This is a very heated subject right now. Washington State Ferries has been taking an incredible amount of criticism, and I understand why people are frustrated. When you are sitting in a ferry line, when a boat is canceled, when you miss an appointment, or when your entire day gets turned upside down because the ferry you were counting on is not running, it is frustrating. I live here too. I understand what it means when our ferry system does not work the way our communities need it to. But I can talk about what is happening right now from a perspective that most people cannot, because Washington State Ferries is not just transportation to me. It has been part of my entire life.
My grandfather worked for the ferries. My dad worked for the ferries. I worked for the ferries for 11 years, including two years in the galley. I was raised by a ferry worker who started when he was still in high school and worked his way from the bottom all the way to becoming a ferry captain. My dad has always been my hero and the person I looked up to most. I watched him work incredibly hard for everything he accomplished. I watched him move through the ranks and become one of the most driven and confident officers I knew. I also watched what that career required from him and what itrequired from our entire family.
If you did not grow up around Washington State Ferries in the 1980s and 1990s, it is hard to explain what it used to be like. It was more than a workplace. It was a community, and that community became a family. The ferry was practically my playground growing up. I knew the men and women who worked alongside my dad, and I watched many of them move through the ranks with him. These were not simply my dad's coworkers. Many of them felt like uncles and aunts to me. They watched me grow up, and later I would become part of the same ferry system that had been such a huge part of my childhood.
When your parent works on the ferries, holidays do not necessarily mean sitting around your own table together. Sometimes your holiday is spent on a ferry because somebody has to work so thousands of other people can get home to their families. While passengers are trying to make it to Thanksgiving dinner or Christmas morning, there are ferry workers sacrificing those exact same moments with their own families to get everyone else where they need to go. That is something I wish people remembered when they talk about ferry workers as if they are simply people collecting a paycheck.
We celebrated milestones together. We celebrated marriages, babies, promotions and retirements. Crews shared meals together. We knew each other's families. We watched children grow up. When someone died, we grieved together because these were people we had spent years and sometimes decades beside. When you spend that much of your life with people, especially in an environment where you depend on one another for safety, they become more than coworkers.
That is why it hurts when I read comments saying ferry workers should simply be fired and replaced. Every time I see someone say that, I want to ask one question. Replaced with whom? This is not a job where you put someone in a uniform on Monday and have them safely operating a vessel on Tuesday. These are maritime professionals. There are certifications, Coast Guard requirements, fire school, drills, safety procedures and constant training. Masters, mates, engineers and deck crews have requirements they continually have to meet to remain qualified and compliant. The average passenger sees someone directing cars, working in the cabin or tying up a boat and assumes that is the entire job. It is not even close.
What passengers often do not see is what happens when something goes terribly wrong. My first summer working for the ferries, we lost a young man who went overboard. He had been warned not to cross the tag line, but he sat on the bulkhead wearing a heavy backpack. As we maneuvered into position to dock at Winslow, he went overboard. We responded immediately. We had spotters. We launched the rescue boat. We did everything we had been trained to do. Sadly, he did not get his backpack off, and the weight pulled him down. I can still remember his face looking up toward me from the water. That image has never left me, and I do not think it ever will.
That is part of working on a ferry that passengers do not see. You can come to work expecting an ordinary day and go home carrying something you will remember for the rest of your life. Ferry workers respond to medical emergencies. They perform water rescues. They respond when someone goes overboard. They prepare for fires and other disasters. They have responded to heart attacks, and mates have helped deliver babies. Crews have comforted people during some of the worst moments of their lives, because when you are transporting thousands of people every day, life happens on those boats.
I sat beside regular passengers coming home from Seattle after receiving devastating medical news. I have watched people I saw every day become friends simply because that is what happens when you share the same crossing over and over again. I have held the hand of a stranger whose husband had been life flighted because, at that moment, she needed another human being sitting beside her. Those moments were never written into my job description. They were simply part of the job, and almost every longtime ferry worker has stories like these.
There is another side of this job that people rarely talk about. Ferry workers have been assaulted. They have been spit on. They have had hot coffee thrown in their faces. They have dealt with intoxicated passengers, angry passengers and people experiencing serious crises. During my time there, crew members in Bremerton were once barricaded inside the day room because a passenger had gotten hold of a fire axe and was trying to hurt the crew. Imagine going through something like that at work and then opening social media and reading comments from people saying you are lazy, overpaid, incompetent and easily replaceable.
The ferry system I remember is not the ferry system we have today. COVID did tremendous damage to an already complicated operation, and rebuilding a workforce like this does not happen overnight. You cannot manufacture decades of maritime experience. You cannot instantly replace licensed officers, trained engineers and experienced deck crews. You certainly cannot expect people to line up for these jobs when they can find work elsewhere for similar money without the same certifications, safety responsibilities, unpredictable schedules, missed weekends, missed holidays and time away from their families.
Think about what we are asking these people to do. We are asking them to work crazy schedules. We are asking them to miss holidays and weekends with their families. We are asking them to maintain certifications and complete constant training. We are asking them to meet Coast Guard requirements and be prepared for fires, medical emergencies, rescues and the worst possible scenarios. We are asking them to deal with angry passengers and sometimes dangerous situations. Then we turn around and tell them they should be grateful for whatever they are paid because somebody else could easily replace them.
Not just anyone can do this job, and the truth is that not everyone would want to.
Right now, ferry workers are fighting for wages and working conditions they believe reflect the responsibilities they carry. I know that when ferries are tied up, the public feels it immediately. Our communities depend on these boats. People need them for work, school, medical appointments, businesses, family and everyday life. When a ferry does not run, there are real consequences for thousands of people, and I am not dismissing that frustration.
But maybe that inconvenience should also remind us of something incredibly important. This is what life looks like when those workers are not there. When a ferry does not move, we suddenly realize just how much we depend on the people who make it move every single day.
You do not have to agree with every decision made by Washington State Ferries. You do not have to agree with every decision made by management, the state, the union or individual employees. You absolutely have the right to be angry about cancellations, delays and a system that has failed our communities in many ways. I have watched the system change dramatically myself, and I know it is nowhere close to what it once was. I do know that the entire system needs to be corrected and fixed it is far from perfect and needs so much work, but that is the system starting from the office down. But, I do know that this isn't 99.9% of the employees faults.
So please stop directing all of that anger toward the person standing on the deck. That worker did not create decades of policy decisions. That worker did not decide how many vessels would be built. That worker did not singlehandedly create staffing shortages or determine the state budget. That worker is trying to do an incredibly difficult job inside a system that has changed around them.
Most importantly, they are human beings. They have spouses waiting at home. They have children whose birthdays they miss. They have Thanksgiving dinners that get eaten without them. They have Christmas mornings they do not get back. They have families who have learned that weekends and holidays together are never guaranteed. Some of them carry memories of passengers they could not save and emergencies they will never forget.
I know because I was one of them. I know because my dad was one of them. I know because my grandfather was one of them. Three generations of my family have been part of Washington State Ferries, and I will always carry an incredible amount of pride in that.
So the next time your ferry is late, canceled or tied up and you are angry, be angry at the problems. Demand accountability from the people who actually have the power to fix the system. Demand better planning. Demand reliable service. Demand enough boats. Demand a ferry system worthy of the communities that depend on it. There is absolutely nothing wrong with expecting better from Washington State Ferries.
Remember the human beings standing on those boats. If every ferry worker finally decided they had been yelled at enough, assaulted enough, underpaid enough, overworked enough and had missed enough of their own lives for ours, we would learn very quickly how much we actually need them. Right now, when ferries are tied up and communities are feeling the impact, maybe we are getting a small glimpse of what our lives would look like if those workers were no longer willing to do these jobs. Especially when they could be working for the same amount of money that they could make at a Costco or a job they can do from home.
They are not asking you to pretend the ferry system is perfect. They are not asking you to stop demanding better service. We should demand better. They are asking to be treated like the skilled professionals and human beings they are. They are asking to be compensated fairly for the responsibilities they carry and the sacrifices their families make. After everything I have seen, everything my family has given to this ferry system, and everything these crews continue to carry every single day, I do not think that is asking too much. Instead of asking why ferry workers believe they deserve more, we should be asking ourselves what Washington would look like without them.
