Alaska Marine Highway System engineers have approved a new three-year contract with the state of Alaska.
AMHS marine engineers say uncompetitive pay has driven a severe and worsening workforce shortage, caused excessive reliance on overtime, and crippled the state’s ability to retain and recruit enough skilled engine room crew members to operate Alaska’s ferry system.
The unified contract offers an overall wage increase by equalizing the wages across billets for marine engineers, who are represented by the Marine Engineers Beneficial Association.
“If a contract like this one had existed back when I was in the system, I would probably still be in it,” said Claudia Cimini, Alaska-Seattle representative for MEBA.
Cimini was part of the original crew on the M/V Kennicott when it went into service in 1988. A third assistant engineer on the Kennicott, she held a higher license and hoped to move up when an opening for a first assistant in the fleet became available.
“But then I looked at the wages and I looked at the work schedule, and because I didn’t live in Alaska, I would have had to pay all my own travel to Alaska,” she said. “When I looked at the rotation, I looked at the wages, I realized my take-home pay would have been less in a higher billet than it was in Washington.”
She felt discouraged and trapped, she said, and chose to finish her career elsewhere. Cimini said that won’t be the case anymore.
“If you’re a chief engineer on the Kennicott, you’d have the same wage as the chief engineer on the Columbia,” she said.
The contract offers the same base wage for each officer’s billet with certain variations, such as overtime. It will also allow engineers to evaluate which runs and ships work best for their lifestyle, providing them with more flexibility, Cimini said.
“We want people to stay in the system because we want to hang onto that institutional knowledge,” she said. “I think it’s very significant that many of our officers, many of our engineering officers at AMHS, started out as oilers. They work their way up. If somebody’s been with AMHS that long to go from oiler to engineer, we want them to stay. They made that big leap. We’d love to see them work their way up to chief.”
The three-year contract aims to attract people from outside the state by offering travel reimbursement for relocation to Alaska. Marine engineers will also be eligible for personal leave at six months instead of a year.
“I know that convinced one engineer to leave AMHS after his first year,” Cimini said. “That person moved to Alaska specifically for this job. That’s somebody who continued to live in Alaska but started to work outside to support their Alaska life.”
She said AMHS jobs should support the “Alaska life” because they support critical highways connecting communities.
“A canceled ferry on the marine highway isn’t the equivalent of a pothole on a paved highway,” Cimini said. “It’s like a bridge being out.”
The contract also encourages members to participate in job fairs, allowing them to do so while they’re on the clock.
“This is part of building the pipeline,” she said. “People aren’t going to get into maritime careers if they don’t know what they are.”
The contract also includes two engineering crews per boat. The crew is expected to be aboard for two weeks, but due to staffing shortages, this is often extended by an additional four weeks.
Cimini said wages need to continue rising, and more investment is needed from the state in the form of training and benefits.
“Our members at AMHS have unlimited licenses,” she said. “That means they could walk into any MEBA hall and take nearly any of the jobs off the board. So AMHS needs to be reasonably competitive with its labor competitors.”
Overall, the contract offers a double-digit increase; the exact percentage varies for the first year depending on the individual’s starting point.
“Competitive wages for marine engineers are key to returning AMHS jobs to competitive wage levels and will allow Alaskan ferry crew to make ends meet and make a career in the state they call home,” said Nicole Lammana Linn, MEBA’s AMHS representative.
Pat McManus, a chief engineer on the M/V Columbia, called the contract a step forward in long-term sustainability for AMHS. When he started working for AMHS in 2008, an engineer was considered one of the most desirable jobs in the union, offering high wages, benefits, and a good retirement plan, he said. However, wages didn’t keep pace with inflation, retirement benefits were restructured, and healthcare costs continued to rise.
“These factors led to a vacancy rate that approached 20% several times in the last few years,” McManus said. “With an aging workforce and more people retiring, combined with other companies offering better compensation packages, AMHS was facing critical staffing levels. This contract restores wages, gives the mariner options to increase retirement, and unifies all the ships under one contract, which will make collective bargaining in the future much easier.”
• Contact Jasz Garrett at jasz.garrett@juneauempire.com or (907) 723-9356.
Josh Chevalier, a chief engineer of the M/V Columbia, shows legislators the engine control room, and explains the control and monitoring systems on Tuesday, April 8, 2025. (Jasz Garrett / Juneau Empire file photo)
