CRCN Message on the Steward Occupation Town Hall (Steward trade elimination)

[Underway]

We have maintained food service out of the wardroom servery by having a cook and scullery go up for meal times. Midnight meal and stokers breakfast are done from the main steam line only.

Sounds like you have it sorted out perfectly. Elegant solution.

 

[Navy_Pete]

@Halifax Tar I think it was more that the small steward trade had about the right level of training for what they had to do, and it seems like the replacements are overtrained for those roles (and puts additional pressure on trades that didn't need it). I know a few juniour cooks that were on scullery/prep roles that were pretty demotivated so can't see that helping.

Not saying the change doesn't logically make sense, but there are already a tonne of pressures to update the training of existing trades (ie create the new HT stream again, which is probably about 5 years behind) plus overhaul the ops/CSE trades for CSC. Really short of TDO and training people, so that change just piles onto something already short handed.

What you've got in place makes sense, and figured how it would go. Keeping the food line open at the wardroom makes sense for safety reasons (and keeping the food life operational was always on my list of safety equipment for normal operation at sea) and probably makes it a bit easier to keep track of people that haven't eaten (like air crew flying, or MSE folks stuck with an equipment breakdown).

 

[Furniture]

What you've got in place makes sense, and figured how it would go. Keeping the food line open at the wardroom makes sense for safety reasons (and keeping the food life operational was always on my list of safety equipment for normal operation at sea) and probably makes it a bit easier to keep track of people that haven't eaten (like air crew flying, or MSE folks stuck with an equipment breakdown).

Lots of us didn't have stewards to keep track of whether we ate or not, and despite missing the odd meal, none of us died... Matter of fact, most sailors could do with a few less meals(myself included)...

That line of thinking has always struck me as silly.

 

[Halifax Tar]

@Halifax Tar I think it was more that the small steward trade had about the right level of training for what they had to do, and it seems like the replacements are overtrained for those roles (and puts additional pressure on trades that didn't need it). I know a few juniour cooks that were on scullery/prep roles that were pretty demotivated so can't see that helping.

No cook should have ever been in a scullery roll, and prepping is part of the cooks trade. As for being over trained, I think you're going to have to provide me an example. Casualty cleaning and POOW were and are already done by other trades.

Not saying the change doesn't logically make sense, but there are already a tonne of pressures to update the training of existing trades (ie create the new HT stream again, which is probably about 5 years behind) plus overhaul the ops/CSE trades for CSC. Really short of TDO and training people, so that change just piles onto something already short handed.

Don't conflate what happened to the MSE dept and what's happened to the STWs. Stewards are an outdated trade, that had no role on a modern warship. They needed to go. That might sound gruff, but its just the facts. The truth is, CSC, AOPS and JSS are probably the last platforms that will carry Clerks and and MMTs as well. The difference is those trades will go on supporting from ashore and in other environments. I predict one day the Log Dept will only be cooks.

The same statements cant be made for MSE trades.

 

[Navy_Pete]

Lots of us didn't have stewards to keep track of whether we ate or not, and despite missing the odd meal, none of us died... Matter of fact, most sailors could do with a few less meals(myself included)...

That line of thinking has always struck me as silly.

It wasn't actually the stewards that kept track of it, more of a departmental thing to get meals put aside; same thing happened off the main steam line for the jrs and POs.

A lot of times was less of a hunger thing, and more of a 15 minute mental break from the bullshit. But staying fed helped when you were running 18-20 hour days when everything was broken but still need to get to point B.

 

[Blackadder1916]

Again, casualty clearing isn't an argument either. As you say its done by other folks too. The hardest part as been dealing with the medical side who were simply upset that they didn't have the same numbers. As I expressed, they need to accept reality and improvise, adapt and overcome.

My experience with ship's medical organization is over forty years out-dated, but my one experience (on a USN LPD) of a no-duff mass multi-casualty event certainly highlighted the requirement for many additional bodies for casualty handling. When you say that the medical side "didn't have the same numbers", what numbers are you referring to?

Accepting reality, improvising, adapting and overcoming is fine but there are limitations on what an individual can do in an emergency.

 

[Halifax Tar]

My experience with ship's medical organization is over forty years out-dated, but my one experience (on a USN LPD) of a no-duff mass multi-casualty event certainly highlighted the requirement for many additional bodies for casualty handling. When you say that the medical side "didn't have the same numbers", what numbers are you referring to?

Accepting reality, improvising, adapting and overcoming is fine but there are limitations on what an individual can do in an emergency.

Medical lost 4 people from the casualty clearing organization.

The big issue is there was no recce done on the implementation of the retirement of the Steward trade. I appreciate and support that it was the right thing to do, I simply think it was ham fisted. Not to mention the effects on the W&SB and feeding have been left to units to find solutions to, when these should have been investigated and delegated at the announcement.

The weird existence of the Stewards was part of the problem. On ships they made up part of the Log department, but they weren't logistics and there for D Nav Log was kind of in the dark about this, but then the fallout fell on Logistics.

Again, right thing to do. Piss poor planning and preparation.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Medical lost 4 people from the casualty clearing organization.

The big issue is there was no recce done on the implementation of the retirement of the Steward trade. I appreciate and support that it was the right thing to do, I simply think it was ham fisted. Not to mention the effects on the W&SB and feeding have been left to units to find solutions to, when these should have been investigated and delegated at the announcement.

The weird existence of the Stewards was part of the problem. On ships they made up part of the Log department, but they weren't logistics and there for D Nav Log was kind of in the dark about this, but then the fallout fell on Logistics.

Again, right thing to do. Piss poor planning and preparation.

From the same people who broke up the Stoker mafia and did it so well.......

 

[Halifax Tar]

From the same people who broke up the Stoker mafia and did it so well.......

You can't conflate the two, the Engineers are as much to blame for their own situation as RCN command. Lots of their Snr folks were more than happy to go along with the MARTECH idea.

The same can't be said for Stewards. The Snr folks in their trade have been fighting for it's existence for years.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

You can't conflate the two, the Engineers are as much to blame for their own situation as RCN command. Lots of their Snr folks were more than happy to go along with the MARTECH idea.

The same can't be said for Stewards. The Snr folks in their trade have been fighting for it's existence for years.

From the outside looking in, and listening to how unsuccessful the former has been, it would seem the dissolution of the Steward trade might following the same path. That's just based on comments here as I don't have any other way to gauge how successful or not things are going.

 

[Halifax Tar]

From the outside looking in, and listening to how unsuccessful the former has been, it would seem the dissolution of the Steward trade might following the same path. That's just based on comments here as I don't have any other way to gauge how successful or not things are going.

I'm living it every day. I wouldn't ever call the retirement of a trade successful, seems needlessly mean. But I will tell you CHA has moved on, and their tasks have been absorbed where necessary and discarded where necessary.

 

[Eaglelord17]

You can't conflate the two, the Engineers are as much to blame for their own situation as RCN command. Lots of their Snr folks were more than happy to go along with the MARTECH idea.

The same can't be said for Stewards. The Snr folks in their trade have been fighting for it's existence for years.

Considering everyone including our allies (specifically the British who had literally just tried and failed the Martech concept) said not to and we ignored it and went ahead anyways, we get what we deserve.

Whoever is dumb enough to think it is feasible to make a trade consisting of electricians, millwrights, welders, plumbers, machinists, and carpenters; well expecting it to work with a short vie really shouldn’t be in any position of power.

Civvy side each one of those trades is a 3-5 year process to get to journeyman status. Some of the skills are complementary and realistically we don’t need to train all them to that level (such as carpentry or machining), but to make someone reasonably skilled at all that work your looking at 10-15 years of time spent training/doing the job.

The only real question is how long before we admit we were wrong as a institution and attempt to correct.

 

[Halifax Tar]

Considering everyone including our allies (specifically the British who had literally just tried and failed the Martech concept) said not to and we ignored it and went ahead anyways, we get what we deserve.

Whoever is dumb enough to think it is feasible to make a trade consisting of electricians, millwrights, welders, plumbers, machinists, and carpenters; well expecting it to work with a short vie really shouldn’t be in any position of power.

Civvy side each one of those trades is a 3-5 year process to get to journeyman status. Some of the skills are complementary and realistically we don’t need to train all them to that level (such as carpentry or machining), but to make someone reasonably skilled at all that work your looking at 10-15 years of time spent training/doing the job.

You've hit the mark well.

The only real question is how long before we admit we were wrong as a institution and attempt to correct.

Its already happening.