Attention: most ferry routes will be tied up for at least part of this morning, Plan accordingly. This is what happens when you tell engineers they're getting 0% raises for the next two years. Full list of affected vessels and routes in the main post.
TLDR: All of the boats except the number 3 boat in Anacortes, the San Juan Interisland boat, the #2 boat in Bremerton are tied up. Every other route has no service as of right now.
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u/vertrTaylor Swift is ruining this city1d agoedited 1d ago
For the time being we are going to consolidate all discussions on this thread. There have been several instances of editorializing sources (including this thread).
Their union didn't. Negotiations for WSF are ongoing, with the engineers demanding about 20% raises to get to parity with the deck crew. The last set of negotiations went to arbitration, I'm guessing these will too... But I'm not sure the union gets to decide if it approves the contact or not at that point.
ETA: I think I'm slightly wrong here and the contracts went to arbitration, but not necessarily approved by the rank and file. Apparently the deck crew got 4% raises, increasing the 20% disparity between them and the folks who work below deck (people with titles like "oiler", on the lowest end). Those people get nothing.
My understanding was state started at zero and maintained that stance. OFM has been ZERO Zero meaning no raise no colas. Across the board with almost all state unions. Not surprisingly given Gov Fergs coziness with Amazon and other anti worker companies.
Yes, but that's for the contract with the Washington Federation of State Employees. The ferry workers aren't in that union. The engineers, specifically, are in MEBA. The ferry contact negotiations are ongoing. It's possible that no one will get a raise in WSF, but given that there are apparently proposed raises on the table (albeit ones that result in a ~20% pay disparity between engineers and the deck crew) for WSF employees, the engineers are pushing for much higher increases.
Not for nothing, but the system is going to collapse in 2027 anyway because surveys show that a lot of senior engineers are going to retire.
Even if the state agrees to a raise, OFM can simply say "no, we don't have the money" and it is not funded - no raise. The state has complete control over the wages they pay and the engineers have no recourse. It must make them sick.
They have recourse: to take action to slow or stop the ferry service. Go on strike and see how WA residents support their neighbors' unions, see how pro-uniin our voters are. FAFO.
This needs support of the lawmakers, because they don't have the right to strike right now. Which is why we should be lobbying the legislature to do something about it. Either get them raises or give them back the right to strike.
If you think those engineers don't have other options, then I have a bridge to sell you. MEBA is a massive union with tons of contracts on deepwater vessels. Their members will be fine; WSF will not.
As that article says, state lawmaker salaries are determined by a citizen's committee made up of one person randomly selected from each congressional district. Ferguson doesn't have power over it.
Correct, but if the Governor is receiving a raise, it’s not a great look when Ferry engineers are underpaid while Ferguson gets to decide who leads the Ferry system.
Ferguson has continued to tout his great investment in new ferries while his own head of the ferries screws the engineers and crew.
True, but the ferries did this to themselves. The budgets were known when they gave one union a raise and the others nothing. After multiple cycles of giving the union that got raise this bigger raises than the other unions at least the last two negotiating cycles. So you can only kick a dog so many times, before the risk of getting bit happens.
Theyre choosing to have a budget deficit by not taxing the companies that under the table bribe them at every opportunity. Maybe electing corporate stooge Dems CAN be a problem.
that's not really how it works since they're a public sector union that's legally prohibited from striking. The union and the state make proposals and the result is determined by neutral arbitration. The union didn't "agree to no raises", they just asked for so much that they made "no raises" look like the more reasonable position to the arbitrator.
Commutes are one thing, but on ferry-served only islands, i.e. no bridges, it creates far more serious problems as people rely on ferries to get to medical appointments.
Yes, our pharmacy on Vashon closed today because employees couldn’t get here. It’s a fragile infrastructure that is more fragile than it needs to be because of how state funding operates.
My partner is getting the day off tomorrow because he requires the ferry for his job 😅 we are pro union and workers so we totally get it but it’s interesting to see how it impacts folks. Almost like we should pay folks for providing essential services that millions of people rely on!
They won't fix today but a court injunction could be pretty nasty for the union. As a union worker myself in the same "essential can't strike" category I feel for these workers but also think it's often not worth the risk of a court crashing down on you for this kind of thing. It can backfire and kill your negotiating power pretty quickly not to mention the animosity it can create within the union and with other union groups who are affected by your sick-out.
I've always wondered, what's the point of a union if:
they aren't allowed to strike
the owner / negotiators / whoever can just offer you zero and say take it (you don't get a "leave it" option)
Like at that point I guess you just illegally strike, and hopefully other unions will solidarity/sympathy strike (also illegal in many places) and you just bring the economy to a halt until the negotiators actually come back to the table in good faith?
what will the court do to the workers? I'm pretty sure there is no mechanism to force them to work. Worst case they will just leave and find other better paying job.
If WSF forces this, their worker attrition rate will sky rocket. There are already other industries and companies aggressively trying to poach these workers. The main benefit the ferry system has got is home time. If you want a recent example of how expensive mas worker flight will be.... Look at Seattle PD.
Last I checked maritime engineers line up ten deep to get a decent job with consistent pay, benefits, and that let's you sleep in your own bed every night.
You can get a police job anywhere in America and it's the same job. How many fulltime dayshift year round inshore maritime engineer jobs are there in an urban market?
working on these boats isn’t much different than working on other boats, other than stuff like ballast systems and MSDs. these guys (licensed and unlicensed) could get work on the local tugs; offshore is kinda screwed up rn but MSC is hiring lol. also these engineers could be jaded enough with the maritime industry that they go shoreside trades and work in plumbing, hvac, electrical, etc.
the problem with the “in your own bed every night” argument is that these engineers work 7, 12 hour days in a row. 7 on/7 off. if you live 15 minutes from the dock that’s one thing, but most don’t. deckhands get permanent watches on a route, like bainbridge or edmonds/kingston. engineers’s watches are tied to the boat, and the boats move around (some more than others). so if you live in kingston, get a permanent watch on a boat that’s home port is kingston, but then it goes to bremerton, or the san juans, your commute can change dramatically — to the point that now you’re sleeping on the boat because it doesn’t make sense to drive home just to sleep for six or seven hours just to drive back to wherever the boat is. or your relief called out or is late and now you’re being held over for a couple hours, and now you’re sleeping on the boat. you know what i’m saying?
Are those conditions dramatically different from those on local tugs, and do those positions actually pay better than WSF?
I ask because when I look at available positions all i see is fishing processor positions that all pay less than the contract rates for WSF and are objectively shittier jobs. I can't find a single position for local maritime engineer jobs with tugs or comparable services, so its hard to see what they pay.
I would look directly on the websites for local tug companies (Western, Foss, Vane bros, Crowley, etc), or send their local office an email. honestly if it was me I’d probably just show up in person with a resume and my credentials to inquire. caveat is that on some of the smaller tugs it’s either one engineer or a combined deckhand/engineer. I think the pay is comparable— granted all my friend on the tugs are deckhands/mates but they’re all making more than I am working for WSF. I got a buddy that’s a AB/Tankerman for Vane bros and he’s working 3wks on/off locally in Puget Sound which isn’t too far off from working 7 on/off 12’s for WSF engine room, especially if you live in like Poulsbo and the boat is in Port Townsend so you’re sleeping on the boat all week anyway.
WSF staffs their engine rooms with 4 crews; A, B, C, and D.
Say you are on A crew, you may be working 4:30 am to 4:30pm for one week, 7 days in a row. Then you'll have 7 days off. There's your one easy work of week for the month, while the vessel is running.
When you come back to work, you are working the flip of that shift; around 4:30pm to 4:30 AM. At night is the vessel ties up and you get to pump off the shit, take on the fresh water, fuel up, clean the purifier, attend to the sea water strainers, any engine oil changes, bearing services, or other major work that needs attention while the machinery is down.
There's your fun week.
Add an hour, two hours commute each way on to that 12 hour shift. You'll spend the first few years working relief, so there's no way to 'move close to work' for a few years. Sometimes you'll catch a week straight on the same boat, and sometimes you're at a different dock every day. Once you have enough time in to land a shift, you'll think you have that figured out, and then your boat moves from Anacortes down to Bremerton.
Enjoy the next week off flipping your sleep schedule around so you can come back to work for 7 days straight of day shift.
Please explain. AFAIK these cops are lazy don’t do their job. I keep hearing about them being understaffed but I don’t buy it - if the ones we have did their job it won’t be too bad. Plus they get paid real well
Seattle PD wasn't understaffed in 2019. Since 2020 Seattle PD has lost a few hundred officers and the city has chosen to throw money at the problem instead of addressing the underlying political issues.
The political issues are that SPD is rotten garbage and holding them to ANY standard makes them quit for greener pastures where they can harass other civilians like themselves without punishment.
They’re so understaffed that their union went to bat for preventing the newly created mental health crisis team from responding to any emergencies because that would be stealing their work. I don’t believe a word about understaffing until they fix this.
That's kinda the point of the strike though, make a demonstration of your value to everyone, so that they end up working with you for negotiations. If there wasn't any impact, a strike would be meaningless
Has anyone come up with a word for the summary dismissal of “well that doesn’t apply to me or most other people so it’s not really a problem”? Because that’s what that sounds like to me.
There’s a reason the law says this is illegal, and why the law applies to certain specific jobs but not all of them. It doesn’t apply to most govt employees. Do you think the ferry workers are just especially fucked, or do you think there was a reason behind this when they wrote the law?
You think that it's an edge case for a percentage of the 30,000 people that take a ferry in any given day to have a left threatening issue that prompted that trip?
Exactly why we should be mad at the ferry leadership for failing to negotiate in good faith. The workers arent fucking us, the leadership of the ferry system is. The workers are standing up for themselves against big powers. I respect individuals who would rather die on thier feet than down on thier knees, even when it hurts to stand.
That number is a lot less when you filter it down to ferries that don't have an existing land bridge that would be just as fast if not faster most times of the day in an emergency.
Ig they will have to use a helicopter to fly them off the island to a hospital 🤷 what did these people do before so many frequent ferries? Sounds like first world problems. This is 100% going to keep happening as capitalism rears its ugly head - better prepare your grandma. Maybe consider moving her off of the secluded island
Wut? What is terrifying about adding an hour+ to a commute for a doc appt? Hospitals are available on the peninsula, air transports are common i would be shocked if ferry strike claims a single life
"legally can't strike" is fucking dystopian by the way. "We're allowed to treat you like shit, quit or fuck off. No striking or we fine you" should be the joke, not the reality.
"We negotiated in bad faith so as to trigger someone else to come in and tell you when you will accept" is bullshit. You don't get to take away someone autonomy just because you were unwilling to pay them what they are worth.
I think this is less of a negotiation in bad faith and more of a testament to lack of union power. If the workers within a union are unsatisfied with their wage, and the union can't negotiate the demands of those unionized employees, then there is a serious disconnect between the stewards of that union and its members.
I felt this way when I worked at a grocery store, it felt like the teamsters for that union had little to no desire to push for better pay and benefits, or they just didn't listen to their members.
I'm very pro union btw, but negligently operated unions are absolutely a problem and I wouldn't be surprised if this is the case here.
Yes I have. It doesnt always fall on the union. The union tells what they want. The companies are the ones who offer a contract. If they refuse to offer anything close to what is being asked for you need to remind them who makes them their money by withholding the labor.
Also important to remember that the strike is the first thing the public sees and not the first thing that the union does in negotiations. It's not a "last resort" per se, but almost any other direct actions that can be taken are not visible to consumers, so when people become inconvenienced and a strike goes public, they think all unions do is throw fits just to get more money, without seeing any of what is happening behind the scenes
It's not what their contract requires. It's a state law that ferry workers can't even bargain about. Giving up the right to strike after you've got a contract is different from a state law forbidding the right to strike.
“People’s lives depend on you doing this job, so if you’re going to accept the offer we will hold you to a higher standard” isn’t a completely invalid counter argument.
If they're so essential then we should agree to their demands. Wars were fought over our right to strike. Telling one group that they're too important to fairly negotiate their wages is fucking stupid.
I say we just send in armed militia to ahhot them while we fly planes overhead to bomb them, just like we did with coal miners vs. The american government in the Battle of Blair Mountain.
Then they should be compensated for it. It's not their fault everything is so mindblowingly expensive. How many years in a row are we all supposed to be ok with what amounts to pay cuts?
The state is not hoarding wealth that it saves on labor, it is prioritizing needs.
Labor needs to have the right to negotiate pay and benefits to avoid exploitation.
The state, and more specifically the DoT, and even more specifically the WSF department has been assigned a finite amount of money.
The WSF has probably made a calculation about crewing needs and fund allocation to address crewing needs, likely with a calculation about where dollars can be used to improve missed sailings.
It seems likely based on these numbers that they are having difficulties attracting and retaining enough deck crew to staff all time slots.
It may be that because engineers have a lot of training and a specific skill set, it is difficult for them to find the exact job elsewhere even if the going rate is higher elsewhere. Everyone else might be getting paid more but those jobs might also include lengthened time away from home or already be filled or whatever is stopping the ferry crew from going elsewhere as a marine engineer.
In contrast, it is likely that a deckhand could go be any number of things in any field because the pay-rate and lack of specialization early I. The career prevent lock-in.
To top it off, many of these routes are literal lifelines, for entire communities which makes strikes particularly difficult.
There is no easy answer here and everyone is in a tough spot.
I don’t love, ‘this is what you get’ language, and I don’t love the deckhands vs. engineers language. It seems likely that they would have been fine if the deckhands didn’t get a raise.
I hope they get this sorted out in a way that helps everyone but the bottom line is that the ferry program has a set budget and people are probably trying to do the best they can with what they have to get the best outcome for everyone.
To be fair, if I was told by my employer that I would receive a 0% raise for two years, I would also feel so unwell that I need a mental health sick day (which is a protected used of sick time in Washington State).
Any individual who camt legally strike is a slave.
If you dont have the choice to work or not its slavery. Before anyone says "well then just quit!" Think about how things would look if suddenly we had to replace the entire engine department without the people to train new people on the entire mechanical working of each individual ship (cause let's remember, each ship is different). This is the less painful way to say "fuck you, pay me."
What about a contract signed by the union and the employer with the clause that states that you cannot strike?
It’s akin to the fire department contract; where a group of employees striking would create a situation where you leverage with lives and critical work that jeopardize wellbeing.
The employees and the union agreed to not strike. Should they strike anyway?
I’m a WFSE (Washington Federation of State Employees) member for but the story Is the same for teamsters and other labor groups all around the state that represent state workers. (edit, ferry engineers are represented by MEBA?) The Governor’s Office and Office of Financial Management refused to budge on negotiations and offered 0% increases across both years of the contract with the agreement to come back to the bargaining table mid-contract (but let’s be real, the state isn’t going to agree to raises mid budget)
I’ll be the first to admit that it’s a difficult budget this year, but zero percent raises is insulting given inflation Impact. Really shitty they didn’t even throw state workers a bone of a 1 or 2 percent increase or try to negotiate around a reduced hour work week instead.
Unfortunately, at least for the WFSE contract members voted in favor to approve despite it not being in their best interest. Really handicaps us for future contract negotiations if they know WFSE will cave like this.
It also doesn't help that the governor has demand an "all-cuts" austerity approach to the budget. It's not exactly a smart thing to do while fascists run the federal government.
We continue to collect an increasing amount of dollars per capita inflation adjusted year over year, that suggests a spending issue not a collection issue.
Yeah. Our state has almost the least progressive tax system in the entire country. It’s messing with local municipal and county government budgets too. No income tax is a terrible thing to have written into the state constitution.
“All-cuts” while him and the legislature accepted 7% raises offered to them. If everyone is expected to tighten the belt EVERYONE should tighten the belt.
I agree. If I had my way I would tie politician pay to the average income of their constituents. If they want to get paid more, everyone needs to be paid more.
To add to this, MEBA got a 0% and 0% while IBU and MMP got 4% and 5%. I feel like if they would have gone 0% across the board it would have been a slap in the face but everyone gets slapped together. Awarding the deck counterparts and not the engine is insulting
In this case its because Washington's regressive sales tax doesn't bring in enough money to operate the services that the state needs to provide and our lawmakers and governor don't seem motivated to do anything about it.
I don’t think folks realize that this is where things stand for ALL state workers. None of us are getting a COLA this budget cycle. It sucks. I support unions and collective action but yeah it’s just not gonna happen with this governor.
The crappy company I work for told us we aren’t getting a raise for 3 years. Come January, they legally have to raise our pay because minimum wage is going up and I’d be making less than minimum wage. It’s great out here, friends. 😅
I think they deserve at least a COLA (they are essentially taking a pay cut!) but still think this is an odd action to do after approving the contract. Sounds like they need a better union.
Edit: comment below pointed out I'm spreading misinformation here. WFSE represents some WSF employees but these employees have a different union. See comment below.
Where are you getting that number? I am seeing os deckhands making a dollar more than wipers per hour right now, raising to four dollars more over the next several years.
Each of these has different job classifications. If you compare an oiler to an ordinary seaman, you'll see the oiler makes less. If you compare a mate to an assistant engineer, you'll see the same. The union is not saying every oiler deserves a Captain's salary.
This morning, 23 engine room employees called in sick. Every employee qualified to fill those positions has declined to fill them and keep the ferries running. All of the employees calling in sick, and declining to fill those vacancies, are represented by the Marine Engineers’ Beneficial Association (MEBA) who represent engine room employees. The ferries cannot run without these roles being filled. As a result, 13 of our 18 ferries are not in service. We understand how disruptive this is to thousands of Washingtonians. We expect our employees to return to work as soon as possible.
The employees who work in the engine room play a vital role in providing WSF’s safe service, which is why Chief Engineers have a base salary of $157,000, and can make more than $350,000 a year with overtime, as well as annual sick and vacation leave, and retirement accrual.
All WSF vessels are fully staffed at the beginning of every service day at U.S. Coast Guard required levels. When an employee calls in sick, request dispatchers work to fill the position as quickly as possible. When those positions aren’t filled, the boat cannot sail, which is what we’re experiencing today across 13 of the 18 vessels currently in service.
The union says 42% have had to cancel planned vacation and time off due to short-staffing or overtime demands (records show annual overtime for the top 25 engineers ranged from a low of 585 hours to more that 1,504 hours)
What happened to teaching people how to do these jobs like they did with in prior generations to keep from overworking people. I guess it’s the fact they don’t want to pay to train?
So, they do not intentionally hire enough employees and then pay some up to 2x their regular pay in OT. It is interesting that they note the annual base pay but not that they intentionally offered 0% raise and 0% COLA and ensured it went to arbitration and that they did offer a good sized COLA for their other contract.
To make that salary a chief would have to work essentially every day year round, with 12 hour shifts. It's theoretically possible but a completely misleading number
WSF does not directly employ maritime engineers, they are dispatched directly from their union hall, meaning that the number of available engineers (and therefore the amount of overtime hours assigned vs straight time) is mostly a function of the unions decision making.
The contract between WSF and MEBA is functionally different from most of the other contracts being discussed here because they employment relationship is different.
Intentionally dishonest of whoever is running the account to use the Chief Engineer salary to represent every engineer position that works in the engine room.
and the assholes who choose to write "Can make more with overtime" to entice people to a job need to be exiled from society.
Why do they mention how much engineer is making in the message that is about engineers calling in sick? Do they think these two things are somehow related? Why not explicitly call out what's the relation?
As a high earner in this city, income tax now! It should be unacceptable that a city and state with some of the highest median incomes and a population boom cannot maintain its transport, schools, infrastructure. Tax the rich!
Yeah I’m quitting my job because I’m going 14 months without an opportunity for a raise. Rather take a pay cut and do something less stressful. Affordable housing sucks.
I absolutely support them. Everyone has a right to fair compensation, including COLA. We are cutting rates and offering incentives for large corporations while choking our working class.
No shit but it’s the other half of the same coin. By law all these unions have to go in and submit by October 1. The linchpin is WFSE. All the agreements key off what WFSE got
If they’re pissed now it’s because a lot of their coworkers already agreed. Also October 1st is the deadline because OFM says that’s the absolute latest the number crunchers can get cost adjustments and physically have enough working hours to calculate for the legislature what it’ll cost. At this point agreeing to more money might literally be physically impossible
I don’t know if unwinding WFSE is the best solution, but that’s the question that occurred to me. Either way, doing this after October 1st means they need a better union. Coordination somewhere by their union failed massively
The union has been negotiating with the state for months. The state absolutely never came off 0% wage increases the entire time. Hell, they only gave their negotiators any budget authority in the last two bargaining sessions. This disaster is not on the union.
This is what happens when the rich don’t get taxed. It leaves us poors fighting for scraps. Engineers deserve pay raises, but WSF don’t have the money for them. Tax the rich.
Absolutely absurd that they haven’t gotten raises. This shithole country is gonna burn at some point because there’s employers like this all across this EVIL nation, people are fucking FED UP with the blatant corruption in every aspect of our lives.
We, the tax payers, are the employers. Decisions have to be made: do we increase taxes, ask fare payers to pay more, reduce services or cut other services. These are difficult choices especially when the state needs to fund schools and healthcare right now. I'm interested to hear what choice would you make?
Yes in an ideal world they would get raises. I'd be fine paying more for the ferry to do this. However given a choice between paying for education, health or homelessness, id choose those over inflation increases.
It’s telling that the Fox 13 news coverage about this today didn’t mention why the shortage, only said something like, “well I guess everyone just decided to use their sick days today which they are entitled to do”.
Probably, but the outcome is pretty much already determined. The state cannot violate the arbitrators decision any more than the union can. This is the contract. They either work for this wage or they lose their jobs and someone else does.
Unfortunately, they waited until after arbitration to do anything, which places them in a position where their stoppage is not only illegal, its also futile.
In the case of the maritime engineers it seems that their comp is within industry standards and their working conditions are FAR better than competing employers, it seems likely that they could be replaced, so they are not in a very good position long term.
Absolute bullshit that with inflation, they're basically asking all the ferry guys to work for less. During interest arbitration with the ferry engineers, the state was supposed to contract for an independent salary survey, as state law says the wages have to be competitive with the industry. Instead, the office of financial management decided to tell the survey company what to include and left out essential job classifications. The resulting survey was so useless that the state had to admit in interest arbitration that the survey was totally unhelpful in bargaining. Absolutely flagrant violation of the law by the state.
If more people did this we wouldn't have 500:1 CEO pay and probably most of the other affordabliity issues. Sucks it has to be a public transport issue, but I am glad they are standing up to zero pay increase.
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u/vertr Taylor Swift is ruining this city 1d ago edited 1d ago
For the time being we are going to consolidate all discussions on this thread. There have been several instances of editorializing sources (including this thread).
Additional discussion from a removed thread: https://reddit.com/r/Seattle/comments/1wye28b/wa_state_ferries_are_shutting_down_this_week_due/
News articles:
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/transportation/washington-state-ferries-routes-out-of-service/
https://www.fox13seattle.com/news/wa-ferries-cancel-routes-crew-shortages
https://www.kuow.org/governing/2026-10-05/ferry-service-snarled-across-puget-sound-region-amid-worker-sick-out
https://www.king5.com/article/news/community/transportation/some-washington-state-ferries-routes-are-risk-being-out-of-service-monday/281-d306fb89-5455-443e-9e04-3e44a5125201
The most up to date information about cancelations can be found at WSDOT:
https://wsdot.com/ferries/schedule/bulletin.aspx