Ferry unions feud over use of private vessels on Staten Island Ferry route

By Staten Island Advance, N.Y. (TNS)January 5, 2023

Jan. 5—STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — After a Staten Island Ferry union blasted the city's use of private vessels and crews to maintain service on New Year's Eve as "profoundly unsafe," the union representing those private workers has fired back.

Earlier this week, the Marine Engineers' Beneficial Association (MEBA) — the union that represents the captains, assistant captains, mates, chief engineers and marine engineers on the Staten Island Ferry — issued a statement expressing outrage with the city's use of private vessels and crews, claiming it sets a dangerous precedent and could lead to unsafe conditions for riders.

"We are appalled and angered to learn the NYCDOT hired privately-operated NY Waterway vessels to transport our Staten Island Ferry passengers this weekend. This is beyond troubling and a dangerous precedent," said Roland Rexha, the secretary treasurer for MEBA.

"The NY Waterway vessels are not ADA-compliant for the Whitehall and St. George slips, cannot transport our peak ridership of 4,000 plus passengers, did not operate to the safety requirements needed to operate passenger service of this magnitude, and employ crews whose training and qualifications are inferior to the training and qualifications of Staten Island Ferry crew members," he continued.

The Seafarer's International Union (SIU), which represents the NY Waterway employees, took issue with MEBA's claims that SIU workers are less qualified and did not operate to appropriate safety standards.

"Recent criticism of NY Waterway SIU crew members by a different union is grossly inaccurate and reflects a regrettable lack of gratitude," according to an SIU statement. "We are proud of our members employed at NY Waterway and of our organization-wide safety record. We are equally proud of our affiliated, world-class maritime training school (offering the most U.S. Coast Guard-approved courses of any such school in the nation), which has produced qualified mariners for all segments of the industry since 1967."

The statement detailed the efforts of SIU crews in New York Harbor over the past several decades, with union members operating NY Waterway vessels since 1986.

"SIU-crewed NY Waterway ferries have a decades-long record of safe operations, as well as more than 100 rescues, large and small. Those rescues include the evacuation of more than 160,000 people from Manhattan after the attacks of 9/11, securing 143 airline passengers in 2009 after an emergency water landing in what became known as the Miracle on the Hudson — and last month's aid of passengers from the Staten Island Ferry vessel that caught fire," the SIU statement read.

Lastly, the seafarer's union criticized MEBA for denigrating SIU employees in an apparent effort to bolster their own union's negotiating position in a decade-long contract dispute with New York City.

"For an official from another union to question the training and qualifications of NY Waterway crews — presumably in order to gain leverage in a labor dispute — is inappropriate and incorrect," the statement read.

In response, MEBA officials stated that SIU crew members are adequately trained and qualified for their own vessels and passages, but continued to voice safety concerns associated with them operating their smaller vessels along the Staten Island Ferry route.

"The Seafarers International Union operating the NY Waterway are trained and qualified as professional mariners for those vessels. Our concern is any private operator with much smaller vessels that are not built to operate in the Staten Island Ferry slips and passage between St. George and Whitehall terminals with the safety protocols mandated by the safety management system after the horrific MV Andrew J. Barberi fatal accident in 2003," said Rexha.

"DOT's lack of care for passenger safety by contracting other operators that are unable to safely follow their own safety management system is the problem here," he added.

A DOT representative told the Staten Island Advance/ SILive.com that NY Waterway's vessels are required to comply with all applicable laws, rules and regulations when operating along the Staten Island Ferry route and that the vessels were operated in compliance with their certificates of inspection by the Coast Guard.

USE OF SMALLER BOATS

During the overnight hours from Saturday, Dec. 31, into Sunday, Jan. 1, the Department of Transportation (DOT) was forced to use smaller, private vessels operated by NY Waterway to maintain Staten Island Ferry service between the St. George and Whitehall terminals.

Photos provided to the Staten Island Advance/ SILive.com show riders boarding the smaller, white boats to cross the harbor, as opposed to the iconic, orange vessels which typically serve the route.

The privately-owned NY Waterway vessels, which typically operate over a dozen routes connecting Manhattan to New Jersey, can fit just a fraction of the passengers of the Staten Island Ferry boats, though the department said there were no capacity issues during Saturday night's trips.

"Helping New Yorkers travel between Staten Island and Manhattan safely and efficiently, in line with our obligation under the City Charter, is priority number one. Amid a national marine workers shortage, understaffing on the Staten Island Ferry this past holiday weekend compelled DOT to engage NY Waterway staff and boats for two trips Saturday night. We thank our partners at NY Waterway and their union workers for stepping up to ensure Staten Islanders and visitors could get where they needed to go this holiday weekend," said DOT spokesman Tomas Garita.

The need to use privately-owned vessels to maintain Staten Island Ferry service comes at a time when the DOT has been struggling to run the ferry at full capacity, partly due to short staffing and partly due to one of the new boats — the Sandy Ground — being temporarily taken out of service following a harrowing engine room fire during a rush hour trip on Thursday, Dec. 22.

On Wednesday, Mayor Eric Adams said the city would continue to enlist the help of NY Waterway to maintain Staten Island Ferry service, if necessary.

"Whatever we need to do to accomplish the task. If we need to use Waterway, we're going to use it. We are going to get people to and from Staten Island," Adams said. "They are not the forgotten borough in this administration."

STRUGGLING TO PROVIDE FULL SERVICE

Over the past few years, the DOT has been forced to run reduced service on a regular basis, particularly during afternoon and overnight hours, due to personnel issues limiting the department's ability to adequately staff the boats.

In 2022, the staffing shortage resulted in over 100 service reductions on the Staten Island Ferry, where the limited number of workers in key positions required to run the boats mean that a single employee absence can disrupt service.

The department has repeatedly emphasized that one absence in a major title can disrupt service, with the U.S. Coast Guard mandating that each vessel be staffed with at least one captain, one assistant captain and various other positions, like chief marine engineers, marine engineers and marine oilers.

Last year, from Jan. 1 through Nov. 30, the DOT was forced to run reduced service on the Staten Island Ferry 124 times during the 334-day span, representing a service reduction roughly every three days.

Both recruiting and retaining talent have been difficult due to a national shortage of qualified maritime workers, with the positions that need filling requiring extensive training and certification from the U.S. Coast Guard.

Further exacerbating the issue is the ongoing labor dispute between the city and MEBA.

The union has been fighting the city for nearly 13 years for a "fair and respectful" new contract, with workers not having received a single wage increase since 2010, and union officials claiming the lack of a new contract and existing low wages have made it difficult for the city to recruit and retain talent during the national maritime workers shortage.

Negotiations remain ongoing with the help of a third-party mediator that was agreed upon in August, but progress has stalled as the groups await a final decision from Comptroller Brad Lander regarding prevailing wages for marine engineers.

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