In article , Michael wrote:

Nothing wrongwith sandblasting steel on a hot day. If you are willing to
work. And it pays well too! The first year it's $40-50,000 After one year
it's $60,000 to $80,000 a year or more and you pay for zero food, lodging
or medical. On the ship's it's a common task. You use chipping and scaling
hammers (elbow greae powered), needle guns and chisel guns (air powered)
and occasionally bead blasters (electric powered). Then you have to primer,
and paint. But you have to be willing to work. For the last few years
there's been a lack of people in my industry to do the work. Especially in
MSC. Moe, Shep, and Curly pay well too and pay you while you are training
and while you are on vacation. But you have to be willing to work. That's
just one, JUST ONE, of the skills you learn in this job. If nothing else
you come out of it as a highly skilled fork lift driver, or a trained and
trainable crane operator or . . . . . .and that's just deck department.
Even moreskills in the engine department. But you have to be willing to
work. . Trouble is, in the US there's a seeming lack of people willing
to work. Must be. A lot of our positions, including working for MSC
directly, a government agency, are being filled by people from the
Phillipines, a foreign country, as well as from places like Guam, a US
territory. So if things are so bad, how come we're always shorthanded in
our industy?????????????? Oh yes .. .it's that little bitty small problem
.. . you have to be willing to work. It's hard chipping rust in the hot sun
but tell me this. IF I can do at age 59 . . .....what's your excuse?

Don't need one - we do the same sort of stuff. I *never* employ anyone
on a permanent basis until they've worked for me on a short term
contract and done at least one cruise south. That involves 12 hour
shifts from wharf to wharf, working on the ice, on the trawl deck
handling heavy cold equipment with water at -1.8C etc etc. I'm 50 and
go every year myself.

I mentioned sandblasting because I've done it along with a lot of other
hard, dirty and hot jobs. Digging holes for fence posts in summer comes
to mind - Taddy will know exactly what conditions I'm talking about, as
will Joe in Texas.

As for Filipino crews I'm not sure if this is due to people not wanting
to work or shipping companies wanting to reduce costs. I have this
argument with clerks here. For simplicity assume that a clerk works 40
hours/week for 46 weeks ie 1840 hours pa. A person working 12 hour
shifts, 7 days/week does this number of hours in 154 days. Therefore,
assuming the pay is the same, the seaman should have the rest of the
year off on full pay. All this ignores opportunity costs of lost
weekends, need to pay other people to do simple jobs, strain on
relationships etc etc.

Companies and office workers really, in my experience, have difficulty
accepting this is valid but never want to argue on the hours worked. I
tried it on here for my people who work continuous shifts at sea. Got
nowhere.

It's easier to employ people from a 3rd World country who'll work all
the days there are. Economically, it makes sense.

PDW


Sincerely,

Able Bodied Seaman Michael

PS . . .My job's coming open soon. I'm going back to retirement (and
sailing under my license, by the way). Quick, call Manila and have them
send over a replacement. No one here wants the job.