Allowances - Post Living Differential (PLD) [MERGED]

[Eye In The Sky]

I think you're right.

For what it's worth, the only one in my Dept who put in input was me. The rest wanted to leave it as is. I said the rates should be dramatically raised, and the unfit sea equals no sea pay as I said before. Make it a cash cow.

So if someone was on MELs for a month, they don’t collect SDA. I think we’re starting to nickle and dime a little too much if we go that route. Currently it’s 181 days - that might be alittle too much of a period. Maybe “3 months” is a decent middle ground?

 

[Eye In The Sky]

been saying 2 for a crap load of years now. I even go as far as to say freeze the pay for a few years and make it tax free. I would be happy with that and my filing with CRA would be a lot easier.

linking sea pay to sailing time isn't really that hard. The ship sails, take a roll call and provide the list of crew on board to the pay staff. Everyone on the list gets the allowance started that day, everyone else not on the list gets nothing (except maybe AWOL charge). When the ship returns to port cease the allowance for everyone.

Or a baseline tax rate that applies to all CAF members posted at public expense…

 

[Quirky]

I made roughly $145,000 dollars the year of my last deployment, a substantial majority of it was also tax free and the only thing I spent money on was "keeping the lights on" at home.

I miss those days where you could come back after 6 months and drop cash on a nice vehicle, for example. Most people bought houses, like myself.

 

[Halifax Tar]

The pay schemes for sailing and deploying make it incredibly lucrative. I made roughly $145,000 dollars the year of my last deployment, a substantial majority of it was also tax free and the only thing I spent money on was "keeping the lights on" at home.

The money you can make with a few overseas expeditions can be life changing if you're smart with it and don't waste it on frivolous things.

The Regular Force CAF, which is a volunteer force, operates entirely off a carrot and stick model and it has to for people to put up with the institutional stupidity. The problem is, if you start taking away the carrots, nobody is going to want to do the work anymore.

Especially when you consider some of the boondoggles the CAF has found itself involved in since the fall of the Soviet Union.

The model is similar to other industries like Oil & Gas, Mining, etc. High pay for thankless work that one would otherwise not want to do.

And yes.... that essentially makes it a pseudo-mercenary force.

Absolutely. I make a killing on deployments as my FSPs are so high. But my SDA also ceases when I am in receipt of FSP, HA, Risk ect ect.

I mean, the GoC has stated they have no sacred bond with the CAF and have continually made it clear we are public servants with a clause that means we can be sacrificed.

What do they expect to get in return ? If you want motivated and dedicated people who will willingly sacrifice you need to remunerate them and look after them.

So if someone was on MELs for a month, they don’t collect SDA. I think we’re starting to nickle and dime a little too much if we go that route. Currently it’s 181 days - that might be alittle too much of a period. Maybe “3 months” is a decent middle ground?

I'm sure there is a middle ground, I'm a black and white guy. It just seems to me that if you're unfit sea, you shouldn't be collecting SDA.

 

[dimsum]

View attachment 79929

I miss those days where you could come back after 6 months and drop cash on a nice vehicle, for example. Most people bought houses, like myself.

It depends on your fleet, or if you’re in the Navy (or Navy-adjacent).

 

[Halifax Tar]

It depends on your fleet, or if you’re in the Navy (or Navy-adjacent).

If you want deployments, the RCN, MH Sqns and LRP Sqns seem to be the place to be...

 

[Furniture]

If you want deployments, the RCN, MH Sqns and LRP Sqns seem to be the place to be...

If you can get there/stay there...

 

[Halifax Tar]

If you can get there/stay there...

Im here

 

[Navy_Pete]

The pay schemes for sailing and deploying make it incredibly lucrative. I made roughly $145,000 dollars the year of my last deployment, a substantial majority of it was also tax free and the only thing I spent money on was "keeping the lights on" at home.

You aren't getting SDA though when you are deployed in a tax free zone; you switch over to the hazardous duty allowance (which is also tiered).

The most sea time i did in a single year was almost 9 months, and all of it was under MARLANT (even the overseas portion) so none of it would have qualified for tax exemption. It was also the most concerned I have ever been about things going seriously badly, as we were down to the emergency generator on a 280 in high sea states in a storm about 2 days from port, and one big wave away from a black out.

The ships sailing around in the sketchiest condition and minimum crews are the ones that are really earning their SDA, and the majority of our sea days in the fleet won't fall under the tax free deployements.

 

[Lumber]

It was also the most concerned I have ever been about things going seriously badly, as we were down to the emergency generator on a 280 in high sea states in a storm about 2 days from port, and one big wave away from a black out.

WUPs winter of 2015? Or Joint Warrior fall of 2015?

 

[Navy_Pete]

WUPs winter of 2015? Or Joint Warrior fall of 2015?

I want to say it was JW in 2011 (maybe the fall) on ATH. We ended up successfully making it to Glasgow and participated in it, but we left the wall with 3 solars and no DG, ended up losing 2 and 3 within an hour of each other, and then were going full out trying to get anything back up and running. I think it was the 2015 trip where ATH made it to London but had lost the main engines on the way across so spent JW alongside. IIRC they were also limited to SS 1 or 2 due to hull issues, and that was when the RCN decided to 'sail around the storm' instead (which went as well as you can expect).

I think after that we didn't sail again without the DG but was one of those jobs that got 'risk assessed' away when we ran out of time in the SWP.

But yeah, it was not great. Remember vividly someone getting reamed out for plugging in the heavy duty toaster (the one with the belt feed) which we saw as a power spike on the switchboard that almost was enough to trip the emergency generator because of how close we were running to the max amperage. We had this whole matrix of what we had to shut down if we had to do something like a man overboard where a crane was required, with half the lights shut down, a lot of CSE gear offline, and galleys down to minimum equipment only when needed.

It was a shitty day or two, but I guess at least they were still steam heated with boilers or we would have been cold as well..

 

[dapaterson]

WUPs winter of 2015? Or Joint Warrior fall of 2015?

"Which near RCN disaster are you talking about? There were and are so many..."

 

[Eye In The Sky]

You aren't getting SDA though when you are deployed in a tax free zone; you switch over to the hazardous duty allowance (which is also tiered).

This bewilders me; why would you lose SDA?

I’ve deployed on several named ops and received AIRCRA, Ops FSP, RA, HA and HA bonus all at the same time or in some combination while being tax free status. Regardless of if it was Ops FSP, RA, HA, tax free we never lost our environmental allowance.

SDA is for normal hazards etc from the environment.

* assuming by hazardous duty allowance you mean RA - Risk Allowance

 

[Fabius]

Army personnel lose LDA as well when they enter deploy to a named operation.

 

[Navy_Pete]

This bewilders me; why would you lose SDA?

I’ve deployed on several named ops and received AIRCRA, Ops FSP, RA, HA and HA bonus all at the same time or in some combination while being tax free status. Regardless of if it was Ops FSP, RA, HA, tax free we never lost our environmental allowance.

SDA is for normal hazards etc from the environment.

* assuming by hazardous duty allowance you mean RA - Risk Allowance

I probably meant RA; but yes, when you chop over you lose SDA and convert over to the generic hazard pay. I'm think it was a bit of an increase, but it's something because of how the SDA regulations are written (but also why the SDA backpay came through because it shouldn't have ever been stopped while in DWPs). Unfortunately the tax free only started for the last few weeks of the ROTO, but was still a nice post Xmas gift.

Honestly though the ROTO on the ship was the easiest sailing I've ever done, even though we were sitting off Syria, in the Black Sea and otherwise in interesting parts of the world within weapons range of sketchy people. We sailed in pretty good shape, with a full crew, got proper material support while away, and got things like mobile repair parties for major issues, all without some jackass cramming the flex with everything they could think of so actually got to fix broken things and do only our primary job. The TRP, class shock trial and 'local sailing', were much more actual work, which was on top of basic stuff like fresh water, hot water, toilets etc not working reliably.

If we were to actually sail like that normally I think that would change a lot of the retention issues, at least on the MSE side. Crazy that wanting time and people so that you aren't 1 failure away from disaster on a warship doing peacetime sailing is an aspirational goal. I don't see that happening though without cutting ships to crew the other ones, making 6 week SWPs actually 6 weeks long, and doing radical things like considering delaying sailing if that means you can fix major issues by delaying departure for a day or 2.

 

[Grimey]

I want to say it was JW in 2011 (maybe the fall) on ATH. We ended up successfully making it to Glasgow and participated in it, but we left the wall with 3 solars and no DG, ended up losing 2 and 3 within an hour of each other, and then were going full out trying to get anything back up and running. I think it was the 2015 trip where ATH made it to London but had lost the main engines on the way across so spent JW alongside. IIRC they were also limited to SS 1 or 2 due to hull issues, and that was when the RCN decided to 'sail around the storm' instead (which went as well as you can expect).

I think after that we didn't sail again without the DG but was one of those jobs that got 'risk assessed' away when we ran out of time in the SWP.

But yeah, it was not great. Remember vividly someone getting reamed out for plugging in the heavy duty toaster (the one with the belt feed) which we saw as a power spike on the switchboard that almost was enough to trip the emergency generator because of how close we were running to the max amperage. We had this whole matrix of what we had to shut down if we had to do something like a man overboard where a crane was required, with half the lights shut down, a lot of CSE gear offline, and galleys down to minimum equipment only when needed.

It was a shitty day or two, but I guess at least they were still steam heated with boilers or we would have been cold as well..

Weird. During my 280 time, if the generators worked, the boilers didn't.

 

[ballz]

Disregard.

 

[Grimey]

I probably meant RA; but yes, when you chop over you lose SDA and convert over to the generic hazard pay. I'm think it was a bit of an increase, but it's something because of how the SDA regulations are written (but also why the SDA backpay came through because it shouldn't have ever been stopped while in DWPs). Unfortunately the tax free only started for the last few weeks of the ROTO, but was still a nice post Xmas gift.

Honestly though the ROTO on the ship was the easiest sailing I've ever done, even though we were sitting off Syria, in the Black Sea and otherwise in interesting parts of the world within weapons range of sketchy people. We sailed in pretty good shape, with a full crew, got proper material support while away, and got things like mobile repair parties for major issues, all without some jackass cramming the flex with everything they could think of so actually got to fix broken things and do only our primary job. The TRP, class shock trial and 'local sailing', were much more actual work, which was on top of basic stuff like fresh water, hot water, toilets etc not working reliably.

If we were to actually sail like that normally I think that would change a lot of the retention issues, at least on the MSE side. Crazy that wanting time and people so that you aren't 1 failure away from disaster on a warship doing peacetime sailing is an aspirational goal. I don't see that happening though without cutting ships to crew the other ones, making 6 week SWPs actually 6 weeks long, and doing radical things like considering delaying sailing if that means you can fix major issues by delaying departure for a day or 2.

Your 2nd paragraph. ALG was like that during Apollo. After 7 months and two cruise engine changes away we came back in better material state than when we left, a result of personnel resources being thrown at us and FLOG being excellent. Eight years later (2010) as CERA the difference was extreme. We were scraping the barrel for bodies and the ones we had were brand new (we'd lost HUR in the interim, along with the half crew of 280 stokers that were either on the parked 280 or at the school). Saving grace was the Apollo hands who were still there, if a rank or three higher.
The 2010 trip included RIMPAC and an another engine change. FLOG had deteriorated to the point of being advised via phone, "use the USN 570 change out kit, it's too expensive to fly the FMF one from Esquimalt". I managed not to drop too many f bombs in my response to that .

 

[Humphrey Bogart]

You aren't getting SDA though when you are deployed in a tax free zone; you switch over to the hazardous duty allowance (which is also tiered).

The most sea time i did in a single year was almost 9 months, and all of it was under MARLANT (even the overseas portion) so none of it would have qualified for tax exemption. It was also the most concerned I have ever been about things going seriously badly, as we were down to the emergency generator on a 280 in high sea states in a storm about 2 days from port, and one big wave away from a black out.

The ships sailing around in the sketchiest condition and minimum crews are the ones that are really earning their SDA, and the majority of our sea days in the fleet won't fall under the tax free deployements.

I am aware, my point was just to emphasize how it can be lucrative.

The force generation sail I did for a month when we got back was like that, bunch of noobs with no training bobbing around, thx god nothing super serious happened.

 

[Navy_Pete]

I am aware, my point was just to emphasize how it can be lucrative.

The force generation sail I did for a month when we got back was like that, bunch of noobs with no training bobbing around, thx god nothing super serious happened.

Yeah, tax free with a clutched in crew in a ship where things work is a good time. It made the yearish run up to it worth it, and would do it again.

FG sails in a clapped out rust bucket less so, and SDA doesn't being to bridge that gap.