Prolly 200-300 if your lucky .
Im doubtful of even 200, alot of the boats down there are day boats. Green deckhands are 250 a day here in NYC, no travel, typically have a relief but dont always plan on it. US Marshals came and got one the other day off the boat, go up to the store and get another one.
When national unemployment drops below about 4.3% I’ve noticed the overall quality of applicants goes down considerably. I’ve come to believe that below 4.3% most of the good workers are already steadily employed, and most of the unemployed are the dross—the workers no one else wants.
There’s a few nuggets of gold in there but the rest tend to be a bad lot. Meanwhile pressure is on management to fill the berths aboard the boat quickly. There’s a tendency to corners in the vetting process. Meaning, don’t wait for the criminal history check to come back before hiring somebody. Or failure to call all the former employers ; that takes time, and former employers usually don’t call back.
Hire quickly and repent in leisure. Hire slowly and another company snaps up your prospect.
Are there maritime trade schools that offer a one or two year cooperative program to encourage young folks to get into the industry? Without that the feast or famine routine will continue for the mariner and the employer. When I was working on land and we could not find qualified people we set up a training program with state support, the cost was split about 50/50. Those that passed the course were guaranteed an entry job.
Seattle Maritime Academy: Turns out ABs/QMEDs. 1 year program, followed by 90 days at sea to get a certificate. Impressive new campus. Have their own training boat. Second year of struggling to find students ( a common problem with many community colleges).
Tongue Point near Astoria has similar program.
PMI in Seattle has apprenticeship program for1600-ton mates.
I don’t know why companies bother with the criminal background checks. They hire the criminals anyway.
I once ran my own background check on a shithead they sent to the boat. It wasn’t as bad as expected, but he had a lot of petty convictions, and pending charges for possession of meth, reckless driving, evading the police, and resisting arrest.
HR said that he came well recommended, passed his drug test , and that he hadn’t been convicted of the pending charges. Plus, they need to crew the boats and cannot afford to be too fussy.
Why bother?
I run criminal background checks on all mariners. Wasted effort usually on officers/ABs/QMEDS, simply because the USCG’s own process weeds criminals out.
But for our deckhands, wipers and cooks (positions which don’t need MMCs) the criminal background checks are important. Having conducted the checks for 3 decades now I can say there is a strong correlation between felonies/misdemeanors and poor work performance. I can tell you wild stories.
That doesn’t mean every applicant with a single significant felony/misdemeanor is going to be a bad worker. We don’t hire angels. But every person I’ve hired in the dim past with two felonies was a bad worker, or acted like a thug towards fellow crew members. After years of running the reports the correlation between criminality and work performance became quite apparent. So I got smart long ago and stopped hiring “former” criminals. The quality of the workers went up.
What’s not a significant felony, as far as hiring here? Marihuana possession. DUI. Soliciting prostitutes. Etc.
An incident above 4th-degree assault will disqualify an applicant from employment here. Why? In the past when I let this policy slide these guys would threaten crew members, or drink aboard, a no-no here.
Misdemeanors: if we have an applicant with what we call a “flush” (four misdemeanors on the report), we don’t hire them. It may be piddling stuff. But in the past, when I was less strict, these losers would always act like immature children aboard. Which is how you end up with four misdemeanors. I’ve gone through an entire life without one. How do you get four or five? Because they are spoiled punks, and spoiled punks make bad workers.
Side effect: if a company has the same strict standards–and follows them–the wages increase. Former criminals work for less because they have trouble finding work. That makes them desirable for some employers, and drags down wages. If you have no recourse to this source of labor you have to pay more to get a better quality of worker.
And sometimes you do drop standards because there is absolutely no body else around. A mechanical plug is better than a cork to stop a leak, but if there is no mechanical plug in reach, you use the cork and hope. When unemployment rises above 4.3% there is usually better material around.
This is just my experience where I work.
Norfolk pay depends on company and what’s going on…Seward has a big contract at the moment and is paying well. I’m based in Norfolk and my company, for a good AB, is above 300 easily…good paying deck jobs are out there for sure…
Coastal Transportation Inc. (Seattle to Western Alaska) Numerical average today for AB pay= $447/day. (Average = Half higher/half lower).
Entry level (no AK experience) $350/day
(Not a tug company, but work comparable in some ways).
As a Trip Pilot/Master in the Gulf Coast area I get between 800 and 900 per day on a 1099. I think we should hold the line at 1000 per day minimum for any master’s license project. Trip or regular employment. The industry can bear that rate without any measurable cost being added to the products being transported.
Chesapeake Maritime Training Institute in VA and the Mountwest Maritime Academy in Huntington, WV have intro classes for ordinary seaman deckhands and inland barge deckhands respectively. Both classes are about a week and both cost only $750 though you pay for your own room, board, and food. A cheap way to get into things in the grand scheme.
@Tugslasthitch @BargeMonkey thanks for the tips. Here is my thing: I told him that NY/NJ or even Philly could pay more but the cost of living varies too. Getting $250 in Norfolk or $350 in NY is basically a wash if the hitch schedule is the same and you live relatively near by the city. Since most of the companies don’t pay travel he can’t live too far but maybe living in central/South NJ or Philly burbs will help if he works in NY/NJ to make it a win.
As posted on G&H Towing’s Facebook page:
G&H Towing is growing and on the lookout for
employees to join us as we grow! Determined
to hire the best of the best to join our fleet, we
are now offering SIGNIFICANT PAY INCREASES
for all our Mariner positions starting January 1,
2023!
Officer positions starting at $720 daily for
Masters (promoted from within), $710 daily for
Chief Engineers, and $640 daily for Mates.
Rated positions starting at $371 daily for Oilers
and $274 for Wipers.
They must have lost people to the oil patch. That seems like a bit more than most gulf coast tug companies are paying.
I saw that too. G & H by reputation was one of the lowest paying harbor companies, and obviously geared more towards attracting only local folks. Even for a harbor job, ridiculously low wages.
Guess they’ve been hurting for people long enough they had to start paying competitively.
I’d still give them a hard pass. The SIU is a joke.
Hell, those pay rates for the officers are in line with west coast offshore rates.
Pretty much blowing away the harbor tugs on the west coast, especially for an SIU contract.
Yes, you are correct. This was also not the union’s doing. G&H took this to the table. Desperate times, poor management, doing whatever they can to put asses in seats.
Well let me rephrase that, doing the bare minimum to put asses in seats. God forbid they look in the mirror and fix the internal problems.
There was a Mass Exodus of Employees from that company throughout 2021 and into this year, Mixture of people finding better wages at other Tug Companies, Some going back out to the Oil Patch, and another chunk of folks finding shoreside jobs.
About time they figured out the BARE MINIMUM they needed to do.
That’s good, and those wages they are offering now are awesome for a harbor job. They are paying more than another SIU company I know in so cal.
Since they give you a food allowance and everyone shops for themselves it seems like, that to me says they prefer local guys.
The fact that most boats are 7/7 (and for Houston boats, up from 4/4 during the pandemic) and the company doesn’t pay travel also says local is the preference. It was a real issue for some of the guys driving in from other parts of Texas when gas was $4/gallon and inflation 8+ percent. It doesn’t make a lot of sense when so many other tug companies treat the labor market as if it is national (it is) with 14/14 schedules and paid travel. All that said, good for the mariners who stuck it out! The company could have kept most of the rest of us for half that pay increase a year ago. 