Exploitation at Sea!

This article caught my attention.

Norwegian Cruise Line announced that President and CEO Kevin Sheehan has received the 2014 EY Entrepreneur Of The Year Award in Florida for the Hospitality and Leisure category. Sheehan accepted the award during a gala ceremony held  at the Hilton Orlando. Sheehan was selected by an independent judging panel made up of previous award recipients, leading CEOs and other regional business leaders.

“It is truly an honor to be recognized by EY with this prestigious award,” said Sheehan. “But it is the hard work, passion and dedication of Norwegian’s 25,000 shipboard and shore side team members that made this award possible. I am extremely fortunate to lead such an incredible team dedicated to delivering the vacation of a lifetime to our guests.”

It got me thinking as I recently watched Kevin Sheehan on the undercover boss program. It was great that he took the time to get out and see what was happening on the coalface of his business and that he had such positive experiences regarding his staff. It was also great to see the impact it had when he returned and immediately started addressing the issues he had encountered making life easier was his workforce.  It also highlighted the hardships that crew member’s face, being away from home for long periods of time, away from family, loved ones, children etc.

It made me think about what it is really like for the crew behind the smiles.

So I did some research.

In reality what is it like for these crew members who smile, help, serve, clean, cook and provide the wonderful experience we as customers enjoy?

Well in reality they work very long hours sometimes up to 14 Hours a day, 7 days a week. In general they will work over 80 hours a week or more. They get very little sleep sometimes only 4 to 5 hours a night. They get paid very little and many have to pay large proportions of their money back to the cruise line to pay for their on-board accommodation and keep. Or more usually this is deducted from their wages before they get them.  Some  articles claim that crew members get paid less than $1 an hour in some cases.

Other articles claim Jobs for seamen in the deck, engine and catering sections of the ship usually provide no health insurance or other benefits.  Crew members say they are fed cheap food, housed in cramped quarters and work dangerous jobs without safety equipment. They claim that when they complain, they can be fined, jailed in the ships brig or deported.

Often Cruise lines or companies that cruise lines use hire largely untrained crews from Third World countries so that they work at salaries and under health and safety conditions that would be intolerable to most people.  They of course would deny this arguing that they provide a chance for these people to earn a decent wage compared to what they would get at home so they can support their families. One cruise spokesperson commented “nobody puts a gun to their head”.

Is this really justification for treating people as virtual slaves?

I for one would not get out of bed in a morning for £1 an hour let alone $1!!!!

I found several quotes from Crew members

“I work all the time,” said one man. “From 6 in the morning until after midnight I wash pots. It’s hot. It’s noisy. I live with eight others in the cabin. But when I complain…” He drew a finger across his throat to indicate he was fired.

A Filipino crew member, said he worked 14 hours a day, seven days a week for less than $400 a month. He said that is the norm, not the Exception.

“They treat crewmen like an orange. They squeeze and squeeze and when there is nothing left, they throw away the peel,” said a Miami attorney who represents more than 100 crewmen annually.

One investigation carried out over a two-month period found:

*Crew members are housed 6 in a cabin, bunking up to three deep in less than 100 square feet of space, according to a seafarers’ rights group.

“Everyone feels hot and suffocated,” said a Colombian pantry man working on a cruise ship out of Miami.

* Crews have no recreation space on some ships. Engine-room crews are not allowed among passengers on most ships they spend days in the narrow, noisy warren below deck without ever seeing the sun.

* Crewmen sometimes fail to get paid what they were promised. One crew member said he was promised $405 a month by one cruise line to work in the kitchens of its ships. But he said his first month’s salary was $370.

* Crewmen often pay agents for jobs, sometimes huge amounts for Third World natives up to $2000. They sometimes have to borrow the money from loan sharks and are never out of debt.

* Crews work in noisy engine rooms without earplugs, clean sooty boilers without lace masks, and operate machinery without goggles, according to Court records.

* Crews complain they are not fed balanced meals, but receive mostly rice and stew. They sometimes are not given utensils and individual plates and must eat from common bowls with their hands, say crewmen.

Are things really this draconian? If so it is one step away from the slave trade.

Or is it nonsense cooked up by disgruntled employees?

There is so much on this subject that you cannot help but get drawn in to the debate.

I saw articles that claimed sometimes conditions get so bad that crewmen approach passengers and beg for help in escaping. Such approaches happen often, said cruise officials. But they said it is due to the crewmen’s desire to get help and to stay in the United States, not poor working conditions.  Which could well be the case.

One spokesperson for the Seafarers mission said “I do not know if the public really cares about conditions on cruise ships as long as they can get cheap vacations.”

This I am not sure about. I know I would not like it if the staff that were helping me have this fantastic holiday were being mistreated or exploited.

Is it just isolated incidents or is there more to these allegations.  It is easy to dismiss as not possible in this day and age but a comment recently left on one of articles by a crew member working for a large well known cruise company who did not want to go into details for fear of reprisals made me think that maybe there is something that needs looking in to.

I have seen much recently about reward schemes and training programmes for on-board staff but perhaps it is all a smoke screen behind which these large firms operate a very different company to the one we see in the glossy brochures.

What do you think?

Have you spoken to a crew member who has confided in you or have you had an experience yourself whilst working on a Cruise ship.

If so I would love to hear from you.