Does anyone here know if NOAA ship crews are being laid off, and by extrapolation are NOAA funded university research ships laying up?
Save the political bibble babble, just
Do you have direct knowledge of Z-Card holders losing jobs at NOAA or NOAA funded ships?
Not yet. I have 5 friends there. Those under probation were told they are on the chopping block. I was in the process of heading there but was stopped due to the hiring freeze.
Not sure about now but in the past NOAA wage mariners were classed as temporary or permanent. Not many were permanent so most had no job protection. MSC has a similar classification for wage mariners. Maybe someone with recent MSC can explain the classification now.
All NOAA mariners are classified as permanent federal employees, however the positions come with a two year probationary period when first hired. Those that are still in the first two years of working for NOAA are still probationary and therefore are the most vulnerable.
My understanding is that many shoreside personnel with probationary status across all NOAA offices were let go Thursday including support staff for the ships.
Iâve not yet heard of any mariners being let go but it seems like there will be more job losses Friday and that would likely include probationary personnel on the ships. Without the mariners hired in the last two years NOAA will not be able to staff all the ships and with a hiring freeze there will be no way to backfill. It appears the administration may be on the path to dismantle the fleet, because without enough people to sail the ships and with ships not sailing it is difficult to justify its existence and the entire fleet will potentially be mothballed.
That classification has changed then. Previously many MSC and NOAA wage mariners were classed âconditionalâ which meant they were basically at will employees. Few were permanent.
If the survey and fisheries ships canât sail that would have a domino effect for many commercial interests. We shall see what happens. Interestingly the DOGE guys donât seem to be interested in looking for inefficiency in the 1 trillion dollar DOD budget. Youâd think they would at least demand they pass an audit which though mandated by law they have never done. Surely no conflict of interest is at play with Musk and DOD. 
I wish DOGE would look at NAVO and their contracts. Those fuckin guys were getting hotels, rental cars, flights, and their luggage mailed back to the states all for free. In the shipyard their rooms were getting the carpets cleaned/replaced while the rest of the ship was left to shit. 10-12 people doing a job that could be done by 5-8. Walk into that lab and those guys are either watching tv or playing video games on their giant flat screens.
But yeah, letâs gut the weather/fisheries departments first. Who needs marine forecasting? BVS does such a bang up job.
Learn to research thru Federal Compass and youâll see that most of the money goes to contractors.
Defiantly not looking at cutting the real fat. I know of two government ships that have 5-6 port engineers each ship but not enough crew on each hitch to sail. Plenty of fat to cut if you look in the right place. Crews have to work over to sail or the ship would have to sit at the dock. The only selling point to some of these low paying jobs was job security which doesnât really exist. Add that they are getting rid of probationary employees and lying about it being performance related will not do any good for recruiting efforts. This is going to cost more money in the long run unless the endgame is to reduce or scrap most of the government fleet.
Bingo! They can hire contractors for more money than they are currently spending and say they reduced the size of government. Yes it will cost more money for those that pay taxes but the âgovernmentâ will be smaller.
Case in point: the Postal Service. Costs less than a dollar now to send an envelope anywhere in the USA. Parcel post is cheap. That allows the economy to prosper even at the poorest level.
When President Musk phases it out it will cost $16 to send an envelope. Forcing people to use other systems based on the Internet . Each with a monthly subscription to use, with the money going to Musk and his tech bro buddies.
Itâs like using a highway. Where I live toll roads are rare. I paid for the roads with service taxes. The roads are maintained by private industry but publicly funded. Gas taxes and license taxes, so I can just jump in my truck and go.
But with Muskâs thinking every road has gotta be a private road. You must pay every time you get on one, going anywhere. Your poor and donât have the money? Screw you, loser. Borrow money and pay your monthly subscription fee, which ends up in the pocket of Musk and guys like Musk.
Itâs amazing to me that voters donât see this. Itâs amazing to me how Musk became president anyway.
And who will get those contactsâŚ? Trumpâs billionaire friends most likely. Tax payer dollars straight to oligarch pockets.
But ask yourself, who is making 1.3 trillion every year off the highway system without paying for the roads? Automakers. Automakers have been subsidized like this by the government since their inception, they even coined the term âJaywalkingâ to keep those pesky pedestrians out of the road, so the folks with cars can go faster. Canât sell cars without roads to drive them on, but letâs stick the consumer/government with the bill for both, great. Tell the government to make business pay for more land so people have a place to park the cars youâre selling them, and you really have a winning busines plan.
But whatâs worse, in most cases your taxes will never pay for the lifecycle cost of roads, yet Americans continue to build sprawl, which is going to continually bite us in the ass. So many small cities canât afford new roads, meanwhile larger cities are able to use a dense uban core to Subsidize the suburbs. We are only in our 3rd road lifecycle, given a road lasts about 50 years, this is going to be catastrophic for someone in the future.
This is actually a very avoidable problem if people would just stop being so afraid of any building greater than three stories, and multi family homes, and advocate for density and walkable cities. Much better for public health, the environment, communities, climate, mental health, But I guess driving an F250 to the grocery store is more important to some.
The people who use the services absolutely should be paying for them. I think I can count on two hands every time Iâve ever sent something USPS, meanwhile I have to clear out my mail box every day, and 95% doesnât make it in the front door. There would be so much less waste in the world if it was $16 a parcel to send me junk mail.
But itâs a moot point, because the Postal Service isnât even federally funded!