Cruises Shipping from the West Coast in North-America

PMO-C

Alex Tao                                386235

Hryhoriy Zarkhin                 468029

Lisa van der Waals                465836

Ruud van Grunsven                493007

Oscar van der Maas                561320

Carlijn Bakker                        546704

Xandra Vasse                        530344

Diana Kolokolhikova                488658

Christine Gerdts                        504300

Bernadette Hoekman                 442720

Djorden van der Swaluw        433780

Table of Contents

Description        3

Key Issues        3

Working conditions and job satisfaction – chapter 3        3

Power and organisational politics – chapter 13        3

Language barriers and diversity – chapter 2 and 9        3

Conflict and organizations – chapter 14        3

Diagnosis        4

Working conditions and job satisfaction – chapter 3        4

Power and organisational politics – chapter 13        4

Language barriers and diversity – chapter 2 and 9        4

Conflict and organizations – chapter 14        4

Conceptual model        4

Interventions        4

Informed choice        4

Implementation plan        4

Contingency plan        4

Description

Cruises shipping from the West coast in North-America often employ workers from poor Asian countries who work a lot of hours each day with a low wage.

There are horrible circumstances for the workers on these boats, according to Paul Chapman, who founded the Center for seafarers Rights. The companies that own the cruise lines in North America are earning a lot of profit without taking its employees into consideration. Circumstances for the employees on these cruises are often compared to being in jail.

People are drawn to jobs at cruises by the company luring them in with supposedly higher wages and the ability to save money. However, a lot of the extra costs that come with starting to work at a cruise ship, are not refunded by the company. This causes a lot of workers to already have a debt when beginning to work. Furthermore, working days are much longer than other jobs, which makes it even harder to stay there. This is why there is a big staff turnover.

The International Transport Workers Federation’s regulations handle a minimum wage and have other rules about employee circumstance. To dodge these regulations, almost all North American ships are flagged in a different country.

Furthermore, hiring employees from these foreign countries also causes issues with the guests on the vessels. Often times the passengers have difficulties with communicating with the employees because of a large language barrier. Especially during stressful situations like emergencies, this causes extra problems.

Even though there is next to no room for complaints on these vessels (which often results in firings and forcing to return home) and the International Transport Workers Federation is not able solve these problems significantly, the director of cruise operations believes that without this union, the working conditions would be even worse.

Key Issues

Working conditions and job satisfaction – chapter 3

According to the case study, the cruise lines in the North American market are stationed in foreign countries. These countries have less regulations regarding the labour laws. Therefore, many basic employment standards used in western countries are being neglected. For instance, in general unfair wages and long working days are being set as standards. Moreover, low level workers cannot attend passenger area’s while off duty, and have to stay on the lower decks in small cabins. These employees often come from third world countries searching for higher monetary rewards and keep coming despite of the bad conditions. Often, the promises made by the company are false, therefore the job satisfaction remains low.