Ferry service workers thank select boards, advisory board members for asking Governor Mills to address understaffing, low pay

Note: The following letter was sent to the select boards and Maine State Ferry Service Advisory Board members representing Frenchboro, Matinicus, North Haven, Swan’s Island, Vinalhaven and Islesboro.

Aug. 5, 2024

Dear Select Board and Ferry Advisory Board members,

We appreciate your advocacy and the recent letter the Select Boards sent to Janet Mills. MSFS employees share common goals with you: to ensure safe and consistent service to our islands.

On July 22, the state contacted us with a limited financial offer that would expire December 31st of this year: $4,000 for each deckhand, ordinary and able seaman, engineer, and captain that works 10 rotations between now and December 1st. They also offered the opportunity for our captains to earn premium overtime (time and a half) for all hours worked over 80 in a pay period. We want to be transparent with you about this offer. None of us would object to an extra $4,000 lump sum payment – but we know this stopgap measure will not solve our staffing crisis and restore consistent service in the long run. This is a temporary band-aid at best. Furthermore, we have real concerns about this approach: it nearly eliminates the ability for us to use any of our vacation or sick time and still be eligible to receive the full amount. This encourages workers to come in sick rather than calling out, and might cause employees to not report injuries in order to continue working to maintain eligibility for this stipend. This is not only potentially dangerous for us, but also for our passengers.

We care about our island communities – which many of us are a part of – and we care about what happens to our Ferry Service, be it 6 months from now, 5 years from now, or 25 years from now. We are not prepared to accept 6 months of temporary bonus paychecks, while the state spends hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars on out-of-state temporary staffing agencies, to make this problem temporarily disappear.

Together, we have the opportunity to address long-standing, structural issues within MSFS that threaten this crucial public service, and that harm our communities, our businesses and tourism economies, and our very safety, families, and livelihoods. We care enough to take a stand, and we have seen that you and the public do too. We ask you to join us in calling on the administration to take long-lasting and meaningful steps to solve our staffing crisis by addressing systematic low pay across our department, compared to the rest of our industry, so that we may successfully hire and retain qualified staff.

Respectfully yours,
34 workers from the Maine State Ferry Service