The Dieselduck wrote:Shell recruits US officers for LNGs
Fairplay 01 May 2008
SHELL Ship Management is to hire US licensed officers for its 25 new internationally-flagged LNG tankers, with a pact signed yesterday with the American Maritime Officers (AMO) union. Both groups credited US Maritime Administrator Sean Connaughton with helping to forge the deal, which AMO President Tom Bethel told Fairplay had been under consideration for three years. “We already have a cadre of officers with LNG endorsements,” Bethel said.
Connaughton then told Fairplay that efforts will be made to expand the number of graduates from US maritime academies – which now stands at about 700 a year – to meet demand. “There are a lot of young Americans showing increasing interest in working at sea,” he said, contrasting the trend with Europe and Asia where fewer candidates are seeking seagoing billets.
Each LNG tanker has a complement of 12-14 officers with 22 crew aboard. “This crewing MOU represents sound public policy – increased safety, security and improved transportation efficiencies – and opens up vital employment opportunities for US officers in the LNG industry,” said Connaughton.
I wonder if the crew hired will be making AMO wages or some sort of modify sliding wage scale that the brits like so much.
- martin
The Dieselduck wrote:Cash ‘not answer to crewing crisis’
23 March 2007 Lloyds List
PAYING “top dollar” seafarer salaries does not guarantee loyalty and is not the answer to the industry’s crewing crisis, according to a panel of experts, writes Rajesh Joshi. The way to redress the problem is to foster lifelong “contracts” with seafarer recruits that build on career development, the panel at the Connecticut Maritime Association conference concluded.
Bob Bishop, chief executive of V.Ships Shipmanagement, told the Manning Strategies panel that the intractable challenges of attracting and retaining crews needed a radically creative approach that recognised the importance of email and communication links with mariners’ families. The days of putting out to sea with no contact with the outside world for weeks or months on end were over, Mr Bishop said. Today’s new generation expected to be “connected” with its family and friends every day, and this reality needed to be addressed.
Mr Bishop cited many reasons why the “romanticism” of going to sea had faded.These included higher regulation, visa issues, criminalisation, cultural issues involving multinational crews and higher retirement levels, enveloped in the bigger challenge posed by more lucrative land-based employment opportunities.
Simply paying more in seafarer salaries was not the answer, he stressed. Instead, V.Ships sought to address reality by offering recruits a guarantee of a lifelong job if they so desired, wrapped into a clearly defined career development path. The assurance of emails and internet use was an integral component of the company’s approach. V.Ships had a goal of increasing its world-leading pool of 23,500 seafarers to 60,000 by 2010, Mr Bishop declared.
To this end, the company was placing greater emphasis on having cadets on board its managed ships, a number expected to rise from the present 765 to 1,500-2,000. He identified the US and Canada as crew supply markets “worth revisiting” as the wage gap with the developing world narrowed.
In a strictly US con text, Overseas Shipholding Group’s vice-president for marine labour relations, Norm Gauslow, echoed the substance of Mr Bishop’s comments. OSG’s 16 product tanker newbuilding programme in Philadelphia and six articulated tug barge newbuilding programme in Alabama had thrown up the need for 1,000 new seafarers ranging from entry-level unlicensed crew to middle and senior-level officers, Mr Gauslow said.
OSG was prepared for this challenge with a recruitment strategy that would promise entrants more than just the cash. The company’s focus would be on defining clear career paths for seafarers, he said.
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