I’m curious as to why you disagree. I’ll explain my views as to why ship funded leave is crap. Where to begin?
When a person stays on the same ship for a long time he becomes entitled and complacent. (This applies to licensed and unlicensed alike.) He often feels that because he is an old hand he has nothing to prove - and then behaves that way. He may be capable of excellent work but human nature will cause him to do less and less until he is quite worthless.
You must have noticed new hands and new hires often work with a purpose? They have something to prove. It’s the old timers that are in their rooms.
The old hands also suck up more resources then their work deserves. It’s the old hand who gets the overtime or the premium pay job or an easy job. The new hands may become discouraged if they never receive these benefits resulting in a reduction of productivity. I have seen this many times at MSC, union ships and non-maritime jobs ashore. This is human nature.
Discipline suffers from ship funded leave. As officers and crew live and work together for years they become friendly. Too friendly. At some point order breaks down and the superior can’t order his friend to do something (like not watching tv on overtime). He won’t discipline his friend and others see this and either expect similar treatment or become hostile when they do not receive the same.
On a more nefarious level, and it does exist, a subordinate may manipulate a superior with a few skeletons from the closet. The worst example I’ve seen was a crewman manipulating his C/M with the implied threat of informing his wife with what happens on deployment involving the C/M, a couple of young girls and a camera.
This could be reduced if people moved from ship to ship and didn’t stay for years.
Another benefit of moving around is people will learn new things, or relearn old things. If someone only does the same job on the same ship for the same people their skills will stagnate or decay until they are unable to do much else. One trick ponies are bad for circuses and ships.
Fatigue and burn-out are also endemic to a person on a ship for too long. But I’ve rattled on for too long so I’ll stop here.
I’ll just say that ship funded leave is beneficial to a management that wants to put little effort into managing. I can see no valid reason for the acceptance of the complacency I see at MSC.
By the way, not that it matters at all to this discussion, but I have a license.