When I worked on AHTS/OSV’s I always thought I could get more out of a man in 8 than I could in 12. I hated 12’s as a subordinate & supervisor. When I work 4/8 almost every 15 minute block is filled with some task. Almost always, the crew appreciates it as well & the 8 hours is more productive than a 12 or 16. But some are happily stuck in their ways. Let them trudge along in 12+ hour watches when they can’t do the math & keep their lips sealed to their offices. No skin off my back, poor fellas.
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Offshore is a 24hr operation and every man is needed to properly and safely complete the operation. If someones work 8hrs that’s 4 hrs without the proper manning. With a crew of only 12 total every person is needed to get the job done. One caveat is except for unusual circumstances we ONLY work 12 hours and the other 12 is ours and we do have slow times where we can go down to the galley for a snack or throw our laundry in.
12 isn’t a prime number, and can be divided by more than just 6 and 2.
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4 DPO’S divided by 2 required on each watch=
4AB’s and 4 engineers divided by 4 crew needed to safely pump to a rig anytime of day=
I’d love to sit in my room trying to play my guitar more but I don’t see the leeway in our schedule.
(8+4)=(6+6)=(12+0)
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We (onboard) don’t decide what operation we do or when we do it, that is driven by the company paying for the boat, we are expected to get the job done efficiently and safely whenever they call.
The topic of schedules has been discussed in the past to the point of ad nauseam for anyone who cares to do that search. To each their own whether it is 6 on - 6 off, 12 on - 12 off, or 8 on - 4 off - 4 on - 8 off.
The key is to get enough rest for all to do the job safely and to be alert while on watch.
The key is to get paid properly for the work that we do. When that 15 or 18 hour day comes along, we should certainly get paid overtime for it.
What about Holiday pay? About half the companies I work for give all the shoreside employees Holiday pay, but don’t pay it to the guys on the boats.
Everyone else in America is getting mandatory Holiday pay. Why not us?
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Before the slowdown at a former company we had several double pay holidays, I just made it back to the GOM and was disappointed to work Christmas and New Years for standard pay. I am still glad to be back but something extra for Christmas would be nice.
You must understand down in the GOM it’s the plantation mentality. I grew up in it and thought it was normal until I left that part of the country and found things were much different in other parts of the USA… Companies still made money and people still worked too ! Then as I worked around the world I became even more enlightened. Other countries have companies that make nice profits and have strong labor laws at the same time. Consequently I have been amazed for years at the crap US workers put up with and consider normal. Perhaps if the USA was not, for all practical purposes an island, people would think differently.
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Why are mariners still “exempt” from so many of the labor laws that benefit nearly all other workers?
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Mariners in the USA have the same rights as other workers for the most part but “labor law” is not enforced. Labor law has become an oxymoron
That is not true at all. Mariners are “exempt employees.” Most state and federal labor laws simply don’t apply. No minimum wage required. No overtime required. No holiday pay required. No sick leave required. No parental leave required. No worker’s comp required. Etc etc.
Yes, some of those things might be required by a union contract, or a publicly funded project contract. Fore example, the Army Corp of Engineers, or a State, or port authority might require some of those things in a dredging contract.
It’s not just mariners that are “exempt employees,” some truck drivers, some managers, some bank employees, and certain types of state and federal employees are also “exempt” from certain labor laws.
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You are correct. I had forgotten that. Working out of the USA and when there doing union work I reverted to thinking labor law was equal. Should have known better. Good luck on changing that law.
Everyone likes holiday pay. But it cuts both ways.
A well run company will figure out an annual maximum budget for wages and then divide that amount into so many slices, per employee. No holiday pay, because the maximum budget is being spent. You could pay holiday premiums, but then the pay on the other pay days would have to be just a little slimmer, because there is only so much in the pie. In the end, the annual income is the same.
Company B might pay you less than they could actually do so each payday. But they have big holiday pay and Christmas bonuses, perhaps never telling you you could have been paid more on your regular pay days. It may seem like you’re making more, but you’re actually getting paid no more, or even less in total annual income. Psychology. Smoke and mirrors.
Company C might just divided the pie into unequal pieces: small during regular paydays, bigger during the holidays. Bu then it’s a crap shoot. The people sailing during the holidays get the bigger pieces. The people not scheduled during the holidays, perhaps through no fault of their own, are stuck with the smaller pieces. Questions of equability.
Count yourself lucky if you work for Company D. They figure out the maximum wage budget they can pay, divide it up equitably between employees, skip holiday premiums, and then, if profits exceed costs by X amount, give everyone a bonus.
Where I work, the officers voted for no holiday pay. They want the maximum budget that can get paid divided up equally for each pay period, with a slight Xmas bonus for those at sea on Xmas day.
Standby for this thread to be officially split into HOLIDAY PAY. 
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What’s a bonus? 
Course after taxes were taken out of the “Christmas Bonus” I might be able to buy dinner at Taco Bell, so I don’t know why I even bother fussing about them being gone now.
Some owners just want to put as much as they can in their own pockets. Most aren’t very scientific. If they can find enough marginally qualified people to work, then they must be paying enough. Most pay a lot less than they could.
It can be amusing to watch the cheap help cost the company a lot of money, when a guy getting $100 a day more wouldn’t have had the problem in the first place. Some companies are slow learners and end up getting an expensive education.
Some companies do pay a fairly large bonus once or twice a year.
Some companies do pay Holiday pay. You get single time if you’re off and double time if you’re on.
Some companies do provide 12 months of continuous insurance. Others make you wait three months to go on insurance and then three months late force you off onto Cobra.
It does irritate me when they give Holiday pay to the slugs in the office or on the dock, but not the guys on the boats.
It always amusing when they tell me they cannot find anyone to relive me so I can have some time off. I say well you must not be paying enough, offer another $200 a day, you’ll find someone. They say oh we couldn’t do that. But of course they could, and they wouldn’t even notice the trivial impact on the bottom line.
Given that there are so many gyppo owners and the unions are useless, wages and compensation are far too slow to rise in adjustment to an improving market.
Things are poised to improve - the day after I retire.
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Those numbers only apply when you’re on DP alongside the rig.
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Like what?
He can go pound sand.
Like the shit we do during OT periods on blue water. Jesus, you make it sound like all OSV crews are mistreated at slave wages. I have my guys do the 8 hour watch standing and then whatever inspections and maintenance they need to do on deck or with chart corrections before knocking off. If it takes them 4 hours to do it at union work speed, it takes them 4 hours. But if they get everything done that needs to be done in 15 minutes, then they’re done.
What I was saying is that by doing that, I never have to lie (unlike many OSV captains I’ve worked for) on my STCW watchkeeping/rest hour log.
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