Proposal for WA ferry engineers, oilers falls short of pay parity

A chief engineer oversees the team, issuing directives to an assistant engineer who controls the boat as well as to two oilers who act as the chief’s eyes and ears monitoring the machinery. Together, they bring decades of experience maintaining and operating the working heart of the vessel. 

“The typical passenger doesn’t even know we are here,” said Shawn McManus, a chief engineer on the Jumbo class ferry boat built in 1973.

On shore, their union sat locked in a stalemate with the state as the two sides negotiated the workers’ next contract. The engineers and oilers wanted pay parity with their above-deck counterparts, which the union argues aligns with industry standards and would require at least a 19% increase in their salaries. 

But Washington law prohibits state ferry workers from flexing their union’s most powerful collective action muscle by striking, as Boeing workers did this month. Instead, the state workers have to take their grievances through an arbitration process that the union says is tipped in the favor of the state.

This story is part of Cascade PBS’s WA Workplace Watch, an investigative project covering worker safety and labor in Washington state.

An arbitrator in the dispute handed down a decision this week that outlined a significantly lower salary increase for workers in the Marine Engineers Beneficial Association union. The union shared decision documents offering a bump in crew pay, but falling short of parity. 

“Arbitration is binding, so I don’t know that we have a lot of options right now,” said Eric Winge, a representative for MEBA, a few days after the arbitrator’s decision came down. “The cards are kind of stacked against labor for the whole bargaining process.”

Officials noted such arbitration decisions are binding for the union, but not necessarily the state. For approval, the Office of Financial Management must first analyze the terms; if deemed feasible, the governor has to put the pay raises in the budget, which then goes to the Legislature for approval. (Agreements reached without an arbitrator also have to go through this process.)

Washington State Ferries declined to comment on the negotiations, directing questions to the OFM, which also declined to comment on the ongoing contract talks. 

“We don’t have any levers to pull to get an equitable negotiation on pay. When we are at the table, they know we can’t win,” said Marshall Warner, assistant engineer on the Cathlamet, currently tied up at Washington State Ferries’ maintenance facility in Eagle Harbor. “If we could strike, everyone would have higher wages.” 

Seeking pay parity

Staffing shortages and an aging fleet have plagued the state’s ferry system, delaying and canceling runs in recent years. Jake Fulton, a chief engineer on the Edmonds-Kingston route, said he often gets asked to take on extra shifts during his weeks off. Crews face a lot of pressure to work overtime to keep ferry routes running as scheduled. 

“It’s a lot of people waiting for important things that are in that line; for doctor’s appointments and stuff like that,” Fulton said. 

The MEBA contends most of the recent cancellations are due to missing an engineer or oiler crewmember for a run. And bringing their pay into parity with the above-deck crew could help WSF recruit and retain engine-room workers. 

“It sends a message from management that the engine crews aren’t as valued,” said Brandon Powell, an oiler on the ferry Tacoma. “Oftentimes the argument that’s made is that we aren’t as public. The engine crew aren’t seen by the public, so sometimes we are forgotten until there’s a problem.”

In the most current contracts, captains, also known as masters, earn 19% more than chief engineers; mates make 13% more than assistant engineers; and an able-bodied seaman, who performs on-deck duties, makes 16% and 22% more than an oiler. 

Daniel Twohig, vice president of the International Organization of Masters, Mates & Pilots in the Pacific maritime region, said the prohibition on striking and the arbitration process have not had an impact on contract negotiations for the captain and mates. 

“Bargaining is all about relationships,” said Twohig when asked about the pay difference. “It’s called collective bargaining; some people are better at it than others.”

Twohig declined to share the tentative agreement his union reached this cycle until it’s been approved by the OFM. According to MEBA arbitration transcripts, the captains and mates reached a tentative agreement with the state that included a 4% bump in pay in both years of the 2025-2027 contract. 

The arbitrator decision released this week awarded the engine-room crew the same percentage increase in salary that captains and mates received in their negotiations, but still maintains the preexisting gap in their salaries. The state’s last offer to the engineers and oilers was a 5 % pay bump over the course of the two-year contract. 

“The fact that other unions settled their wage dispute with Washington State Ferries at four percent in both fiscal 2025 and fiscal 2026 creates a compelling argument,” wrote the arbitrator in the decision. 

The Marine Engineers Beneficial Association represents 400 of the 1,800 Washington State Ferry employees, according to the union. Roland Rexha, the MEBA secretary/treasurer, described arbitration as a crapshoot.

“Everyone assumes the captain is the captain’s most important person on the vessel,” Rexha said. “We’re not downplaying what the captain is, but our members, our chief engineers, are equally as important as those captains.”

Illegal to strike

The federal law that protects a worker’s right to strike at private companies doesn’t extend into the public sector. States get to decide independently. In Washington, state law does not grant or permit public employees the ability to strike or refuse to perform their duties. 

Other progressive states, like Oregon and California, do not prohibit work stoppages by unionized public employees, except for those essential to public health and safety, such as police officers and firefighters. 

Despite state law, some public-sector workers in Washington, like teachers, do sometimes strike. And school districts have gone to the courts seeking an injunction to force them back into the classroom with varying degrees of success. 

But over the years, Washington legislators have taken the additional step of explicitly making it unlawful for three groups of public workers to strike — state four-year university faculty in 2002, community college faculty in 1987 and state ferry workers in 1983. 

Find tools and resources in Cascade PBS’s Check Your Work guide to search workplace safety records and complaints for businesses in your community.

Liz Ford, an assistant professor at the Seattle University School of Law, said the strike prohibition laws were meant to head off disruptions to public services. 

“While the state has given public-sector employees the right to bargain collectively,” Ford said, “they have not agreed that they can stop providing services to the taxpaying public.”

Ford, who also sits on the state’s Public Employment Relations Commission, agreed that not being able to strike leaves workers with little leverage during contract negotiations. Workers could theoretically be fired or disciplined for striking. 

Ferry crews were not always public employees. In 1951, when the state purchased the Black Ball Line, launching WSF and a publicly run ferry system, with the fleet came a group of already unionized workers. (The state legislature would not grant other state employees full collective bargaining rights until 2002.)

Three decades after the founding of WSF, a strike shut down the system and left ferries tied up at the docks for nearly two weeks. Ford said that strike stopped all transportation across the water, creating the political will to change state law and prevent ferry workers from striking again. 

Politicians responded by taking away the ferry workers’ collective bargaining rights for wages and benefits. The law, SB3359, also made it illegal to strike and imposed fines, not to exceed $2,500 a day, if employees walked off the job. 

“It’s not just not protected,” Ford said, “it’s unlawful.”

State lawmakers have since increased the penalties for striking ferry workers or unions to $10,000 a day.

Doug Lorig, an agent with the Inlandboatmen’s Union of the Pacific, which represents quartermasters, ticket-takers and terminal employees, said ferry workers rarely even discuss holding a strike.

“We can’t even push the notion of a strike, that could get us in legal trouble,” Lorig said. 

Mike Yestramski, president of the Washington Federation of State Employees, said the lack of a protected right to strike would not stop the WFSE from considering or holding a strike.

WSFE members last mounted a strike in 2001, the year before the Legislature granted public employees full bargaining rights. WFSE recently launched a strike fund for the first time, which Yestramski said would be used mostly for court costs.

This new fund also gives the union more leverage, he added, because it lets employers know that in the case of a strike, there are resources for members to depend on. 

“The strike itself,” he said, “isn’t actually as powerful as the threat.”