Rigging a Jumbo

[j.sabourn]

Maybe two answers to that question Michael 1. He was after promotion or 2 He had been told by the office he was spending too much overtime and to cease forthwith or look for another job. Cheers JS

[j.sabourn]

As regards overtime the bane of my life was LOS when it was brought in ( loss of sleep). If applied correctly could continue for days if followed the wording correctly. Which was in every 24 hours a seaman must have 8 consecutive hours off duty in every 24 hours . Also the mininum hours awarded for a call out was 2 hours. Loss of sleep could continue for days on end. So the best way to do this was to come to an agreement unofficially with the seaman ,otherwise LOS sleep could continue officially for days on end if a day worker was called out for dropping an anchor say a 30 minute job and get paid about 6 hours overtime and loss of sleep. Any squabbles and it was easy for the mate just to stop the overtime for maintainance rather than spend hours trying to doctor the overtime sheets to prove to the owner he was looking after their ship financially wise. Overtime mostly was to keep people happy as the wages were that poor it was necessary for a family man to increase his income. The 1966 seaman’s strike did not improve a seamans lot in my eyes ,it worked in the owners favour . plus the fact a lot of good men never came back to the Industry. If one was around in those days both sides of the argument have to be looked at ,and not just say it was the start of the decline of the British MN due to the seamen. I beg to differ and say the fault started and finished by the shipowners using the seamen to enhance his profits in league with the present government of that government time. I even took a 5 year sabbatical. Cheers JS
PS If I remember correctly without a maritime year book, an ABs wage was 37 pounds a month. A month was 30 days . So a daily rate was one pound 8 shillings a day. 6 hours a day overtime which some companies were paying like Bisco who were government run at 4/- an hour doubled the daily rate. When or shortly after with the weekends being overtime only essential work was done . Watches were reduced to 2 men , and crew numbers were reduced, regardless of the so called safety at sea rules, The strike to me reduced the earning power of every British seaman not much in his favour ?
JS

[Des Taff Jenkins]

HI John.
If you had only been on the Kiwi coast John. The biggest headache I could see for the I think the Mate who did the overtime. On one particular mealtime we booked a late meal hour as we where late for dinner due to tying up, we went to dinner a few minutes late so that was a late meal hour, we where then called out about twenty past twelve to change some gear around, that was booked as a broken meal hour, then we booked for a 9 hour day, another hours overtime. I remember being called up by the Mate as I was the delegate, and having to explain it all, The Company didn't seem to mind as it was the seamen's Union that kept the Conference Lines from trading between NZ and Aus.
Des

[j.sabourn]

Des the big fault with the NUS in the UK , was that they had to rely on the shipowner to collect a seaman’s union man’s dues whilst onboard ship. The shipowner could at anytime say collect your own dues that’s not my job. The union was at a disadvantage straight away regardless of any other skulduggery going on. To me the 11 years working offshore in Oz was very happy with the conditions the MUA achieved acting the same job as the British Shipping Federation to a much higher standard. Cheers JS