Rough passage.

Byline: Sherri Buri McDonald The Register-Guard

Although the Eugene-Springfield area is hundreds of miles from the nearest port for passenger cruise ships, it suddenly has a strong tie to the international cruise industry, a booming and controversial business.

In November, Miami-based Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. announced it will build a $60 million, 180,000-square-foot customer contact center in Springfield's Gateway area. It eventually could employ 1,000 workers, the company says. By next year, hundreds of residents of job-hungry Lane County will be working in the cruise industry. So maybe it's time for a primer on the business of ocean cruising, poised to become a major player in the local economy.

The industry comes with its problems - disputes over the dumping of raw sewage and hazardous waste at sea, and over pay and working conditions of on-board staff. Also, industries based on recreational travel tend to be cyclical, flourishing when people have plenty of discretionary income, suffering when they don't.

Yet cruise lines seem to be charting a course for growth. Despite the plunge in air travel after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the cruise industry has grown an average of 8 percent a year for the past decade, according to the International Council of Cruise Lines, an industry trade group based in Arlington, Va.

The Passenger Shipping Association projects that the number of cruise passengers will more than double to nearly 22 million by 2010, driven by the introduction of more and larger ships, which is heating up competition and pushing down prices.

Demographic forces are on the side of the industry, as aging baby boomers warm to cruising. The average cruisegoer is married, 50 years old, with a household income of $99,000, according to the Cruise Lines International Association.

If Royal Caribbean becomes a major employer in Lane County, it will be the second-biggest sector driven by aging boomers. Recreational vehicle factories, which employ more than 4,000 in the county, are kept busy by much the same demographic group.

Floating cities

It's not all smooth sailing for the cruise industry. Environmental and labor groups have hounded cruise lines for years, saying they pollute the ocean and exploit foreign workers.

With 2,000 to 3,000 passengers, cruise ships are floating cities. They generate trash, sewage and other pollution.

Oceana, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit environmental advocacy group, estimates that each 3,000-passenger cruise ship can generate 25,000 gallons of sewage daily; plus 143,000 gallons of so-called gray water from sinks, kitchens and showers, and 4,000 gallons of oily wastewater, or bilge water.

Royal Caribbean says more accurate figures for its ships are 143,000 gallons of gray water a day, 15,000 to 16,000 gallons of sewage and about 2,000 gallons of bilge water.

Cruise ships aren't subject to the same regulations as land-based industries under the federal Clean Water Act, says Jackie Savitz, director of Oceana's pollution campaign. Typically, factories must clean their wastewater before dumping it into sanitary sewer lines or into waterways.

By contrast, current federal law allows cruise ships operating in U.S. waters to dump raw sewage more than three miles from the coast, and treated sewage at any distance from the coast.

Some states, such as Alaska and California, have adopted stricter laws regarding dumping of raw sewage in state waters.

The cruise industry wants to keep oceans clean because they are the industry's lifeblood, says the International Council of Cruise Lines, which represents the 16 largest passenger cruise lines, including leaders Carnival and Royal Caribbean.

The industry adopted waste management practices and procedures in 2001 that cover all waste streams from cruise ships, including waste water, solid waste and hazardous waste, says Michael Crye, council president.

"It includes comprehensive recycling, waste reduction and wastewater treatment that I would compare with any municipality that's out there," Crye says.

He says the council's member companies don't discharge raw sewage closer than four miles from the coast - the international standard.

Royal Caribbean says it set its own rules under which the company's ships discharge gray water and treated sewage at least 12 miles from shore traveling at six knots - except for in emergencies or on "restrictive itineraries," for example, deep in Alaska's Inside Passage, where it's physically impossible to get 12 miles out. The company's ships don't discharge any raw sewage, said Greg Purdy, the company's director of safety, security and public health.

Despite laws and industry pledges, violations have occurred. In the past decade, cruise ships have committed more than 300 acts of dumping of oil, garbage, hazardous waste, sewage, gray water, and falsifying environmental records, and paid more than $80 million in fines and penalties to the federal government and various states, Oceana reports, based on a 2001 GAO report and its own updates since then.

Royal Caribbean paid out $30.3 million for environmental plea agreements and settlements from 1998 to 2000.

Royal Caribbean paid $9 million in a 1998 federal plea agreement for dumping oil into the ocean and falsifying ship records. The company also pleaded guilty to 21 federal felony counts and paid a criminal fine of $18 million in 1999 for dumping waste oil and hazardous chemicals used in dry cleaning and photo processing and lying to the U.S. Coast Guard about the cruise line's practices.

In 2000, the cruise line settled with the state of Alaska, agreeing to pay a $3.3 million fine for dumping toxic chemicals, including dry cleaning fluid, and oil-contaminated water into Alaska state waters.

Those were not proud moments in Royal Caribbean's history.

"It brought problems to light," company spokesman Michael Sheehan says. "There was a small group of people who were doing things improperly, and we've used that situation as a catalyst to try to be at the forefront of these issues."

In May, Royal Caribbean became the first cruise line to commit to equipping its entire fleet of 29 ships with advanced wastewater purification systems by 2008, at a cost of about $116 million.

Oceana contends that the company capitulated after Oceana pressured the cruise line with a yearlong direct-action campaign. Protesters demonstrated at ports, and Oceana hired a pilot to fly past the company's cruise ships and display a banner that read: "Got Sewage? Royal Caribbean Dumps Daily."

Oceana also collected 90,000 signatures from travelers pledging not to take a cruise on Royal Caribbean until the company upgraded its fleets' sewage treatment systems, Oceana's Savitz says.

Sheehan says Oceana's campaign played no role in the company's decision making.

"That's a direction we've been headed in for years," he says.

Now, Oceana hopes to pressure the entire industry to upgrade its treatment systems by advocating federal legislation, the Clean Cruise Ship Act, that would create a 12-mile no-discharge zone along the U.S. coast. Beyond that, ships could dump only sewage treated with advanced purification technology. The dumping of raw sewage would no longer be allowed in U.S. waters, which extend 200 miles from the coastline.

Once cruise lines have the wastewater treatment technology on their ships, there's no reason they wouldn't use it wherever they operate, so the U.S. law could help protect oceans wherever the ships travel, Savitz says.

The legislation was introduced this year, Savitz says, and it will probably need to be reintroduced next year.

The cruise industry association opposes the legislation, claiming that it goes too far and isn't based on scientific evidence.

"We believe that the Clean Cruise Ship Act is above and beyond what is appropriate," Crye says.

On-board working conditions

Another long-standing criticism of cruise lines is that they register their ships under foreign flags to evade more stringent labor laws that would apply if their ships were registered under the flag of their home country.

The media have recounted many stories of crew recruited from some of the world's poorest countries working long hours, for as little as $2 an hour, sleeping two to six people to a small cabin and failing to receive adequate health care on-board.

In October 2002, Royal Caribbean settled a class-action lawsuit filed by crew members claiming they were owed overtime pay. Admitting no fault, Royal Caribbean created an $18.4 million settlement fund.

Nearly 6,500 workers have filed claims, totaling $5.65 million, according to the Bureau of National Affairs Workplace Law Report. Workers have until the end of the year to submit claims, then, under terms of the agreement, the fund's remaining money will be returned to the company, company spokeswoman Lynn Martenstein says.

In September, Royal Caribbean transferred registry of six ships to the Bahamas from Norway. Now, all 29 of the company's Royal Caribbean and Celebrity Cruise-brand ships are registered under the Bahamian flag.

The company made that move for efficiency and uniformity, says Kjell Eliasson, Royal Caribbean's director of human resources and fleet operations. All of the ships abide by one country's laws, and the company now negotiates with fewer unions, says Donald Tyler, Royal Caribbean senior associate counsel.

A collection of unions - Norwegian, Italian, Filipino - all part of the International Transport Workers' Federation represent workers on Royal Caribbean's ships, says Johan Oyen, director of cruise operations for the Norwegian Seaman's Union in Miami.

Oyen's union represents engine, catering and hotel workers on Royal Caribbean's ships.

"We don't have any big problems (with the company) at the moment," he says. "Royal Caribbean as a general thing is a very good employer. They follow the book."

Between its two brands - Royal Caribbean and Celebrity - Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. has about 35,000 shipboard employees, and about 80 percent are covered by union contracts, Tyler says. Union agreements specify hours of work and hours of rest, with overtime pay typically kicking in after 40 to 44 hours a week, he says.

"Cruise ship life is intense," Eliasson says. "It's a 24-7 operation."

It's not unusual for workers to put in 10-hour days, seven days a week, he says. The trade-off, Eliasson says, is that workers can take long vacations between busy stints on-board.

In addition to their monthly salaries, workers receive food, housing, medical coverage and retirement benefits. Pay ranges are wide. Typical pay for chefs is $800 to $4,500 a month; waiters and cabin stewards typically make $900 to $3,000 a month, not including tips, Sheehan says.

Assuming those employees put in 10-hour shifts every day, the lowest paid would make $2.67 an hour.

"We try to be the employer of choice within our industry," says Tyler, Royal Caribbean's lawyer.

The company's crews hail from more than 100 countries, he says, and they are well paid compared with the average wages of workers in their home countries.

"The employees feel that this is a good value and the hard work is worth the money," Tyler says.

Tom and Bonnie Bily, retirees from Pleasant Hill and cruise enthusiasts, say they like interacting with the international crew.

On their latest cruise to the Caribbean, the Bilys noticed that many of the workers were from the Philippines and their head waiter was from Romania.

"He called us mama and papa," Tom Bilys recalls fondly.

Steve Swenson, another local cruisegoer, spent Thanksgiving with his wife, Kim, and their two teenagers on Norwegian Cruise Lines America's Pride of Aloha in Hawaii.

It had an all-American crew, and the worst service of any of the five cruises he's taken, Swenson says. "I like the idea (of an All-American crew)," he says, "and I wish it had worked better."

But Swenson says many times the food ran out, coffee pots sat empty and out-of-service signs hung on bathroom doors.

"There seemed to be an attitude that 80 percent was good enough," he says. "You get kind of spoiled on these cruise ships. It was just a let down. I'm hoping they'll get better."

Swenson says the crews of the other cruises he's taken were typically foreign workers.

"The crews do put in tremendously long shifts," he says. "I think that may have something to do with why they're not having as much success with the American crews. I think some of the European workers were maybe a little more hungry."

Swenson says there was a huge difference between the service he and his wife enjoyed on their first cruise to the Caribbean in 1989 on Dolphin Cruise Line, and this latest cruise in Hawaii.

The companies have tried to draw in a larger market, and they've had to reduce the price and drop some of the attention to detail that used to make cruising so unique, he says.

"This last cruise - I hope that's not the direction cruises are going," he says, "where you feel like you're staying at a budget motel floating at sea."

Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd.

Parent company of Royal Caribbean International and Celebrity Cruises 

Headquarters: Miami

CEO: Richard Fain 

Number of employees: 38,000 worldwide

Number of ships: 19 Royal Caribbean; 10 Celebrity

2003 revenue: $3.8 billion

2003 profit: $280.7 million