Woodentop
New member
There has been a rumbling of discontent in the Maritime And Coastguard Agency about Coastguard pay for some time but now it is getting noisier.
When you call in your "Mayday" or "Pan Pan" message it will be received, handled and processed by staff who are paid just above the National Minimum Wage of £5.35 per hour.
Once upon a time the Coastguard was a home for retired seafarers who were topping up their full pensions from a long career at sea with a nice retirement job as a Coastguard.
That has changed. And has changed since many years ago. The people working there now are expected to study and know a full range of maritime subjects from Salvage Law to Search Planning to Pollution Control.
To put it in perspective; the call takers at the Fire,Police and Ambulance services are paid around 20K compared to the Coastguard at 12K.
While the Fire or Ambulance call centre employee might process the initial call and launch assets and a controller to the scene the Coastguard "call takers" coordinate the complete incident, do the search planning and task the assets.
Various government sponsored studies over the last few years have shown how underpaid the Coastguard are compared to the other 999 services.
A summary is to be found here Union Stuff
There are others.
Remember that the person who says " Received Mayday" and "The helicopter has been scrambled" is paid a lot less than the one who says " Do you want fries with that ?"
There are rumblings for a full strike - But how many would that kill ?
When you call in your "Mayday" or "Pan Pan" message it will be received, handled and processed by staff who are paid just above the National Minimum Wage of £5.35 per hour.
Once upon a time the Coastguard was a home for retired seafarers who were topping up their full pensions from a long career at sea with a nice retirement job as a Coastguard.
That has changed. And has changed since many years ago. The people working there now are expected to study and know a full range of maritime subjects from Salvage Law to Search Planning to Pollution Control.
To put it in perspective; the call takers at the Fire,Police and Ambulance services are paid around 20K compared to the Coastguard at 12K.
While the Fire or Ambulance call centre employee might process the initial call and launch assets and a controller to the scene the Coastguard "call takers" coordinate the complete incident, do the search planning and task the assets.
Various government sponsored studies over the last few years have shown how underpaid the Coastguard are compared to the other 999 services.
A summary is to be found here Union Stuff
There are others.
Remember that the person who says " Received Mayday" and "The helicopter has been scrambled" is paid a lot less than the one who says " Do you want fries with that ?"
There are rumblings for a full strike - But how many would that kill ?
