Island Ways | SSA crews: Staffing levels a “recipe for disaster”

Orcas and Nantucket Islands are each roughly the same size and the same distance off their respective coasts. We share the same concerns about the high cost of living, lack of affordable housing, tourist management, ferry problems and environmental degradation. We are living on opposite ends of the country but many of the issues and opportunities are the same. Recently theOrcasonian and the Nantucket Inquirer and Mirror decided to share articles of mutual interest with our readers.

The Steamship Authority’s inability to hire and retain staff has become a major safety issue, creating dangerous levels of crew fatigue on the boats which carry thousands of passengers a day, according to multiple senior-level employees who say the issue is reaching a crisis that goes far beyond just canceled trips.

“Fatigue coupled with shorthanded crews is a recipe for disaster,” one deck officer said.

Another said they felt SSA management is only concerned about fatigue among the pilots and captains to the point where they won’t be criminally liable in the event of a serious accident.

The Inquirer and Mirror spoke separately to multiple deck officers, captains and pilots, some with decades of experience. They say that crews are working a schedule that no longer makes sense, 18-hour shifts in a 24-hour period, turning them into “walking zombies” by the end of those shifts.

“I’m not using public safety as an excuse to get a raise and a better schedule,” one said. “I mean, I do want a raise and a better schedule, but we’ve been telling them these things for years. I truly believe that (the Steamship Authority) is less safe.”

SSA general manager Robert Davis said in response to the allegations that safety is of the utmost priority, that the boat line adheres to all Coast Guard standards in terms of staffing and schedules. And that if there was a public-safety issue, the SSA would make appropriate changes immediately.

“We have a solid core of individuals who have worked here for a number of years. I think that’s a testament to the type of organization that we are in terms of people wanting to work with us and for us,” Davis said. “We appreciate all our employees whether they’re on the vessel or shoreside.”

Asked if there were any changes forthcoming, Davis said he didn’t want to get into the particulars of the ongoing collective bargaining that is currently taking place between the Steamship Authority and its deck officers union.

Constant turnover

The issues go beyond fatigue, the deck officers said, and are compounded by the constant turnover of employees. That means they are often saddled with co-workers who aren’t prepared for the job at hand, forcing captains, already burned out, to remain in the wheelhouse, in a state of heightened alert, at all times.

“I never leave the wheelhouse anymore because I don’t ever want to sit in that chair in front of the Coast Guard (after an accident) and explain to them that I had a new mate and I wasn’t there to watch over them,” one captain said.

Davis acknowledged there is a fluctuation in staff, and said the Steamship Authority has dedicated significant resources to train employees to get more experience and move up the ladder.

“For the past seven years now, we realize that we need to have some skin in the game,” he said. “This past winter we sent 10 individuals to a three-week class at one of the maritime institutes to study for their pilotage. We also have a two-week course, in which we had 20-25 ordinary seamen take classes to move up to AB (able seaman). We recognize that in order to be getting crews to be competent crews, we need to be providing these trainings.”

Those interviewed said hiring is difficult because there is a shortage of new workers in the maritime industry, but also because the SSA’s reputation is so bad at maritime academies they have “poisoned the well” for new graduates to the point where it is known that the SSA is to be avoided as a potential place to work.

All of this comes as the Steamship Authority and its deck officers’ union are in the midst of negotiations for a new contract. But as one employee said, these are issues that they have been raising for years.

“We’ve told them no more,” they said. “You made it through last summer on our freaking sweat and our quality of life just being s**t. And we’re not doing it anymore. This summer we’re working to rule, we’re working our 42 hours and that’s it.”

The effect of that, so far, has meant the Steamship Authority has already had difficulties replacing crew when a deck officer is out for unforeseen reasons, like illness or injury. Twice this week, the Iyanough fast-ferry has canceled trips when a member of the crew was out, once for the entire day. The SSA has also modified its summer schedule to try to limit disruptions.

“We recommended to the board that we modify the summer schedules because we’re concerned about making sure we have enough people to fill in if need be,” Davis said. “Sometimes it’s a matter of when the call-in happens whether we’re able to get someone, but the pilots and captains aren’t necessarily interchangeable. Sometimes it may be that we have someone but they’re not qualified to operate that particular vessel.”

18-hour work days

In waters under the Coast Guard’s jurisdiction, there is a 12-hour limitation in any 24-hour period for those working at sea. In 1999 the Coast Guard granted the Steamship Authority a temporary exemption to work “triple-crew” on their boats, which essentially means they could work 18 hours in a 24-hour period, 12 hours on, six hours of rest on the boat while it’s docked overnight, and then six hours on.

In a letter dated April 10, 2000, former U.S. Coast Guard Captain Peter Popko wrote to the Steamship Authority saying that he was allowing the boat line to work “triple-crew” as a temporary solution while it negotiated a new contract.

“And then somewhere along the line, it became gospel,” one of the employees said. “Now 25 years later the workload has been increasing and we are getting less and less rest. And we’re still working this exempted schedule that was based on the fact that we used to have so many people.”

Davis said in defense of the “triple crew” schedule that it requires 48 hours off after a shift.

“Yes, they do work 18 hours in a 24-hour period, but then they have the next 48 hours off. So, they’re working 18 hours in a 72-hour period,” he said.

One longtime employee claimed that since “triple crew” went into effect, the Steamship Authority has cut as many as 60 jobs of people who worked on the boats, from cooks to reprieve captains, that would go from boat to boat allowing the regular captains a rest for one of their trips.

“They’ve cut 60 jobs in the last 20 years, and to think that doesn’t affect the safety of the passengers, it’s naive to think that,” they said.

Lt. Commander Keith Heine, chief of the inspections divisions at the U.S. Coast Guard in East Providence, R.I., said the Steamship Authority is able to supersede the typical 12-hour work rule because of the type of routes it serves.

He said that it’s really an issue for Steamship Authority management to determine the appropriate schedule for their crews, as long as they adhere to Coast Guard requirements, which he said they do.

“I think there has been some push within the watchstanders, some of the deck officers, to have this changed, but we’ve not been approached with any tangible change from the Steamship Authority,” he said. “Is it time to revisit this? I’m not really sure. The Coast Guard doesn’t necessarily want to be in a position where we’re over-regulating an industry.”

“Walking zombies”

According to documents provided to The Inquirer and Mirror, an in-house survey organized by deck officers of their peers, 42 of the approximately 50 SSA captains and pilots, was done this December. It attempted to quantify their fatigue levels working “triple crew.” Over two-thirds said they had “significant” to “high fatigue” at the end of their watch, the two highest possible levels of fatigue listed on the survey.

“Significant fatigue” was defined as “tiredness is pronounced, affecting concentration performance.”

“High fatigue” was defined as “feeling very tired, significant impact on mental and physical abilities.”

At the start of their final six-hour shift, 61 percent said they felt “significant” to “high fatigue.”

Almost all, 92 percent, said they felt the need to take a nap when they got home from work, and 58 percent said they struggled to stay awake on their drive home after working “triple crew.”

One-hundred percent of respondents, 38, said they don’t feel SSA management is concerned about fatigue. Four did not answer the question.

Davis said he was unaware of the survey, and said it wouldn’t be worthwhile to discuss its merits without knowing all of the particulars on how it was done.

“Poisoned the well”

The Massachusetts Maritime Academy campus in Bourne is a 30-minute drive from both the Steamship Authority docks in Woods Hole and Hyannis. Each year Mass Maritime graduates dozens of students ready to work in the industry. But as one Steamship Authority employee, a recent graduate of the academy, said, issues at the SSA are well known there.

“I remember one of the students in class asked our professor if he had any recommendations on local companies we could work for. And the first thing that came out of his mouth was, ‘Don’t go work for the Steamship Authority, the schedule is screwed up, and you’re not going to make enough money.’ I don’t know how I still ended up here, but I did,” he said.

Part of the reason, he said, is because the Steamship Authority allows its employees to work in the industry without having to spend months offshore. But he said that the ability to have a life outside of work is still challenging at the SSA because of the hours and scheduling.

“I never know what shifts I’m going to be working more than three days in advance,” he said. “That not only wears on me, it wears on (my significant other). She wants to plan things and I literally have to tell her I don’t know what I’m doing three days from now.”

Davis said he is not aware of a negative reputation the Steamship has at maritime academies. He said it works with Mass Maritime in bringing cadets to work for the summer, 12 of whom are coming this summer. But many want to work in a different part of the industry after graduation.

“A lot of them want to work deep sea, where they work for three weeks or three months, and then come back for three weeks or three months or whatever the schedule is,” he said. “We continue to look at what we can do, we have a good working environment, we support our crews. With the advent of our safety quality management system, the cornerstone of that is for improvement: to identify issues and to rectify those and improve upon them.”

Revolving door

But the deck officers tell a different story. They said they’ve watched as a revolving door of new recruits come in, only to leave the SSA after a year or two.

“They said ‘screw this’ and went and found jobs at National Grid or Eversource, a place where they could make better money, have a chance to grow their career and still be home every night,” one said.

There was agreement among the SSA employees spoken to that there is an industry-wide issue when it comes to hiring in the maritime industry. But, they said, while other companies have adapted by offering incentives to be more competitive to new recruits, the Steamship Authority has done nothing and instead relied on its current employees to shoulder the extra burden.

“It’s pretty unfortunate and kind of embarrassing that you have Mass Maritime that’s 10 miles away, and you have New York Maritime and Maine Maritime that are a couple hundred miles away. Between them they’re probably graduating 300 mariners with their mates’ licenses that could fill these jobs at the Steamship Authority. But the working conditions at the Steamship Authority have gotten so bad that they can’t even beg these graduates to work for them,” one SSA employee said.

Inexperienced new hires

“My job has turned into, I’m in the wheelhouse 11 hours a day, because I don’t feel confident in the new hires to let them be up there by themselves and they don’t feel confident either,” one captain said.

“When (a new hire) comes on board I ask them, ‘Do you feel confident with what’s going on right now?’ And I’ve had three or four guys in the last year say ‘no’. It’s gotten less and less qualified for these mates every year. And they’re all good people, they just don’t have the experience, they don’t have the confidence in themselves to be a mate yet.”

Another claimed he had crew that didn’t know the port from the starboard side of the boat.

“No joke. So, if someone goes overboard, they may tell you the wrong side. I don’t know how they got their (able seaman credential). None of them have maritime backgrounds,” he said. “Because of the shortening of crews, these long, long hours. It’s just exhausting and now your anxiety is up on top of it.”

It could be years before the issue is fully resolved. Many longtime Steamship Authority deck officers are nearing retirement age. One officer said he looked at the Steamship’s listing of captains and pilots, of which he said there are 47. He said 19 are over the age of 60, and another 12 are between the ages of 50 and 60.

Davis said it’s a known issue.

“There’s going to be a need for the next people to be stepping up to become pilots and captains,” he said. “That’s part of the reason why we are doing (more) training programs as well, to recognize that we need to constantly be able to fill these positions, because we have an important mission to accomplish, and that’s to provide the goods and necessities of life to the islands.”