NEWS: NCL jobs harder than expected

[spleen93]

Big splash across the front page of the Honolulu Advertiser: "Cruise line jobs not what some thought" - talks about the difficulties of the job aboard cruise ships (NCL in particular in reference to NCL America) and how Americans as a whole seem ill-prepared for the rigors of duties on-board.

 

Interesting reading.

 

For details, follow the link here

 

Spleen

 

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[SweetEmi]

Very interesting Spleen. I doesn't sound anything like what I was told by staff when we cruised back in September...but it is the training phase so that might be the difference. I hope they have the staff come July 4 to run everything.

 

Emi

 

NCL Star-08/31/03 in Hawaii!

NCL Star-11/13/04 to Mexico!

Alaska summer 2005!

[spleen93]

Frankly, I'm not surprised. I always thought that it would be a rude shock for most Americans to try to work on a cruise ship - the hours of work and the non-stop nature of it is very alien to us. I expected that NCL would have to raise wages to make it more palatable for a U.S. crew to work on NCL America and as a result, expected that fares on NCL America would have to be higher than the fares on regular NCL in order to compensate. Hope I'm wrong ...

 

Spleen

 

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[bobnsandi]

NCL was on the MCC campus this past week, and none of the students were even talking to them. I think they're having problems getting staffed.

[MOMofONE]

An eye opening article spleen!

It's no wonder they are having trouble filling jobs - and apparently they are offering twice the pay base to American workers!

I'm especially curious about the line reading:

 

"The company also noted that some workers get tips from a tip pool. In most cases the tip amount would be deducted from employees' "completion bonus," so their total pay would not change"

 

I thought tips were "above & beyond" their pay, like any other land-based service job that is heavily reliant on tips.

I asked about this in another thread because on the NCL American flagged ships, the gratuity is mandatory and not negotiable - it is billed to your shipboard account as a "service charge" and NCL brochure specifically states it is NOT a gratuity.

 

Not very happy that my "tips" are actually paying the cruise line's contracts for them.

Is this the same for all cruise lines?

 

Tina

[bug_dan]

I would have thought that some of the crew from the Independence/Patriot would take those jobs. Maybe by now they've moved on to other jobs and have no desire to go back. One of the reasons that Americans don't like cruise ship postions is the lack of days off, also no overtime for those 10 hour+ days and 7 day weeks.

 

Dan

 

Infinity Panama Canal 10/17/2004

 

[This message was edited by bug_dan on 04-19-04 at 06:44 AM.]

[spleen93]

Tina - I think for a LOT of cruise lines, the tips are being used as a way to fill in the employees' wages and not as a "bonus". In fact, the only lines in which this is probably not the case would be the luxury lines such as Silverseas or Radisson where tipping is included in the fare.

 

It's a tough situation. We the public like our fares to be cheap but also don't like to be nickle-and-dimed or to have expected/mandatory tipping. We like to have our cake and eat it too.

 

Spleen

 

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[mnstar]

We saw some "shawdowing" as new staff was being trained in last week. None, we saw appeared to be "American."

 

FYI ~ We were told 50% of the staff was from the Phillipines, 30% were working in the dining rooms. One wait person from the Philipines told us the "George Washingtons" she earned transferred to alot of money in local currency, so she was very pleased to have her job...

[Suebee]

FYI - The advertiser had a very long retraction this week. Turns out, the people that said they quit because of pay disputes were actually let go. Nearly a page long and through two sections of the paper, the article gave NCL it's voice in the matter where they didnt really in the first place.

 

NCL Star 1/04

What's Next? Alaska 2005 - Ask me about an official CC group!

[daWoods]

What!!!You mean to say there really are two sides to every story??? Typical media hype. Give the bitchers the first stab at it, and then, when pushed, go after the other side.

 

Island Princess Feb. 2004

Grand Princess Feb. 2002

Norwegian Sky Feb. 2001

 

[Suebee]

Yeah, 1/2 of the article was an apology by the paper....they didnt do their job.

 

NCL Star 1/04

What's Next? Alaska 2005 - Ask me about an official CC group!

[spleen93]

Haven't been reading the paper lately so I missed this.

 

The link to the mea culpa by the Honolulu Advertiser and the corrections noted is here.

 

Thanks for posting that, Suebee!

 

Spleen

 

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Carnival Conquest - W. Caribbean - 10/03, Celebrity Infinity - Alaska - 6/03, Ocean Princess - Alaska - 7/02

[Suebee]

I nearly missed it in the paper myself....I almost didnt read that section.

 

I am glad you found a copy of it to share!

 

Sue

 

NCL Star 1/04

What's Next? Alaska 2005 - Ask me about an official CC group!

[SweetEmi]

Wow! Thanks...that was very interesting.

 

Emi

 

NCL Star-08/31/03 in Hawaii!

NCL Star-11/13/04 to Mexico!

Alaska summer 2005!

[spleen93]

And finally, NCL gets a chance to respond directly to the article ... here

 

Spleen

 

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[klamathcraig]

That certainly doesn't sound like NCL spin. And it appears they have all the documentation to back up their defense. Too bad the Advertiser didn't take the time to look into the documents that NCL offered in their defense, before they published their story. Thanks Spleen, for bringing this to our attention.

 

Craig

 

Island Dreams

http://www.island-dreams.us/

 

NCL Pride Of Aloha 09/2004

Tahitian Princess 03/2003 FP/Rarotonga

Renaissance R3 10/2000 French Polynesia

Celebrity Meridian 01/1993 Southern Caribbean

Costa Classica 03/1992 Eastern Caribbean

Crown Princess 06/1991 Western Caribbean

 

[SweetEmi]

VERY interesting! But this was in the Opinions (Letters to the Editor) section? Nothing else from the Advertiser?

 

You go NCL!

 

Emi

 

NCL Star-08/31/03 in Hawaii!

NCL Star-11/13/04 to Mexico!

Alaska summer 2005!

[spleen93]

Actually, it was in the Focus section of the Sunday paper. I found the online version in the opinion section of the website.

 

Actually, I'm surprised that NCL actually made a response at all since they seemed pretty ticked off at the Advertiser altogether at the last juncture. I figure the Advertiser has already apologized to NCL for its handling of the issue so they didn't want to add any more to the NCL article this time around.

 

Spleen

 

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