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Do cruise lines staff any ports?


bob brown
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Here in New York, and that includes Brooklyn and Bayonne, AFAIK, all of the cruise lines contract the passenger handling to the local port contractor's. I am wondering if that is true everywhere, or are there some ports where the terminal employees are directly employed by the cruise lines?

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My guess is it could be the same as in Brooklyn and Bayonne. Seems not practical for cruise lines from a business standpoint, to hire and manage their own personnel that may not be needed when they have no ship in port. JMHO.

 

 

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Long Beach was the last port to have Carnival employed staff, changed over a couple of years ago. The major change for the staff is how their yearly cruise perks are handled. Not in their favor.

 

 

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I also wanted to add that in the USA the crise lines are not allowed to have any personnel assist with luggage in the port.

 

Keith

Why not? Cruise line baggage handler’s at a port could still be represented by the longshoreman’s union just as well as those employed by a contractor...

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Once we were going from one ship (same line) and the crew member escorting us could not touch our bags until we got to the street. He said this was because the porters would have a fit if he took them before we left the port building. Handling luggage was their job, not his. As soon as we got to the street he took them to the next port building.

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I also wanted to add that in the USA the crise lines are not allowed to have any personnel assist with luggage in the port.

 

Keith

 

Why not? Cruise line baggage handler’s at a port could still be represented by the longshoreman’s union just as well as those employed by a contractor...

 

That is it. Since the cruise terminal is a public dock, it is 98% of the time covered by a longshoremen's union. The cruise lines just don't want to deal with union issues. They could hire longshoremen, but it's not worth the hassle, let the stevedore company pay the benefits, etc.

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The Longshoreman come with their own baggage :). While they are generally well skilled at their work, they also march to very strict Union rules and are well compensated. A lot of cruisers who smile and tip a longshoreman baggage handler do not realize that the baggage handler makes more money then many of the passengers.

 

If you talk to cruise ship Hotel Managers (off the record) they all have tales of dealing with the Longshoreman Union. My favorite longshoreman story is about the Port facility in NYC (50th Street). A few years ago DW and I were boarding the Prinsendam at NYC. The long cruise (over f40 days) actually started in Ft Lauderdale where a majority of the passengers embarked. About 70 more (including me) embarked in NYC. I drove a rental car to the port on a glorius sunny day and arrived at the port around noon. As I pulled up to the main doors we noticed there was one couple (George and Bea) sitting outside the doors with lots of luggage. I unloaded our car and left DW guarding the luggage as I returned the rental car. About 15 min later when I returned DW, George and Bea were socializing at the same spot (right outside the main doors of the terminal). I suggested we go inside and George explained that we had to stay outside until 1pm! The Longshoreman were on their lunch break and had told George if he took his own luggage inside, they would go on strike (and not load the luggage on the vessel).

 

So we waited. At about 12:55 one of the longshoreman came outside and said hello....and then told us he would be back in 5 minutes to take our luggage. At 1 he came back, took our luggage, made it clear he wanted tipped, and then we went inside and did the usual embarkation tasks. The Longshoreman explained that HAL has only contracted with 1 ":gang" of workers and would not pay the extra fee for them to work their lunch hour. He said most other cruise lines would hire two "gangs" or workers and stagger lunch hours to avoid the problem.

 

A few months later I was dining with the Hotel Manager on the Celebrity Silhouette and told this story as part of dinner conversation. The young Hotel Manager found the tale very funny and everyone had a good laugh. The the Hotel Manager said that this would never happen to him. He explained that in a similar situation he would be the first off the vessel and would quickly find the "gang" foreman. It would usually take a few cases of beer, or perhaps some Scotch...but then there would be no labor problems.

 

Hank

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Was the foreman named "Johnny Friendly"?;p

 

Just an inside joke for those who have seen the classic film, "On The Waterfront"....:D

 

He did kind of have that look :). Guess we could have responded with "you know, its time to get some ambition."

 

Hank

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About 3 years ago, I was introduced to a friend who actually was a HAL employee (albeit seasonally) at Vancouver. Shortly after that, the employees were then transferred to another organisation (maybe Carnival Corp owned) that handled Carnival Corp ships at Vancouver (namely HAL and Princess). Not sure what current status is.

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Here in New York, and that includes Brooklyn and Bayonne, AFAIK, all of the cruise lines contract the passenger handling to the local port contractor's. I am wondering if that is true everywhere, or are there some ports where the terminal employees are directly employed by the cruise lines?

 

Having cruised out of many ports over the years my feeling is that less than 1 % of the people are employed by the cruise line.

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I can understand that, as most cruise terminal's are shared by numerous different cruise lines...but...if a terminal was used exclusively by one line, I am wondering if it would in that case make economic sense to employ their own staff, rather than contractor's?

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I can understand that, as most cruise terminal's are shared by numerous different cruise lines...but...if a terminal was used exclusively by one line, I am wondering if it would in that case make economic sense to employ their own staff, rather than contractor's?

 

I would think that, even if a terminal were used exclusively by one line, the intermittent level of activity would argue against the line having their own employees as opposed to temporary agency workers. Employee payroll, benefits, supervisiory functions, etc. would make any such part time staffing difficult to prohibitively expensive.

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I would think that, even if a terminal were used exclusively by one line, the intermittent level of activity would argue against the line having their own employees as opposed to temporary agency workers. Employee payroll, benefits, supervisiory functions, etc. would make any such part time staffing difficult to prohibitively expensive.

Makes sense...but in a port like Miami, or Port Everglades, where the 'major' lines have almost at least one daily departure, what then? And I could see them perhaps cross utilizing 'check in agent's' to supplement telephone call center's....would be a nice break for those usually in call center's to get out into the field periodically to get involved directly with port activities, perhaps...:)

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Makes sense...but in a port like Miami, or Port Everglades, where the 'major' lines have almost at least one daily departure, what then? And I could see them perhaps cross utilizing 'check in agent's' to supplement telephone call center's....would be a nice break for those usually in call center's to get out into the field periodically to get involved directly with port activities, perhaps...:)

 

Agreed -particularly with the notion of "job enrichment" - letting call center staff get out into the field. But I am inclined to think that with the major ( perhaps too much) focus on the bottom line - corporations seem for the most part to be becoming less, rather than more, interested in employee satisfaction.

 

The trend seems to be towards out-sourcing as many functions as possible which are not immediately involved in the enterprise's main line of work. Look at all the corporations who outsource activities like payroll, accounting, even human resources.

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Makes sense...but in a port like Miami, or Port Everglades, where the 'major' lines have almost at least one daily departure, what then? And I could see them perhaps cross utilizing 'check in agent's' to supplement telephone call center's....would be a nice break for those usually in call center's to get out into the field periodically to get involved directly with port activities, perhaps...:)

 

Agreed -particularly with the notion of "job enrichment" - letting call center staff get out into the field. But I am inclined to think that with the major ( perhaps too much) focus on the bottom line - corporations seem for the most part to be becoming less, rather than more, interested in employee satisfaction.

 

The trend seems to be towards out-sourcing as many functions as possible which are not immediately involved in the enterprise's main line of work. Look at all the corporations who outsource activities like payroll, accounting, even human resources.

 

Do the cruise lines even have call centres in those cities?

 

Bob, (and nbt) I think some CEO's, CFO's and cruise line VP's would benefit from a little 'job enrichment' on the front lines. ;)

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Do the cruise lines even have call centres in those cities?

 

Bob, (and nbt) I think some CEO's, CFO's and cruise line VP's would benefit from a little 'job enrichment' on the front lines. ;)

You mean like Kevin Sheehan, former CEO of NCL did on the television show, "Undercover Boss"?:cool:

 

Perhaps his successor, Frank Del Rio, should do likewise....:rolleyes:

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You mean like Kevin Sheehan, former CEO of NCL did on the television show, "Undercover Boss"?:cool:

 

Perhaps his successor, Frank Del Rio, should do likewise....:rolleyes:

 

Based on the lawsuits against Sheehan, I wouldn't recommend following his example.

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Based on the lawsuits against Sheehan, I wouldn't recommend following his example.

Hmm...I was not aware of all those allegation's...(I just 'Googled' it)....I was always under the impression that Sheehan was very popular among both employee's and passenger's....so this is news to me, although I did wonder about his sudden departure at the time....:confused:

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