Calvin's Weblog

The big news in B.C. this week

The big news in B.C. this week, or at least in the lower mainland, is the job action being taken by the BC Ferry and Marine Workers Union, which has absolutely crippled the BC Ferry Corporation and held the poor people of Vancouver Island and the surrounding gulf islands hostage for the past three days.
Yesterday the BC Labour Minister imposed a back to work order, 80-day cooling off period, and mandatory mediation to help cool all the hot heads (things were escalating fast!) but here we are, less than 24 hours later and the Union is declaring that if the Government doesn't recind the back to work order, they're going to shut down the entire ferry system at noon today. I would NOT want to be on the ferry that's in the middle of the Straight of Georgia at noon today! Boy, you wanna see a mutiny? Just try holding some of those poor islanders hostage in the middle of the ocean.... honestly, I can't imagine anyone being stupid enough and mean enough to actually go through with that, but we'll see... just over three hours to go until the deadline.

More News:
Ferry workers ready to shut down all service
Striking B.C. ferry workers' union threatens to defy order

The first day of the strike, I saw a poor ferry worker on the news, being blasted by an irate mob of waiting passengers who were litterally screaming at the the guy and pumping their fists in the air, like they were going to swarm him and tear him limb from limb - but this guy was calmly continuing with his job through all the profanity and crazy insults these people were hurling at him. I thought two things: #1) Who can blame the passengers? I'd be pissed too - some of these people had been sitting in their freezing cars for 12 or 16 hours - it's just not fair to hold them hostage. And #2) I thought of what must be going through that ferry worker's mind... I know that I'd be like "Hey, don't yell at me.. I'm the guy that showed up for work today! Go yell at the 19 people that I'm covering for because they're all out on the picket line! Yes, it would suck to be that guy, because his union is probably blasting him even harder than the hostages...

So anyway, I started researching what's so rough about this ferry job that makes the union want to strike every three years, right before Christmas.... I mean, they don't ever seem to be happy with their contract, so how bad is it? Check this out:
The lowest paid employee on a ferry is a deck swab. His job? Swab the decks. His work week is 35 hours. His base salary is $41,000 a year. That's $22 an hour. But, any time spent at work in excess of 35 hours is paid at double overtime... not time and a half, and not for the hours in excess of 40/week, but all of 'em.... double time. In actual fact, Mr Deck Swab DOES actually work 40 hours a week. Everyone does.... everyone get overtime. If the company hires more employees, it has to pay them for 35 hours a week whether they work it or not, so it's actually cheaper to just give everyone 40 hours, and pay them for 45. So Mr Deck Swab is, in reality, taking home a few pennies shy of $50K a year.
Guess who the 2nd lowest paid person on the ship is? Second Line Cook. Her duties? Well, she's got two responsibilities actually... Pull the fries out of the oil after 4 and a half minutes AND put a dab of mayo on the top bun at the burger station. Starting salary? $44K. of course, that's for the 35 hour work week - but since everyone works 40 hours, she's raking in about $55K - that's fourty grand more than her nemesis at McDonalds, but then again, she DID have to grow some Sea Legs, so that's gotta be worth something, right?
So anyway, the 'Company' wants to set the work week at 37.5 and reduce the STARTING wage to about 70% of current levels. Mind you, this wouldn't affect any existing employees wages, only new employees. Instead of pulling up fried for $44K your first year, you'd have to make due on $31K. Sounds like a hefty cut, and it is... but seriously, it's just fries, dude... you're free to work at MickeyDee's if you can't handle it. The union's calling this a roll-back to wages 30 years ago. Fry cooks were making $31K thirty years ago? I know my dad was breaking his back fighting forest fires, hauling logs, building roads, and generally working his ass off 12 hours a day for aproximately $8K a year in the early seventies... cry me a freekin' river.

I'll tell ya - after reading all this, I stopped feeling sorry REAL quick - for that poor ferry worker guy being yelled at by the passenger hostages.

Posted by Calvin at December 10, 2003 09:20 AM