Washington State Ferries is spending 4 billion in taxpayer {dollars} electrifying its fleet to fight world warming. Whereas commendable, this endeavor overlooks our ferry system’s actual disaster: a crucial scarcity of extremely expert and skilled marine engineers and oilers.
The scarcity of important crew members, attributable to WSF’s low wages and advantages, is the important thing cause why the ferry system continues to fail to offer conventional ranges of well timed service and reliability. The company has refused to compensate its workforce with pay that’s aggressive sufficient to lure engineers away from gigs within the non-public sector. Chief engineers within the non-public sector are paid $300,000 and work half the yr, whereas WSF’s chief engineers are incomes lower than $150,000 for year-round work. Surprisingly, WSF marine oilers are paid lower than ticket-takers on the ferry terminal. In truth, WSF has gone from being one of many highest-paid ferry jobs within the nation to one of many lowest.
The Washington State Ferry system is in disaster and is incapable of performing reliably. Ferry administration has overpromised and underdelivered on fixing the ferry service issues, hurting the Washingtonians who depend upon the boats. WSF knowledge exhibits final yr alone, about 3,500 sailings had been canceled. Based mostly on knowledge compiled by the Marine Engineers’ Useful Affiliation, roughly 65% of these cancellations had been the results of inadequate numbers of certified marine engineers and oilers to satisfy crewing minimums required by Coast Guard laws. A minimal of 200 marine engineers are wanted daily to run all scheduled routes. If one individual isn’t obtainable as a result of sickness or different causes, it will possibly paralyze the system. Each canceled journey threatens the livelihoods, well being and well-being of our ferry-dependent communities. The ripple results of these cancellations are unacceptable.
It’s troublesome to overstate the significance of the ferry system to the prosperity and attract of the Puget Sound area. Greater than 50,000 Washingtonians depend upon our ferries to get to work. Many hundreds extra board them daily to go to medical appointments, procuring, college, and visits with family and friends. Hundreds of companies depend upon them to get provides and ship merchandise. Ferries assist an estimated 150,000 jobs and generate practically $3 billion in state and native tax income annually. Ferry routes are an important and irreplaceable a part of our state’s transportation system, similar to roads, besides, in contrast to roads, they recuperate 70% of their working prices on the fare field. The ferries are one of many state’s main vacationer points of interest, pumping tens of millions of out-of-state {dollars} into the native economic system.
However as an alternative of offering a pay scale that may remedy our workforce scarcity, WSF is attempting to persuade taxpayers that recruiting from excessive faculties and buying $4 billion in new electrical vessels will remedy the issue. Electrifying the ferry fleet is a huge endeavor that may take over a decade to operationalize. It takes a few years of training and coaching, and additional years of expertise, often known as “sea-time,” to change into a licensed marine engineer — over a yr of coaching to change into an oiler, over 5 years to get sufficient expertise to be promoted to assistant engineer and about 10 years to change into a chief engineer. Ferry customers can’t tolerate hundreds of cancellations per yr whereas we look ahead to 17-year-olds to change into certified to imagine command of the engine rooms of 6,000-ton ferries greater than a decade from now. What’s the level of getting electrical ferries if they can’t function as a result of an absence of crew?
It’s crucial that the state balances its investments in greening the fleet for the longer term with the wage scale wanted to recruit and preserve important crew members to revive dependable ferry service at present. By refusing to handle the basis explanation for the issue — noncompetitive wages — WSF is creeping nearer to the potential loss of life of the complete system.
