re: River pilots seeking pay raise to nearly $700,000 annually despite shipping decline

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CRPPA pilots are paid an average $526,958 annually and are seeking an increase to an average annual $697,000.

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Also, and I could be wrong here, but the NOBRA pilot I knew said they got a transportation stipend to get from their house to the boat. Something like $250-300. He would just get his wife to drive him and pocket that money.

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You literally have to be born into a certain family to have this profession

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Ok, I’ve seen this for years now, but this is just hyperbole right?

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Ok, I’ve seen this for years now, but this is just hyperbole right?

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Yeah, mostly. I met a guy that got in by simply starting from the bottom and going through the schooling and training, which he said was intensive. Not related to anyone. Nepotism helps, but its not the only way.

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zero of this is correct

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“One of the responsibilities of licensed river port pilots is, when a need for more pilots exists, to select individuals from a list of qualified applicants provided by the Board of River Port Pilot Commissioners. The specific requirements to be qualified by the Board of River Port Pilot Commissioners is available directly from that State Board. However, those requirements include a college degree (although not required, usually from a maritime college) and multiple United States Coast Guard licenses. The Board of River Port Pilot Commissioners operates an apprenticeship program for those selected individuals, which itself has numerous requirements and examinations. Only upon completion of that apprenticeship program and certification by the Board of River Port Pilot Commissioners is an individual recommended to the governor for appointment as a River Port Pilot.”

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Eight years later, after graduating from a Maritime Academy, testing for many Coast Guard licenses, working for a major drilling company offshore, and completing an extensive Crescent River Port Pilot apprenticeship, I now proudly navigate the Mississippi River as the 4th commissioned female compulsory pilot, in the state of Louisiana. “

This is a bad idea. The timing is horrible.
At a time when traffic is drastically down, you don’t go asking for a raise from an already overpaid amount to an insanely overpaid amount! And it looks like the real reason is because of jealousy. “The other pilots make more than us”. Wahhhhhhhhh.... cry me a river. A Mississippi River where you can charge exorbitantly high rates to enter so you can afford to pay your mafia river pilots enough that they can afford to live in mansions and drive Ferrari’s.

Houston, mobile, savannah, are laughing at us.

Doesn't Houston have the same high salary for pilots?

Houston rates are somewhat murky and I think there are fewer groups than our 3 pilot organizations.
To enter the port of Houston, it’s not cheap though compared to us.

Attracting port business is highly competetive. Government and river business leaders ought to be advocating expenses be reduced at times like this. Traffic is drastically down and business along the river are suffering. We need to lower the cost to enter our port. Salary for these pilots is part of that.

The port system Is a massive industrial complex with long reaching economic tentacles.

As to the pay for these pilots in pure reasonableness-
A salary is something a business offers to attract workers. It should be commensurate with the market and the skills required to do that job. It needs to be high enough to attract the best worker available but not so high as to hinder profitability. The river pilots exist in a quasi governmental bubble. Their “bottom line” is not like a typical business. They aren’t operating as a ‘for profit’ .
The salaries they pay should be levied to attract the best available people. No question they are. Actually they’re perverted so high that they exceed the qualifications 2-3 times what they ought to be.

The only other comparison we can make is a Tug Boat captain on the miss river.
In order to become a river pilot you need to be a captain. That typically means time working As a captain on a tug. Tug captains make upwards of 200,000 at best. So that is essentially their competition salary wise. After all, a tug captain who is not accepted into the river pilot association stays working as a tug captain typically.

So there’s no way anyone can convince me that it’s harder to be a river pilot than it is to be a tug captain.


Bottom line: They’re paying far more than they need to pay to attract the best people.

Yep that decrease in the amount of ships coming to port will cause an even greater strain on the pilots and fatigue will set in!

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Thank you for the 19% unemployment rate and the loss of 319,000 jobs in Louisiana because that's definitely spoiling us

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Really hope you’re not blaming Nungesser for the loss of jobs in Louisiana or the lack of other things in our craphole state.

700,000k is absurd.

That’s more than 99% of doctors and probably lawyers.

Meanwhile everyone else is getting salaries slashed.