I agree, less time bashing each other, but when a company does something to fuck Mariners, people shouldn’t make excuses for joe boss but rather just agree it sucks and stand up for theirselves, unless someone likes having benefits/wages taken away from them.
There are just so many boss apologists on here, you’d think they put their gcaptain username on their employment application or something.
[QUOTE=z-drive;158027]I agree, less time bashing each other, but when a company does something to fuck Mariners, people shouldn’t make excuses for joe boss but rather just agree it sucks and stand up for theirselves, unless someone likes having benefits/wages taken away from them.
There are just so many boss apologists on here, you’d think they put their gcaptain username on their employment application or something.[/QUOTE]
Agreed about the boss apologists…I am surrounded by them and unfortunately, our problem people can’t be fired easily (federal gov’t)…so they keep on wreaking havoc.
[QUOTE=RespectMyAuthority;158023]So you are ok with what MMP and Patriot did to underbid even AMO on the wages on the LMSRs? And how about what MEBA did recently on the lakes?[/QUOTE]
alright everybody is an asshole in this effing business, but the AMO started the BULLSHIT!
Let me ask you, is what the AMO did with the contracts at Liberty Maritime something that was just ok for them to perpetrate?
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from the responses we’ve read, one could certainly be able to believe that there are many who are simply fine with giving up benefits and even more who simply do not believe longevity with a company should be rewarded by the owners in the form of a pension…it really staggers the imagination
There are just so many boss apologists on here, you’d think they put their gcaptain username on their employment application or something.
I really honestly do not know where this comes from? Fear that they will be found out by the boss or that these people simply love everything about their company so much that they have not a single thing to complain about and then I must ask, “ARE THESE REALLY MARINERS?” Come on, any real mariner is born to bitch…it is in the nature of any person who chooses the sea for Christ’s sake! It’s our tradition to carp about anything!
[QUOTE=c.captain;158033]alright everybody is an asshole in this effing business, but the AMO started the BULLSHIT![/QUOTE]
Some would say MMP got too greedy/cocky and brought it on themselves. MMP got a little ridiculous in their demands. I think the ILA is getting a little ridiculous too.
Back to the original thread. Some of these GOM mariners got to thinking that they are special because they got big bucks for a time. Really it was a matter of supply and demand. If the downturn continues,Joe Boss will be letting them know how special they are.
[QUOTE=RespectMyAuthority;158036]Back to the original thread. Some of these GOM mariners got to thinking that they are special because they got big bucks for a time. Really it was a matter of supply and demand. If the downturn continues,Joe Boss will be letting them know how special they are.[/QUOTE]
Haven’t heard about how much the wages have been cut and there seems to be conflicting information on the subject but I agree that if by October of this year which will mark one year since the decline started, that you will see even ECO slashing everything they haven’t slashed already and the biggest and easiest place to slash is with the workforce. Twood be a nice gesture though if the Chouest family sold some personal trappings of their great wealth to offset the pain felt by labor…
The one thing I can only hope for is now that pain is being felt by the workforce, that it just might wake up more than a few GoM mariners to realize that the big dollars was only crack cocaine what Joe happily gave out to get them nice and addicted to their need to be employed by Joe. Just what every pusher wants are crackheads who have no choice but to buy from him.
before y’all shit all over me yet again…it is not the mariners in the GoM that I loathe but the bosses! I am just extremely disappointed that it seems the whole lot of you’se down there do not see how Joe manipulates you and that the big money shoveled at you wasn’t out of the goodness of his heart but only a strategy for him to employ.
If you feel this way why do you rant on here trying to convince GOM Mariners to go Union? Seems a little counter productive…
I’ve never worked on OSV’s, I’m a tugboater through and through, but I think all of these guys that you think are being taken advantage of will have made more money in their lifetime than other Mariners. If they’re smart and invest wisely they will be sitting pretty in the end. At that point who used who?
[QUOTE=TugNtow;158042]If you feel this way why do you rant on here trying to convince GOM Mariners to go Union? Seems a little counter productive…[/QUOTE]
I just believe that in the GoM offshore industry, Joe Boss conducts business by the Golden Rule…
he who has the gold, makes the rules
[QUOTE=TugNtow;158045]If they’re smart and invest wisely they will be sitting pretty in the end. At that point who used who?[/QUOTE]
yeah, but should Joe dictate all the terms?
can any person here give me an example of one single term of employment the worker gets to dictate in the GoM?
Just one is all I ask for…
[QUOTE=TugNtow;158042]If you feel this way why do you rant on here trying to convince GOM Mariners to go Union? Seems a little counter productive…[/QUOTE]
As for the GOM mariners going union. Not attempting to bias union or non-union. Sometime between 2004-2011 I think is was, GOM mariners were talking about going union. GOM companies responded by increasing the pay across the board and then the union talk went silent. Any non-union mariner out there truly believe thier companies’ are fighting to keep the Jones Act intact ? Any non-union mariner truly believe that thier wages are not some how tied to unions’ offerings? Remember maritime companies need to crew thier vessels. Do you honestly believe there would be so many mariners working at non-union companies, if the pay was the same? If it were not for the union and those that sail for the union, the industry would have been lost to foreigners years ago. Unions do have corruption and what not, but there is also some good that is done. Any non-union mariner done anything to ensure the Jones act stays intact? OFF topic of unions now; Back to the GOM, ever heard of “safe Gulf”? When it first started there were no class just a test. Then it became mandatory class, mariners could pass without the class though. However there were those that could not pass “safe gulf”, atleast not until a relative of thiers was the instructor. Nepatism reigns in the GOM. With all the “state of the art equipment” GOM vessels still have allisions? That means more STCW. While sometimes the fault might just be the coonass behind the navigation console, other times the fault lies with the “joe boss” Why does the USCG not go after the “joe boss”? I wonder how many incidents would be avoided if the USCG stood up for the mariner, by disallowing the company to terminate the mariner, should a mariner refuse to sail a vessel improperly or…? If you have any doubts, how many assistant drillers, vice presidents, and…on the deep water Horizon do you think were aware of what was going on and the possible disaster out comes. But failed to say anything because the “joe boss” might make them unemployed if they did ? Everyone in the drilling industry with 5 or more years experience in my opinion.
[QUOTE=c.captain;158046]I just believe that in the GoM offshore industry, Joe Boss conducts business by the Golden Rule…
he who has the gold, makes the rules
yeah, but should Joe dictate all the terms?
can any person here give me an example of one single term of employment the worker gets to dictate in the GoM?
Just one is all I ask for…[/QUOTE]
Why do you care, Scooter. Stop trying to educate us, we don’t need it if all we do is " Push button and pick up check"
[QUOTE=AHTS Master;158049]Why do you care, Scooter. Stop trying to educate us, we don’t need it if all we do is " Push button and pick up check"[/QUOTE]
see how you are unable to answer my question about your having no control over the terms of employment? all you can do is try to evade it all…
I guess there is no point trying to educate those who are ineducable (one not able to be educated)…
see you in the funny pages
[QUOTE=c.captain;158052]
see you in the funny pages[/QUOTE]
I am thinking the pointy haired boss in Dilbert…
I guess I’ve been fortunate because I’ve never felt like everything about my employment was out of my hands or maybe it’s my outlook but when I get what I want out of the deal I’m happy. I’ve always been able to negotiate, to a degree, my wages and I’ve chosen good companies to work for. I’ve never been compelled to join a union because it hasn’t been necessary. Anything I could say about them would be second hand so that’s all I can add to that subject. I can add that if you really were so concerned with convincing a certain group of people to see things your way you might not want to call them stupid, backwater, unintelligent, unwashed, idiots… I mean really, try that with the black community or any other minority, regional, whatever group and see how they react. You do a really poor job of gaining recruits… But in the end of collective bargaining gets me less money then I’ll pass. Total compensation and wise investment will work better for me. In my experience, in a group everyone is brought down to the level of the most idiotic portion because they are usually the loudest and tend to screw it up for everyone. As my old man used to say “Better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than to open it up and remove all doubt”
I can’t speak for anyone else but I myself have always felt like if I don’t like the terms, I can always find work somewhere else. I have never had a problem doing so mainly due to all of the good performance evaluations that I have from the masters or vessel managers that I have worked for in my career. I don’t in the least like it when my pay is cut while Joe Boss is still raging in his millions but that sometimes is just the way that it is.
The union organizers that went to the gulf to try to organize disappeared one evening & haven’t been seen or heard from since.
[QUOTE=c.captain;158052]see how you are unable to answer my question about your[B] having no control [/B]over the terms of employment? all you can do is try to evade it all…
I guess there is no point trying to educate those who are ineducable (one not able to be educated)…
see you in the funny pages[/QUOTE]
I’ve been working in the GOM for 40 years so I must have some control, Scooter.
[QUOTE=TugNtow;158054]I can add that if you really were so concerned with convincing a certain group of people to see things your way you might not want to call them stupid, backwater, unintelligent, unwashed, idiots… I mean really, try that with the black community or any other minority, regional, whatever group and see how they react. You do a really poor job of gaining recruits… [/QUOTE]
there are rare moments when clarity comes to my addled brain and this is one of those with your appropriate words. You are very correct that I am in fact doing a SHITTY job in delivering my message and that it ends up completely lost in the nasty invective which I am too prone to use. I ended up graduating from the George Patton school where one was taught that if you wanted something you said to stick with those you were saying it to, it had to be blunt and anything but kind. In the end though, my impersonation as Old Blood and Guts ends up a pretty poor imitation of that leader and instead it becomes more of myself playing a rather ineffectual don Quixote with an endless version of Gomer Pyle singing “The Impossible Dream” ringing over and over and over again in my own head…
and as much as I think that great poof Jim Nabors had one hell of a voice, let me tell y’all now much my head aches with this endless din in my noggin…
however with that, I am not retracting a word of what I have said or what I believe…just that I am not going to keep using a jackhammer to drive it in any more and Lord knows your heads are too thickly plated for any jackhammer to penetrate.
so, I will rest and for now anyway, strike my colors…you should remember that as much as I can be a nasty old foul mouthed SOB, I still hold in solidarity with any of my unwashed brothers who chose the sea as I and my father before me and his father before that… Regardless of how we choose to go to sea, we are still seafarers together
now, can someone get that bloody song to stop playing?
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[QUOTE=captaint76;158055]I can’t speak for anyone else but I myself have always felt like if I don’t like the terms, I can always find work somewhere else. I have never had a problem doing so mainly due to all of the good performance evaluations that I have from the masters or vessel managers that I have worked for in my career. I don’t in the least like it when my pay is cut while Joe Boss is still raging in his millions but that sometimes is just the way that it is.[/QUOTE]
Sure, but the offshore oil and gas industry is a very complex and potentially risky business with a lot of moving parts. In countries where labor is stronger the companies, the regulators and the unions are considered to be the three legs looking out for profits, public safety and the workers respectively. In the GOM only the first two have organized to look out for their interests.
In the event of an incident of the scale of the DWH or less it’s going to be two organizations, the Coast Guard and the companies involved going after individual workers. It’s a common refrain, I prefer to negotiate on my own because I’m a good mariner etc. Good luck with that when the shit hits the fan.
Everyone seems focused on the day rate. There’s a lot more to it then that.
Nah, 40 years in the GoM is a sign of Being CONTROLLED!