[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 87 (Thursday, June 29, 2006)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1322-E1323]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      CRUISE LINES OVERTIME ABUSES

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. JAMES L. OBERSTAR

                              of minnesota

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, June 29, 2006

  Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Speaker, yesterday at the markup session of the 
Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, there was a great 
debate over whether the seaman's wage penalty law should be changed. 
These changes have been sought by the foreign-flag cruise industry 
which has had to payout millions of dollars in damages for not paying 
thousands of their workers the overtime they had accrued for working 
more than 70 hours per week.
  The Members of this body may be unaware of the types of worker abuses 
that have occurred in the cruise industry. I am submitting for the 
record the testimony of Luis Bolanos in support of his claim in U.S. 
District Court that shows the type of fear and intimidation that cruise 
ship workers live under if they ask for the overtime pay they have 
earned.

                      Declaration of Luis Bolanos

       Pursuant to 28 USC Sec. 1746, Luis Bolanos, hereby 
     declares, under penalty of perjury under the laws of the 
     United States of America that the following is true and 
     correct.
       1. I am a class representative in this litigation seeking 
     unpaid overtime wages for me and my co-workers who worked in 
     the catering departments of Norwegian Cruise Lines vessels. 
     We were required by NCL to regularly work more than 70 hours 
     per week but NCL never were paid wages for this overtime 
     work.
       2. I was born in Penon Kundinamarca, Colombia on March 2, 
     1943. I currently am 61 years old. I have a fifth grade 
     education from schools in Colombia. I read and write Spanish. 
     I understand very little English, and I can only read a 
     little English. I have a wife, a son and a daughter. I 
     presently live at 14323 S.W. 180th Terrace, Miami, FL 33177. 
     My son is a veterinary doctor and my daughter works for the 
     United States government.
       3. I worked for NCL for over 20 years. The following is my 
     service history, since 1998, with the Norwegian Cruise Line 
     company, as best as I can recall:
       Vessel, Dates of Employment, Job Position:
       Norway, 10/97--mid August 1998, 2d Pastryman.
       Norway, 11/7/98-8/28/99, 2d Pastryman.
       Norway, 11/99-8/12/00, 2d Pastryman and 1st Pastryman.
       Norway, Approx. 11/00-2/17/01, 1st Pastryman.
       4. While employed for NCL as a Pastryman, I was responsible 
     for making cakes, cookies, pastries and other baked goods. I 
     worked in the galley of the ship. The jobs of a Pastryman 
     include serving on the main food lines in the galley, 
     cleaning; working at outdoor restaurant buffet once a week at 
     midnight, making pastries and serving the pastries to the 
     waiters who then served it to passengers in the dining room; 
     making breads and cakes and pies and cookies. This work is 
     done in a designated area of the main galley. Approximately 
     twice per week, our department had to do what the company 
     calls ``Deep Cleaning'' before the ship would come into a 
     U.S. Port. Deep cleaning made the works especially hard 
     because the cleaning we had to do had to make our department 
     absolutely spotless. We had to clean every little space and 
     clean up every speck of dirt. This would sometimes make our 
     work days a little longer. In addition, all of the workers in 
     the Pastry Department had to attend Department Meetings that 
     lasted from 20-30 minutes every morning, and we had to attend 
     another meeting at night once a week or once every two weeks. 
     As a member of the crew, I also had to attend and participate 
     in Fire and Life Boat Drills approximately once per week 
     which would take approximately 1-1\1/2\ hours.
       5. The itinerary of the Norway was almost always from Miami 
     to various islands in the Caribbean and back to Miami. When I 
     signed on and off the ship, I always signed on and off in 
     Miami, which is where my voyages ended and I was paid my 
     salary. I do recall the ship sailing some of the time in 
     Europe, but mostly we sailed to and from Miami. When we 
     sailed out of Miami, the voyages were normally 7 day voyages 
     from Miami to the Caribbean and back.

[[Page E1323]]

       6. During the period from October 1997 through February 17, 
     2001, in every week I worked I always worked about 100 hours 
     per week. My standard work hours were as follows:
       Sunday thru Friday: 1:00 a.m.-10:00 a.m.; 1:00 p.m.- 3:00 
     p.m.; 4:30 p.m.-8:00 p.m. Thus, I worked approximately 14\1/
     2\ hours per day Sunday through Friday.
       Saturday: 4:00 a.m.-8:00 a.m.; 11:00 a.m.-8:00 p.m. plus 2 
     additional hours during which I was required to work at the 
     midnight buffet. Thus, on Saturday, I worked a 15 hour day.
       7. I observed the hours worked by the other pastry chefs on 
     the ship. They worked usually from 9:00 a.m.-3:00 p.m. and 
     5:00 p.m.-11:00 p.m. every day. Thus, they worked 
     approximately a 12 hour work day.
       8. In the course of a 10 month tour of duty, I would work 
     with approximately 14-15 different workers. These would 
     include the workers who were on the ship when I started my 
     contract, and the individuals who replaced these workers as 
     their contract periods finished.
       9. During the twenty years that I worked for NCL, on the S/
     S Norway, I had daily opportunities to observe the hours of 
     work of other people in the food preparation and handling 
     departments, as well as the pantry and utility workers. There 
     are close to 150 people who worked at any one time in the 
     ship's galley. In the Pastry Department, I observed that the 
     other workers all would work more than 70 hours per week. As 
     I recall, the following is the number of Pastrymen I worked 
     with: between 1998 and 2001, we had four (4) 2d Pastrymen, 
     one (1) 1st Pastryman, and two (2) Assistant Pastrymen, 
     except that there were some periods of time that we would 
     carry only three (3) 2d Pastrymen. Based on my personal 
     observation, these NCL employees, on the vessel on which I 
     was employed, all worked 12 or more hours a day, at least 
     six and sometimes seven days a week. All worked in excess 
     of 70 hours a week. The workers, when we had some free 
     time, would talk about our long hours.
       10. I learned what my schedule was by what I was told by 
     the Chef, by observing the other workers, and knowing all of 
     the work I had to accomplish each day. The volume of the work 
     I had to do required me to work the long hours I described. 
     There was no written schedule of my hours. It did not matter 
     who my supervisor was. My supervisors, the Executive Chefs on 
     the ship, often changed. When a new Executive Chef came 
     aboard the ship, my hours would remain the same, and so did 
     the other Pastry Chef's hours remain the same.
       11. During the entire time that I worked from October 1997 
     through February 17, 2001, I was never paid extra overtime 
     pay for the hours that I worked in excess of 70 hours per 
     week, as was called for by the contract between Norwegian 
     Cruise Lines and the Norwegian Seaman's Union.
       12. Sometime during my service with NCL I became aware that 
     there was a union that had a contract which affected my 
     employment with NCL. This union is known as the Norwegian 
     Seafarer's Union. I learned about it by seeing a copy of the 
     agreement between the company and the union which was in a 
     little red booklet. In 1998, I was given a copy of the 
     contract. In the booklet it states that the pay scale is 
     attached as ``Annex 1''. However, the pay scale was not 
     attached to the contract, and while I worked for the company, 
     I never saw the pay scale which supposedly set my base pay 
     and monthly total guaranteed wage, and overtime rates. Trial 
     exhibit ``8'' is a copy of the little red book I was given on 
     the ship.
       13. I never saw any union employees or workers come aboard 
     the Norway to discuss the contract it had with NCL. I never 
     met a union representative, and none ever came on the ship 
     while I worked on it. I know of no officers or other 
     employees of the union.
       14. Workers on the ship are very much afraid of losing 
     their jobs. Many of them, like me, come from poor families in 
     poor countries. The union cannot prevent people from being 
     fired for trivial things, and there is no guaranty that you 
     will be rehired at the end of your contract. For these 
     reasons, people on the ship do not complain about conditions 
     or the lack of payment of overtime because they are afraid 
     they will be called a troublemaker by supervisors and soon be 
     fired. For people from poor countries, such as from where I 
     came, working on a cruise ship is a good paying job even 
     though the working conditions are terrible. I did not 
     complain about not being paid overtime because I could not 
     afford to lose my job. I had a family to support and they 
     depended on the money I earned.
       15. I heard from about 2 people I knew on the ship that 
     said that they complained to an Executive Chef or one of the 
     Sous Chefs about not being paid for overtime hours worked and 
     they were told that the company did not have the money to pay 
     overtime, that is why we were not paid overtime.
       16. I worked 7 days a week for as many as 10 months 
     consecutively during my contract periods. I would not see my 
     family for long periods of time which was very sad, 
     however, I had to work, otherwise, my family would have 
     suffered.
       17. As a Pastryman, I was given $15 per week for my special 
     skills in preparing items for what is known as the Chocaholic 
     buffet, which was a midnight buffet with many deserts and 
     pastries. The money I was paid was not for overtime, even 
     though at times on my monthly pay check the weekly $15 
     payment was listed in a category called ``Overtime''. This 
     was paid to me and the other Pastrymen as bonus pay for doing 
     the work for the special function, a side job, and it was not 
     for the time we spent preparing it. In late 1997 and early 
     1998, I was being paid around $180 per month in bonus money 
     for preparing the Chocaholic Buffet. In mid-1998, this bonus 
     was reduced to around $60 per month.
       18. I was very diligent about how I did my job, and I tried 
     to make sure that everything I and my co-workers made was of 
     good quality. In January 2001, I was reprimanded for throwing 
     out a sponge cake that did not come out well. It was baked 
     with frozen eggs because the galley had run out of fresh 
     eggs. The frozen eggs did not work well in the batter, so the 
     cake did not rise well. I knew that this cake could not be 
     served to the passengers. I was reprimanded for throwing it 
     out. Then, in February 2001, I was again reprimanded for 
     having taken some tin bake pans that had been washed to my 
     station. I did not know it, but some of the pans were not 
     washed well and were still somewhat dirty. During an 
     inspection, the pans were seen by a supervisor and he blamed 
     me for having dirty pans in my station. I had not used the 
     pans yet, and did not know that they were not perfectly 
     clean. I would not have used them when it came time to bake 
     with them. Still, I was blamed and was told to sign the 
     warning they tried to give me or be fired. As I felt I was 
     not at fault, I told them I would not sign the warning, so I 
     was fired.
       19. I never was told that a supervisor had to give me a 
     special order or I had to ask for approval to work the hours 
     necessary to get the work done. There were no time clocks or 
     time sheets or other methods, of which I am aware, by which 
     NCL recorded the working hours of the crew members in my 
     department. However, my supervisors knew the long hours I was 
     working, and those of the other workers in my department, 
     because it was the supervisors who directed me to get the 
     work done. They would come and observe the work, and required 
     it to be completed to their satisfaction.
       20. On my pay envelope and the payroll register there never 
     was a listing of the number of hours I worked multiplied by 
     an hourly rate showing extra overtime pay.
       21. After I was fired by NCL, I took a job in a ``Publix'' 
     supermarket, bagging groceries.

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