jan-n-john

nearly all, if not all, service employees/crew are union members and their terms of employment are covered by the Collective Bargaining Agreement. FIT, an Italian union, represents Celebrity employees.

 

 

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According to RCCL's 2013 10K report, which is incorporated into its Annual Report, approximately 80% of its shipboard employees are covered by collective bargaining agreements. Like everything else, it does not break that out by its individual brands, but the company asserts elsewhere, as a basis for presenting all its data on a consolidated basis, that all its various operations are similar; as such, it may be inferred that the percentage for Celebrity is roughly the same.

The 10K also states that RCCL, in common with all international shipping operations, passenger and cargo, must conform to the "International Labor Organization's Consolidated Maritime Labour Convention which became effective in August 2013. The Convention reflects a broad range of standards and conditions governing all aspects of crew management for ships in international commerce, including additional requirements not previously in effect relating to the health, safety, repatriation, entitlements and status of crewmembers and crew recruitment practices."

Some mainstream cruise lines do hire directly themselves, and have entertainer staff from the US.

 

Also, similarly, the childcare staff of cruiselines are direct employees, and often of US origin, as well as many other nationalities.

 

As with other ship staff though through to the captain, they are working on contracts.

If you look at my original post (#104) from which you are quoting only a fragment, you will see that in that same post I already pointed out that sometimes Americans are hired for jobs of that nature. (It was in an edit, within the 20 minute limit). The reference was exactly to staff such as entertainment directors and child care where persons familiar with the culture are appropriate and necessary.

I'll take your word for it that some lines hire entertainers directly, but I doubt it's the common case. I certainly agree that many or most of the entertainers are Americans, at least for trips out of the US, but in most cases they are provided by agencies and are not direct employees. I know I once looked into getting a gig as an enrichment lecturer (I worked for many years in maritime transport studies), and quickly discovered that the only way to do that was through an agency, never the cruise line itself. The same is true of most entertainers.

As to everybody working on contracts, sure, every employee no doubt has an employment contract of some type. But that's not the same as the contract between an entertainer and an agency, which agency then contracts with the ship to provide the entertainer. That's a horse of a completely different color.

Also an Aussie and yes we do get dressed up quite a lot of the time.

 

 

Qantas (code share American Airlines) and Virgin allow 2 pieces of checked baggage up to 23 kg each per passenger in economy class. I believe all airlines operating between the US and Australia have to do this but check with the airline or your TA. This will allow you to throw in as many ballgowns as you wish or Tuxes.

 

If you have internal flights you will need to check with your TA.

 

Have a good time!

Well, just to be clear, we will be away from home for about 40 nights on this trip. We will be flying first to Singapore for a few days then onward to Sydney, then a B2B Transpac to Vancouver, then flying home. Not likely we will be able to make it with 20kg of clothes unless we want to spend lots of money at the ship's laundry which, me being cheap, drives me nuts on principle, but so be it (maybe that's my inner bogan coming out??). The SIN-SYD leg is a cheap ticket on BA and turns out to have a 1 bag, 23kg. limit each (free allowance), with a 70 lb. per bag absolute limit, so that's the ruling limit for us at least outbound. Looks like we'll end up paying some overweight charges on that one. But anyway I'm trying to figure out what clothing we really need -- hence this thread.

When I started the thread I thought it might turn a bit crazy, and it has, which is a good thing. I think we are going to enjoy this trip! Can't wait. (It's the Solstice transpac leaving Sydney next April 3). And to the person above who equated bogan with redneck, yes, I live in deep redneck country (Western NC). Could this have anything to do with why we enjoy getting away and cruising so much?

70 lb. weight limit? It's only 50 lbs on most airlines unless, of course, you are flying first class, then 70 lb would be ok, and you could take 3 pieces of luggage each, with more than enough room/weight for a suit or tux. :)

Oops, you're right. It's worse than I thought. We did upgrade to business for part of the trip (70 lb.), but for another part we're in steerage so the free allowance is only 23kg (51lb.) Drat. Maybe that jacket isn't going to make the trip after all. I guess we'll be dining at the buffet on formal nights (well, I lied, we are in AQ so we'll just skip the MDR all together and go to Blu).

We live in Australia and sailed out of Sydney on a 13 night cruise on Solstice last year. Most of the passengers were Australian.

 

There were three formal nights and on each occasion the dressing was of a standard consistent with Celebrity policy. Tuxes, formal gowns worn by many, but dark suits, cocktail dresses worn by the majority. In fact most people seemed to enjoy the opportunity to dress up.

 

We did see some passengers dressed less formally , but they were heading to the Oceanview buffet.

 

The standard of dress in the mdr every night was smart casual. No shorts in sight!

Well thank you and thanks to all the others who have responded to my original inquiry. Looks like I'll have to at least bring along a jacket, even with the lousy 70 lb. luggage weight limit.

We certainly don't want to look like bogans, but maybe I'll pick up a pair of Stubbies anyway before we sail (wow I'm learning all these new Austrailian terms already!) :)

We may be taking this conversation too far off the original track, but just a clarification. The obligation or non-obligation of providing workers compensation insurance is not whether an employee is or is not a US citizen per se. The rules have more to do with much more complicated legal requirements related to where the company is located, owned, operating, etc., etc.. I am not claiming to be an expert on work comp for cruise employees, but I know that much is true.

 

And related, to comment on another post, just because ships provide medical care onboard does not necessarily mean they provide medical care at all once the person leaves the ship, even if the injury/illness occurred while sailing. Perhaps they are, I don't know. But I don't think we can assume so.

Well, as you say we're getting a little far afield here, but one last post to clarify further. This is my understanding. It all relates to the registration (flag) of the ship. Substantially any US flag ship, cruise or otherwise, must be 100% crewed by US citizens or resident aliens (with a green card). On such a ship, the employer is subject to US labor laws and must provide workmans comp same as any US employer. On a non-US flag ship, which will certainly be crewed by non-US citizens, there is no US jurisdiction related to labor matters, US labor laws do not apply, and as such there is not and cannot be an obligation that the owner carry US workmans comp -- this is true no matter that the beneficial owner is a US company with principal offices in the US. It's the nationality of the ship itself (registration/flag) that matters. Further, I don't believe that such an owner needs to supply workmans comp even to the odd american who might be employed on the ship, any more than a factory in, say, France that happens to employ an American would need to do such a thing. In the main, workers of any nationality working on foreign soil (including ships flagged on that soil) are subject to the labor laws of that soil, not US laws.

That said, in order to recruit workers and keep the workforce happy, it is clearly necessary for the prospective employer to attend to such matters as what happens in the event of injury. There may be laws in the flag nation that apply. There are international standards that apply and that all nations observe. So it's not as if these workers are not protected. But the protection does not devolve from US law, but other laws and customs.

With regard to your post just above about airline fares, low fares for the other guy only have a negative effect on your fare if that cheap guy displaces someone else who would have been willing to pay a higher fare. That might have happened in days gone by, but in the modern era it would be the rare airline that would let it happen if it could be avoided. That's why airlines have devoted large resources to yield management systems -- those systems job is exactly to prevent just that scenario. Again I can't speak for every airline out there, and the state of the art is always changing, but my belief would be that these days if cruise lines want positive space for their crew they are going to have to pay the price. Airlines that plan to stay in business don't give away revenue any more.

Well makes sense, I guess, and probably a part of the reason there are so few US citizens as employees on ships, although I have seen more in the last few years but mostly in entertainment and front desk/operations positions. Have yet to see a housekeeping/maintenance/dining room/bartender from the US....and of course they may well be there but if so there aren't many.

I wold be extremely surprised if ever any US citizen were working in service positions on a cruise ship. They can make more working at Micky D's. In fact, I doubt the lines would recruit a US cit for those jobs, since it might bring with it other issues, but I don't have specific knowledge.

Entertainers, lecturers, and the like are not employees. They are provided to the ship under a contract with agencies who specialize in such things. They are paid by the agencies.

You will find the occasional American in the upper-level executive or navigation ranks on a ship; for those jobs, the US vs. foreign market pay is much more comparable. For some slots, it's appropriate to have a native English speaker, someone who grew up in the culture of the pax, i.e. another American or close analogue (Brit? Canadian? Aussie?), or at least someone who spent years in one of those places and is comfortable in the culture. Still, it's not the usual situation.

I honestly don't know whether they are covered but suspect they are.

I know that a stateroom attendant we had years ago slipped and cut themselves bad enough to require stitches. When I asked him about his injury he advised that the med staff on the ship takes care of those kinds of things.

 

Now whether or not they would cover and continue to pay wages for a more long term, serious injury...who knows?

I'm sorry, but you suspect wrong. Non US citizen crew working on a non-US flagged vessel are not covered by workmans comp.

The fact that the med staff would attend to a crewman's injury I should think would go without saying. That's one of the reasons they're there. But that has nothing to do with US workmans comp law.

In the case of a serious injury, the crew person does have recourse to US courts under current law. But that is a whole 'nother ballgame.

The point is that straight out numbers don't tell the whole tale. It was nice to hear from someone who actually works in the industry and has firsthand knowledge.

 

And as far as workmen's comp is concerned which you stated, correctly, covers a shipboard employee, here is a link to how they are covered:

 

http://www.maritimelawfirms.com/resources/maritime/maritime-workers-compensation/compensation-cruise-ship-employee-injuries.htm

Unfortunately it isn't that simple. You have to be careful about what things say. While US law does affect today's cruise industry operations in some areas, it does not generally extend to labor laws. US labor laws would cover workers on a US flag cruise ship, but as everyone knows there is no such thing on the high seas, and labor cost is an important if not the main reason. Unless I am missing something, there is no (US) workmans comp for non-US citizen employees on foreign-flagged cruise vessels, which all of them in international service are. They do have the right to sue in US courts, however, at least in some cases, although even that may be changed.

That's very interesting about the interline rates. And disconcerting as well. In the end it is all of the rest of us who are paying for such bargains for them. It would be interesting to know how it really worked for crew member flights. To the best of my knowledge based on many years of discussion with various crew we became close to during travel, it seems that their flights are booked well ahead of time, and not necessarily last minute 'catch the bargain' type of situation, as they must be in sync with their arrival in their last port of call. Could be an arrangement worked out between the cruise lines and the airlines. Would be interesting to hear about some of this stuff from former crew members, or friends/family of current crew members.

I can tell you this. Ship crew travel is a big revenue area for international airlines in general, and most of such travel, at least in the old days, was not for cruise ships but for cargo vessels (today there are relatively fewer cargo vessels/crew members and more cruise vessels, so I don't know what the current situation is). In the old days those guys had union agreements that got them first class seats -- I'm sure there were discounts, but not to the extent of interline discounts.

You're correct that crew needs to be in place when needed so less reliance can be placed on last minute bookings, all the more so due to the much higher load factors in today's aviation.

Without going into a long discussion of rate making theory (I was a transportation economist once upon a time), I wouldn't worry that "you are paying for their travel." Airlines are good at maximizing revenue, and if they are "giving seats away" they are getting it back somewhere along the way, and not from your pocket.

All too often, the cruising public makes assumptions about how the cruise industry really works.

Usually those assumptions are completely wrong.

And we know what happens when we ASS/U/ME something.

 

To understand why a cruise line does anything, you need to look for the money trail.

Sometimes simple to follow; sometimes not.

 

Employing a tipped service employee on a mass market cruise ship costs the company just under US$14 per day. That's total; salary, housing, medical, uniforms, food, training, administration, and transportation. That's not very much money, you say. At those rates the cruise lines should have far more service staff onboard to make our cruise a bigger success.

 

Great idea - until you try to implement it.

 

Cruise ships rarely suffer from money shortages - but we do struggle with space. Cruise ships never have enough space to do what we want / need to do.

Regardless of the size of the ship, there are legal and physical limits to the number of bodies the ship can accommodate.

The cruise line needs to decide in advance how many service crew (costing $14 per day) they can hold, versus how many passengers (paying $150 per day) they can hold.

 

The more crew you have to house, the fewer paying passengers you will have onboard.

 

When cruise lines build new ships, we always build just enough crew cabins for the number of crew we need NOW. We always know - and have always known - that as the ship ages and the cruise industry develops, we will need to place more crew onboard. But we never plan for that eventuality. It is far cheaper build a ship with fewer crew cabins and facilities, and more profitable to have more passenger cabins instead.

 

Then comes the time when we are forced to add new crew positions. The Coast Guard requires additional Bridge Officers for safety reasons. The EPA requires additional Sanitation Engineers for managing our waste streams. Corporate Onboard Revenue adds an Acupuncturist, a Tooth Whitener, a high end Black and White photographer, an onboard Gemologist, a Computer Trainer, Personal Trainers, a Librarian. Corporate Entertainment adds more performers. All of these people are guaranteed single cabins. But there are no empty crew beds or cabins for them to sleep in.

 

Corporate Sales and Marketing will ABSOLUTELY NOT give up a single passenger cabin for any use that does not involve a paid fare.

There is no additional space available to build additional crew cabins. There is also no budget. In some cases, it is not even legal to add more crew cabins

 

What do we do? These new crew MUST be accommodated.

 

No problem. We send home 2 waiters living in a shared cabin and convert it to a single cabin for the new crew. Then we send home 2 wine stewards and do the same with their cabin. Then we send home 2 stateroom stewards and convert their cabin. We keep doing that until we have enough cabins for the required crew.

These service staff we sent home are not legally required onboard - and in many cases they do not directly generate revenues or profits.

 

Over the past decade my ship has received over 50 additional new crew. But the actual crew count on my ship has actually gone down. There is no place for anyone else to sleep.

 

Next time you start wishing for a cheaper cruise, be aware that the cruise lines are listening. But be careful what you wish for.

Thank you Bruce for shining considerable light on the topic of this thread. So it would be great if you could help us go a bit further and get straight to the heart of the matter.

Ballpark numbers. What is the typical service staff head count today on a typical Celebrity ship (M or S), and what was that head count say, 3 or 5 years ago? How many service staff positions have been lost, and how does that number stack up percentage wise against the total? Is the reduction 1%, 5%, 20% or what? Again, not asking for exact numbers, just order of magnitude, in order to better understand and put things in context.

It makes sense to anyone involved in hr and costing.

 

Any business knows there's a lot more to employee cost than just "wages."

 

Even moreso in this case where the employees are provided with board, food and transport, the latter being an obvious cost rising as many complain here, and food also causing complaints.

 

And as said by the previous poster that is just some of the other costs involved.

 

Basing an argument on whether there is only a wage cost doesn't stack up.

You are using a straw man argument. Contrary to what you say, I never said it was only wage cost. That's your assertion not mine. The category is "payroll and related." Related covers the other categories you are mentioning (except food which is separate), and I never said or implied otherwise.

I'm sure the written code is no different, but I also understand the Aussies, bless their hearts, are a highly informal people some of whom may consider recently-pressed shorts for men to qualify as "formal." ;)

We will be doing a trip out of Australia with (I understand) mostly Australians aboard, and it's a long way to fly out there so I'm wondering what we actually need to pack, and whether that would be different from a trip out of, say, Rome. We are in Aqua Class so formal nights at the MDR are not in our scope in any event.

Thanks!

(it's so good to know that one can find an answer to any question here! :))

 

Miriam

You can find many answers to any question here!

I don't have any specific knowledge about how that works, but it seems unlikely in the extreme that the service staff would see their income affected by these promotions. These people aren't stupid, and when they are recruited by the cruise lines the lines make certain representations to them about what their income will be. If the lines were to not follow through, they would at best lose their staff to their competitors and at worst have a near riot on the ship, which is clearly not the case. They would certainly have difficulty recruiting in the future. And imagine the stories that would appear in the press. I think it's totally safe to assume that the lines insure the tipped staff's promised income, whatever it is, materializes one way or another.

Which means that changes from individual components within that category are not broken out.

 

So - hypothetically - if the price of food has increased, as many say, this would compensate for a reduction in quantity due to less needed. But is the change in number significant in the overall food budget across the group? And there are many more variables than that involved, such as brands, range of speciality restaurants and local ordering.

Your hypothetical makes absolutely no sense. Why would any of these purported variables actually change materially, and if they did, why wouldn't the change as likely be against your conclusion than in support of it? Again, as between the two time periods, (Q2 '13 vs '14) the before and after conditions likely are similar (not materially different). If you have specific facts that prove otherwise, great, put them on the table. Until then your reservations are merely speculation with no support.

We already know that meat and similar prices did increase over that period, tho not greatly -- it was discussed previously, and I discussed its probable significance and concluded it is not a large element in the overall results. If you have data that refutes that, put it on the table; I for one would like to know. Until then further rounds of this discussion are of little value.

By the way, my mention of the crew food cost was only for purposes of clarification about earlier posts related to payroll and the overall cost of shipboard personnel.

 

even if a crew member were to make a majority of his/her money in tips, it would still cost Celebrity money to have them onboard..as another poster pointed out on this thread as well.

 

My assumption, just like waitstaff in the US...their salary is probably very low, with most of their money coming from tips. But i think RCL pays them SOMETHING in salary, albeit not alot.

 

plus, it costs Celebrity $$ for room, & board, benefits, etc.

In the financial statements, crew food is mixed with pax food in the food cost category. All other crew costs are in the "payroll and related" category as far as I know. Outside of actual payroll, which is large for ship crew as opposed to pax service staff, I imagine that repatriation travel is a major component of this cost. How tip income is accounted for in the company financials, or even if it is included at all, is not known to me.

The analysis is affected as it relies on an incorrect assumption.

 

It was an answer to the OP's assertion that "Further, people say that dining room staff and cabin stewards make all their money on tips, not salary, so why would a line CUT the positions they don't even have to pay for."

 

There is more to their position than just salary.

That too is the same in both the before and after.

There was no incorrect assumption in the original analysis. There are unknowns but those were pointed out.

The analysis also ignores that passenger numbers have been increased from what the M class ships were designed for. The reduction in service can result from increased passenger load on the servers, rather than cutting staff, but by not increasing staff to cater for the increased passengers. Service still falls, but not in the way the analysis is designed.

The original numbers that triggered this entire thread and another thread elsewhere include a comparison of the second quarter 2014 vs. the same period 2013. I don't have specific information, but seriously doubt that the passenger numbers for the M class ships changed enough to materially increase the load on the servers between those two time periods. Fleetwide the pax count was up about 1% if memory serves.

Spot on miched.

 

The analysis disregarded that.

All those things would be in both the before and after numbers, so the overall conclusion is not affected one way or the other.

So a brief and simple question, if so many staff are no longer on the ship, why are those cabins sailing empty not yet converted to revenue generating cabins....? The revenue those would generate is a hundred fold more than the cost savings.

 

Discuss....

Hi Curt. Good work -- Interesting for me to see the analysis I posted in another thread has stimulated some further discussion, thanks to you.

A couple of (I hope) clarifications, based on memory and not a return to the financials themselves, so I hope my memory is correct. (1) Entertainment folks are not employees and are not included in the staffing cost numbers that we are talking about here, so if anyone thinks there are fewer entertainers that may be but it has nothing to do with the staffing costs. (2) the staffing costs we are talking about here are only shipboard personnel; executives, sales folks, etc are another category entirely and are not reflected here; (3) the increase in revenue flows from increases in pax count--load factor went from about 102% to about 103% between the two periods (due to more cabins with more than 2 people). There was no change I know of in the ships/cabins available, which is why I suggested from the get-go that there really shouldn't be any change in staffing, since putting more than two pax in a few more cabins isn't going to change shipboard staffing. Also, it should be mentioned that it isn't clear whether gratuities are included in these staffing cost numbers.

Hope that helps.

In response to your question, I believe staff cabins are of design and location that puts them physically out of bounds as revenue cabins. Staff cabin spaces are in the "staff only" parts of the ship. Thus, even if staff head counts were down (and I doubt they actually are significantly), I don't believe that space could be sold in any event.

I'd like to get a sense from those who have sailed several times on Celebrity whether the overall satisfaction differs among the various ships and if so is it a big difference or hardly enough to matter.

Put it this way. Hypothetically, if there were two ships available for the same itinerary, same dates, same price per cabin class, same everything, but one is a Solstice class and one Millennium class, and you could pick either one, which would you pick and why? Or is it a toss up.

Just to set the record straight, That wasn't my claim. It was the Dow Jones article that said that.

 

The only part of that post that was mine was the first line. "Because they do" It was an observation of what appears to be an increase of such whining on the boards.

 

Hmmm. OK, let's see here. You titled the thread which you started as "Wonder Why Celebrity is accused of cutting corners and raising rates?", then you say it's because they do, then you cite the WSJ story which mentions the cost drop and the revenue increase in support of what you just said (cutting corners surely relates to passenger service, n'est pas?), which then set off the latest round of Celebrity bashing. But now you say you didn't claim "that". Sorry, but I'm a little confused here. Exactly what is the "that" that you now say you didn't say?

On the surface, your analysis makes sense. However I wonder if you're the one who does the grocery shopping in your household? I've noticed a dramatic cost increase in all categories of groceries over the past year.

 

Actually I am the one who does the grocery shopping, and I watch prices like a hawk. My observation says that while food prices are up a bit, it's not all that dramatic. Meat is up some, but just about everything else is moderate or in some cases has actually dropped. PS -- USA Today and similar periodicals are not reliable sources of statistical information. They see a change from 2% to 3% and print headlines using words like "soaring" and "skyrocketing." They sell newspapers, not accurate information.

Keep in mind that the food cost reported includes many things other than meat, particularly beverages for example, and the statistics show that non-alcoholic beverages are actually down over the last year while alcoholic is up only about 1%. Further, there's a lot of food served other than steak -- visit the buffet, or just look at the menus. I doubt that meat per se accounts for more than a small part of the reported total (I'm betting it's less than beverages). Even though its rise was more than the reported increase in food costs generally, the effect it could have on the total would still be very small.

Your claim in the original post was that the reduction in costs in the quarterly financial report shows that passenger service, food quality, etc. is being degraded. You can believe whatever you want to believe, and I'm not here to change your mind. My point is that while it's possible you're right, the opposite is also possible -- the financial data don't provide you with valid evidence to support your claim. It would be necessary to dig much deeper, and the information is not public. We do know, however, that the reported cost reduction that you hung your hat on stemmed mostly from matters totally unrelated to passenger service.

Are you sure these figures are correct? With all the moaning about cost cutting, especially the food and staff, you would think these would show different results.

Straight out of the press release and accompanying 10Q report, all available on line.

http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=103045&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1950924&highlight=

Much of the key info is in a table about half-way through the document.