There’s a lot to digest with last month’s announcement about the temporary re-flagging of NCL America’s SIU-crewed Pride of Hawaii starting early next year.And while there’s no use in sugarcoating any of it, when I look at the big picture involving the NCL America fleet, I know there is well-founded cause for optimism.
If you’re new to our union or for some other reason are unfamiliar with the NCL America ships, here’s the short version. Our country went from having no deep sea U.S.-flag cruise ships in the wake of September 11, 2001 to adding three new American-flag vessels under the NCL America banner, beginning in 2004. It took a lot of work to make that happen, and it took cooperative efforts from maritime labor, the company, supporters in Congress and others.
As expected, there were growing pains, both for the company and its contracted unions, including the SIU. But by early 2006, with the Pride of Aloha and Pride of America in service and the Pride of Hawaii almost ready to sail, we had turned a corner. Customer satisfaction was up. Bookings were solid. Crew turnover on the hotel side was stabilizing. (Turnover generally has never been a problem on the marine side.) The NCL America ships were having a major, positive impact on the economy, particularly in Hawaii.
Things changed when the Pride of Hawaii joined the fleet in 2006. An unexpected surge in foreign-flag competition and a general downturn across the entire cruise-ship industry played key parts in the company’s financial losses for last year.
In fairness, those weren’t the only issues. While operations were proceeding relatively smoothly with two ships, the jump to three vessels probably spread certain resources a little too thin. Again, we’ve been down this road before, and I know we have what it takes to succeed in the long run. As we learned with the so-called white ships in Hawaii many years ago (the old Independence and Constitution), it takes time to build up a steady manpower pool in this segment of the industry. But it can and will be done.
As you can imagine, the decision concerning the Pride of Hawaii led to an intense series of meetings and phone calls, both internally for the SIU and with us and NCL America. What I took from those meetings is this: We all agree that too much work went into this program to simply give up. We all agree that eligible crew members who want to continue working for NCL will be given that opportunity—almost certainly aboard the other Pride ships. And we all agree that it is completely realistic to believe that NCL America will succeed as a two-ship fleet in the short run and then as a larger fleet over the long haul.
Speaking for every SIU official, I can promise our membership we’re not going to stand around and do nothing. We’ve already intensified our efforts to continue to keep this fleet a success, and we will exhaust every resource if that’s what it takes.
“Aloha” means both hello and goodbye. We said an aloha greeting last year to the Pride of Hawaii, and we’ll say a temporary aloha farewell to the ship early next year. I already look forward to once again saying a great big “Aloha!” when we welcome her back into the U.S.-flag fleet.
Printer Friendly Page