to 4 months, but did they? Very rare to be relieved in 4 and it usually was 6-7 months or more when all was said and done. So 4 and 2 sounds good but I believe it will be the same problems of being overdue. They absolutely need to gut the office and hire professionals to manage crewing, etc. The office is incredibly bloated with ex mariners who created jobs to suck a Govt check while doing nothing but harassing or annoying ships trying to support the Navy. Everyone in the office has their little scam operating and will protect it at all cost.
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No, I was referring to the idiotic pilot program that was their dumbass response to no one wanting to work for them.
Don’t miss this one.
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MSC vacation goes like this. Everyone gets two days shore leave per month ONBOARD the ship. 0-3 years federal employment you add 13 days annual leave per year. Over 3-15 years you get 20 days annual leave. Over 15 years is 26 days per year annual leave. That’s the max.
Hypothetically if a new hire works a four month hitch and by some miracle, get relieved on time, he will earn 4.35 days annual leave plus 8 days of shore leave. Leave is only paid Monday through Friday so you are basically looking at about 2.5 weeks off with pay. I was there for 17 years before quitting in disgust.
This sounds like they combined the worst features of private and federal employment into one job 
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