Maybe, but everyone else in the deck dept is making less than working for AMO before the raises AMO is getting right now.
Yes, they definitely are.
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OSG is not willing to reduce the 12 hour days (13.5) or get rid of a handful of Captains they KNOW are a problem. Those 2 items would completely change the culture and change the labor issue.
Nothing worse than working for an a-hole and not being able to go home when your time is up.
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Hit the nail on the head in a whole lot less words. I can be a bit long winded at times.
Sam Norton doing that interview was a prodigious misstep. It is utterly indefensible. They were having a hard time finding senior Engine and Deck Officers before, why would anyone willingly seek a position with a company who wants to outsource their job to foreign labor?
He didn’t just say it was an idea. He said he has been actively lobbying for it. No matter how many emails Sam Norton or Damon Mote send to the crews for damage control is going to put that Jack back in the box.
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Let’s put it bluntly, they don’t want to outsource the senior officers. You’re set there, Chief. Ignoring cute buzz words, he thinks the rest of the industry undervalues the unlicensed as much as he does. After all, at his company, they are just orange prison like jumpsuit wearing cogs holding a needle gun for 12 hours a day. He’s never sailed with his Chinese lit degree. He’s never seen an AB make or break tow with the Captain behind the sticks. He’s never seen the ABs know the ropes in Rotterdam while the new 3rd Mate fresh out of the academy would be caught without his pants without their unlicensed. He’s never seen his AB lookouts call out collision traffic while the mates are filling out abstracts in the Straits of Gibraltar. To him, ABs hold needle guns all day, every day, for 8+ months on end, 12 hours a day. And why can’t a man from Honduras do this? To him, this visa program is a no brainer, he is a desk jockey who gets his rocks off holding a position. All my years working at OSG, I never saw an office person set foot on the ship aside from interim shipyard period, and that was a port engineer, no pencil pusher. So out of touch, it’s unreal. We’re boat trash to them, plain and simple.
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The scariest thing in Mr. Norton’s article is the admission he has been working towards the goal of foreign seman for, apparently, a lengthy period of time RATHER than proactively trying to drum up US Mariners.
If he saw the crewing crisis coming ten years ago, perhaps his time/effort would have been better spent publicly lobbying the USCG for ways to streamline Mariner recruitment or formulating a fleet retention policy for existing sailors. It appears a shadow effort at bringing in foreign labor, which is a charitable way to describe knifing US sailors in the back, has occupied his time instead.
Corporate schmuck.
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Good article By Don Marcus, President of International Organization of Masters, Mates & Pilots (MM&P),
However, as has been pointed out by many, the issue is more complex than simply wages and benefits. Quality of life, respect and working conditions are a large part of the disincentive to embark upon or to continue a career at sea. Reduced crews, workload and the resulting stress and fatigue make senior officers exit their careers at the first opportunity and discourage aspiring officers from pursuing their careers.
I agree with the above - could always use more money of course but working conditions really need to improve.
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Every time I meet up with a bunch of captains I think about maybe going back to sea… but then I call up a few Chief Mates and no thanks.
I’ve been offered masters jobs but I’m not going to step right into that position. I want to sail CM for a year but standing watches and managing the deck and managing cargo and doing whatever BS the captain doesn’t want to do himself. No thanks. I did that for ten years in my 20s and early 30s and I loved it but it really screwed with my health. For $300k I’d think about it. For less than my UPS driver? Nope.
I know that on certain ships it’s possible to throttle back in that position a bit and let a few things slide but that’s just not my personality. I mean we all let some things slide but I gotta use that time to learn the spaces, read the manuals and spend time with the engineers… otherwise the firefighting and emergency duties keep me from sleeping at night. That’s just me.
Then there are family responsibilities. My wife was a 2/m and handles things like a pro when I’m gone but she absolutely refuses to let us go in debt. I’d sail for $100k just because I love it but problems always mount up and she waits till I get home to save money. Working for 3 months then spending the next 3 weeks at Home Depot or autozone or driving 2 hours to borrow your brothers roofing tools or listening to the neighbor talk about his stamp collection for 3 hours so you can borrow his 30’ ladder… no bueno. But if I was making $300k and the roof started leaking I could just call the best roofer in town and write a check.
Short story: I grew up poor because my parents bought the most dilapidated house in the best school district in Westchester. Spent my entire childhood shopping at salvation army and helping dad fix cars and rebuild the house. All my friends were loaded. One day Dad’s under the car and his friend Bruce pulls up in his Jag, leans out and says “Jack, I always wanted to learn how to fix a car” then dads rolls out and says “That’s funny Bruce, I’ve always wanted to roll my Jag into a dealership and say fix it”
Dad would also say “Money doesn’t buy happiness but it sure as F helps”.
Many of the people in that town were absolutely miserable because there is an anxiety that goes with not knowing how to do anything yourself. You are completely dependent on the people you hire to do everything for you and a small amount of anxiety builds in the background. The money can also buy you really fun things - like an apartment for your mistress - that lead to misery. The upper class live with a low level anxiety but they also live stress free (unless they make bad decisions).
This is important because stress kills. Here are the top 6 leading causes of death for someone my age:
- Heart Disease - High correlation with stress
- Cancer - Moderate to high correlation to stress depending on type
- Accidents - People drink and rush things mostly because of stress. Falls are a big one too… whcih circles back to my roofing job
- Stroke - High correlation with stress
- Lung Disease - Smoking is a stress reliever
- Diabetes - stress causes overeating
I can see it in the responses to this article. I have been chatting with Mr. Norton about this and he’s been really nice about the whole thing. He’s pushing back for certain but he has a clear mind and is emotionally detached from the problem. He’s also fully focused on this because the details of OSG’s problems are being handled by other executives. That’s the stress free of wealth. Contrast that to one senior manager in his company who has been DM’ing me angry FULL CAPS messages about how my article will bankrupt the company and how numerous officers have threatened to quit. That person is stressed.
When we were getting paid like rock stars at Transocean we called it “sprinkle money”. Wife complains about a roof leak? No problem, just call the best roofer and sprinkle cash on the problem. Norton has a lot of sprinkle money, his captains have some, his chief mates have none.
I guess all this is saying that working conditions matter. If the crews are top notch and the ship is in great shape and the office doesn’t push problems back to the crew and the longshoreman secure cargo properly and your not running DoD cargo under some idiot admiral and if your not getting shot at by Houthis… yeah a CM can stand watch and make $150k per year stress free.
But if the ship is 40 years old, you are short an engineers, the third mate has zero experience, the office wants you to answer a dozen emails, you don’t get critical parts on time, the food sucks, people are working over, you didn’t get any MSDS for whatever the hell MSC made you load in the 4P tank, and the CG won’t let you sail if you fire that AB with an attitude problem. That job requires sprinkle money. Especially if you are 30, have young kids at home, crazy mortgage payments, and $100k in student debt.
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This is the best point I have read in a while, expressed well. The 150k for a busy chief mate is still criminal. Especially if you’re dealing with a less than stellar captain, and a group of AB’s who know they don’t have to work because they literally cannot get fired bc no replacements even exist. Gotta improve from top to bottom.
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I have some British mariner friends who are mates, making half than what our AB’s make, He’s told me he’d come to the US if he could, considering it would more than double his salary as an officer. I’m sure our handful of billets at American prices would go like hotcakes.
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Your British friend may want to work on US-flag ships, but will USCG issue a CoE to allow him to serve in an officer position?
In 2010 the USCG requested comments re: recognition of foreign certificates as required by STCW I/10:
https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2010/09/27/2010-24154/recognition-of-foreign-certificates-under-the-international-convention-on-standards-of-training
As of today the status is:
Source: eCFR :: 46 CFR Part 11 Subpart J -- Recognition of Other Parties' STCW Certificates
The question is whether a waiver of some sort from the citizenship requirement will /can be granted by USCG (??)
PS> I see that the CEO of OSG gets paid US$2.3 Mill. per year. Maybe there are some savings to be made there?
For refr.: The German requirements:
No. The whole fucking point of this thread is that an executive at OSG is pushing the USCG to allow it and thus fuck over US mariners.
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If the USCG has taken over a decade to comply with STCW’10 requirements to come up with a list of countries they can approve of there is probably not much change of them opening the floodgates now.
So the risk of US-flagged vessels being manned by “cheap labour from 3rd world countries” anytime soon is probably minimal.
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The USCG won’t have a choice in the matter if the shipowner lobbyists get congress to pass a new law. They will be forced to expedite the process.
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This reeks of Damon Mote.
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I’ve never heard of “sprinkle money,” but now realize that I use to have some back in the 1980s.
In the 80’s I worked six months a year and earned at least twice as much as my shoreside friends in 12 months. Now I work six months and earn about the same as my shoreside friends.
In the 80s I had buying power and sprinkle money. I bought new pickups. I hired plumbers , electricians, carpenters and had things done. Now I have a lot less buying power. I buy 5 year old pickups. I have to do the wiring, plumbing, etc myself. I don’t have sprinkle money anymore to have things fixed and just enjoy being home.
I make more dollars than ever, but those dollars buy a lot less than the did back in the 80s.
I see owners with capital, including owners that don’t know anything about the tug and barge business making a lot of money. But they are not willing to pay a good wage to the guys that actually go out and get the job done.
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Ahh yes, lobbying (aka legalized corruption) is available to those with deep pockets (on both ends).
But can even lobbyist get anything done in Washington DC theses days?
They do a bang up job telling people that trains wont work in america and convincing people that climate change is a hoax.
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Some might say this video is unrelated to the call for foreign seafarers but watch what Sal explains here, and see what it means for us as a country and Merchant Marine (the part where he talks about the MSP, and foreign shippers basically dictating everything going on). Introduction of foreign seafarers in any capacity could be the straw that breaks the camels back.
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Welcome to the reality. I guess living in a country with a GDP less that the shipping companies involved we have seen it all before.