Wages and conditions then and now.

[j.sabourn]

Thinking back over the years and how things in the British Shipping Industry have had a very erratic path at times. Most grew up with the old 7 days a week, Sundays at Sea as leave, Overtime for weekends, Shore leave at masters discretion, Nights on Board re. Engineers and mates. Various other items to which a person nowadays might think it was invading his civil rights. Then came in Loss of sleep, reduced manning, and various other so called modern approaches to a labour force which was always totally different to a shore based industry. As the last time I was on a British flagged trading vessel was sometime in the 80"s I cant comment too much on the working of such vessels today, as most of my time was on foreign flagged vessels. I never saw payment for overtime on foreign flagged vessels, nor any of the other anomalies of British vessels. However they were always better paid, maybe not so much for 3rd world crews as these were also always and still are used to keep the profit margins up. It seems incongruous to me to even mention Loss of Sleep and reduced manning on the same page as one is the cause of the other. Shore leave at Masters discretion was quite often abused, and the unions tried to bring in a payment for captive time, don't know what happened there as was long gone to the sunny side of the street. Nights on board applied to mates and engineers in a British port only and were paid 1 pound a night, which the owner tried to get out of. Any payment for such disappeared a long time ago I think. It is an offence to bring alcohol on board, believe this was always there, but is enforced now to such an extent that one thinks they are back in Dickens time. It is a 12 hour working day now and if go over is no payment. 18 hours in offshore agreements for masters before can demand a rest period. Overall the shipping industry at the best has gone sideways and not ahead as some believe, there are many other idiocracys in the shipping acts that I would have to sit and think about but no doubt many will jump into others minds. Some talk about the good old days and others tell the truth springs to mind, whenever anyone talks about shipping then and now. I cant think of any other Industry apart from fishing which is so far away from a normal industry ashore as one can get, and yet you still get the powers that be think it is no different. Cheers JS

[happy daze john in oz]

Working as officers steward with UCL we got four hours overtime each day even if we did not work it. All courtesy of Chuckles Charnley Chief officer. He said stewards must be on call at any time should they be required so overtime must be paid.
But here in Oz so many would be in clover with our award system, penalty rates apply at o many times. Night shift, hours worked prior to 0800 hours, time and a half for Saturday to 1300 hours then double time. Double time for all day Sunday and double time and a half for public holidays. Many companies now use the enterprise bargaining system to get around this.

[Keith Tindell]

ref 1, John you were at sea a long time before myself. and indeed after, but when i first went to sea 1957 i dont think we were paid overtime for weekends at sea, was all stand down time during the day, only had to do your trick at the wheel, rest of the time was bronzy, or dhobi time. Then i think the weekend overtime for saturday afternoon, and 8hrs Sunday came in, then rightly so we had to turn to. I cannot recall exactly which year that came in KT

[j.sabourn]

#3... Your right Keith up to 1957 I was a serf so was hardly paid never mind anything else. As apprentices I was with a very modern company who paid us 9 pence an hour overtime. Cant remember what the working week was officially then, just worked every day 8 days a week for 4 years. My first pay off, not that we paid off was 26 pounds 2 and 6 pence for 6 months, so must have been some overtime in there somewhere, as we had been to japan and Aussie. 75 pounds a year wasn't very much wage wise. Cheers JS PS Can you think of a 16 year old today being in Japan in those days of wine women and song, and not having the strong moral fibre we had Ha, Today they would be getting taken into care by the do gooders as being sexually abused. I didn't mind being sexually abused, never have. JS

[Richard Quartermaine]

As I recall, from Jan 1947 to March 1953 as saloon boy, scullion (galley boy), asst steward, captains steward I was paid a rate regardless of hours worked which were usually 6am until after dinner clean up around about 9pm with a couple of hours off, depending on what time you finished the lunch. Also, officers' stwds had to fix black pans or suppers. At the end of the voyage the number of Sundays at sea were calculated and added to the basic. We always ate very well at a table in the saloon from the passengers' pantry on the Gothic until the last voyage I did when we were shunted off to a mess room where the food was very different.
Richard