||| FROM KRISTIN HYDE for WSF MARINE ENGINEERS |||
What: Washington State Ferries Marine Engineers Press Conference
When: 1 pm Wednesday June 17
Where: Colman Dock Washington State Ferry Terminal at Pier 52 (on upper level walkway outside the terminal)
Why: With more than 750,000 visitors expected in Seattle during the FIFA World Cup, state agencies have promised that transportation infrastructure is prepared to handle the increased traffic. Washington State Ferries (WSF) has assured that the system will have 20 boats available with two extra vessels on standby and extra crews if a boat goes out of service, when WSF can barely staff 18 vessels on any given day.
The union representing 400 marine engineers who operate, repair and maintain ferries says WSF relies on unsustainable overtime demand on engine room crew, and has not addressed the wage gap that knee-caps WSF’s ability to retain and recruit credentialed marine engineers.
Eric Winge, WSF representative for the Marine Engineers Beneficial Association, the union for all engine room crew at WSF says: “The conditions that cause crew shortages and canceled sailings remain unchanged. We will see delays and missed sailings in the summer and unreliability will continue to be an issue if the wage gap between engineers and our deck counterparts is not closed. Billions of dollars are being spent on new ferries, but if the state doesn’t close this wage gap, we won’t have enough licensed crew to operate and repair the new hybrid electric vessels when they come into service.”
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WSF’s reportedly has more employees than they have had in years. Two years ago, they stopped providing detailed monthly data to the ferry advisory committees and removed staffing data from their website, likely because they were running fewer ferries and they their staffing was not far off from their target numbers for running 19 vessels, including the Sidney run.
It’s the start of Washington State’s two year union contracts. Agreements have to be reached by October 1 to be included in the Governor’s 2027 budget. Ferry unions can’t strike by Washington State law. But they can miss showing up for their ferry assignment, and that’s exactly what happened two years ago. It’s the unions way of putting pressure on both wage and benefit increases.
It took almost six months to finally get the state to provide salary and benefit amount using public record requests. About 80% of the worker names were redacted, although the basic job classification was published. The reason: Transportation Security Agency has a clause that ferry workers that have access to vessels are high national security individuals. Of course, WSF frequently publishes ferry captain and marine worker’s names in their public relations releases makes that Code of Federal Regulation law seem totally illogical.
Pay and benefits and holiday pays are relatively substantial. Union contracts are public documents and available.
Washington State is facing a significant deficient budget issue this coming year, so it will be interesting to observe how this relatively small but essential union acts in their efforts to increase pay and benefits. Almost given is there will be another annual increase in ferry fares, and an additional fuel surcharge is also likely give the cost of diesel due to the Iran war.