Aussie cruise ship worker reveals dark side to glamorous industry, especially Pinoys

Aussie cruise ship worker reveals dark side to glamorous industry
Emily McPherson Aug 23, 2018 https://www.9news.com.au/2018/08/23/11/37/aussie-cruise-ship-worker-reve...

Ms Chamberlain said the relentless working hours took a toll on the mental health of staff. (Photo: Jade Chamberlain)
Ms Chamberlain said the relentless working hours took a toll on the mental health of staff. (Photo: Jade Chamberlain) (Supplied)
It might seem like a dream job - the chance to soak up the sun on deep blue waters as you travel the world from port to port at your employer’s expense.

But Perth photographer Jade Chamberlain, 21, is now speaking out about what she says is the grim reality of working life on a cruise ship.

Excited by the prospect of an adventure, Ms Chamberlain applied online through a recruitment company for a job with Carnival Cruise Line earlier this year.

She was offered a six-month contract as a trainee photographer on board the luxury liner ‘Cruise Paradise’ - where she would be paid $4.30 an hour to work 10 hours a day, seven days a week.

“It wasn’t a lot of money and I knew it would be long hours but I was going for the experience and the chance to see new places and meet new people,” Ms Chamberlain told nine.com.au.

“I thought it would be amazing getting to work on a cruise ship. I was going to be on board as a cruise photographer and that sounds quite glamorous when you say it.”

But almost immediately, Ms Chamberlain said she often found herself working well over the 10 hours a day she was contracted for and soon felt exhausted.

“Some days it could be up to 14 hours a day. We did get breaks in between but still it was a lot of hours to work every day,” she said.

“I was going crazy having to work that many days and every night I would go to bed and my feet would be aching. I was working harder than I ever had in my life.”

Although generally a happy person, Ms Chamberlain said the relentless work schedule, with no days off to rest and recover, began to take a toll on her mental health.

“For me it was a very big shock. I’m very mentally healthy but I remember I was breaking down crying at different points,” she said.

“One of my managers told me it doesn’t seem like you are trying that much and I ended up crying because I was trying so hard.

“One night I had a fever and I went to see a male nurse who gave me some Panadol. I said I couldn’t work the rest of my shift that night but he told me I couldn’t have it off.

“I had a bit of a breakdown because I felt so awful. I had a migraine and was aching all over. Luckily a female doctor ended up saying I could have a few hours off, but I think it was only because I was crying.”

Ms Chamberlain said as she got to know other crew on the ship it became apparent many were also struggling to cope mentally with their workloads as well as their isolation at sea from friends and family.

“The schedules on the ship were very strict and there were people around me that I could just see were very depressed,” she said.

“I knew a guy from Barbados. He was a huge man, seven-feet tall and super buff, and he admitted to me that he had fallen asleep crying for weeks in a row because he felt so isolated in his experience.”

Staff on board the ship were required to pay for their own wifi which also served to increase their isolation, Ms Chamberlain said.

“My cabin mate from the Philippines had a two-year-old baby and I would walk in to my cabin and she would be crying and watching videos of her baby and talking to me about how she can’t be at home with her family because this is the best way of earning an income for them.”

In one eye-opening conversation, a senior ship employee warned Ms Chamberlain against working on cruise ships in future.

“He said to me, ‘Honestly you shouldn’t have come here because this is like slavery’.”

Ms Chamberlain said there was a clear demarcation between the ship’s ‘staff’ like herself, who mostly had entertainment-type roles and ‘crew’ who were more likely to be working lower-end jobs such as cleaning and housekeeping.

“They were working in way more difficult circumstances actually. I don’t want to categorise them just by race but a lot of them were the Filipinos working in that cleaning role and they just seemed to be constantly working and sweating and I never saw any of them smile to be honest,” Ms Chamberlain said.

Ms Chamberlain said she managed to snatch a few hours off the ship when it docked occasionally, but many of the crew never made it off the boat in all the months they were there.

Unable to cope, Ms Chamberlain ended up quitting the job after just six weeks and disembarking in Tampa, Florida in May.

“I couldn’t stay there any longer. I was lucky enough and privileged enough to have someone else to fall back on and come home to but a lot of these people are from poor countries and they don’t have that choice.”

Tragically, a few weeks after she left the ship, Ms Chamberlain said she was messaged by a friend still on board who said one of the crew members had gone overboard in a suspected suicide.

“He was a crew member from the Philippines. It was news all over the ship that people were searching for him. It was assumed that he had jumped overboard because he was said to be depressed as well,” Ms Chamberlain said.

Earlier this month, a 22-year-old Serbian man, Nikola Arnautovic, was reported to have taken his own life on another Carnival Cruise Line ship the Carnival Fascination.

Serbian news website Blic reported Mr Arnautovic had requested emergency medical leave days before his death but this had been denied.

When questioned about the suspected suicides, a Carnival Cruise Line spokesperson told nine.com.au in a statement: “For privacy reasons it is not our practice to comment on individual employees”.

“Ships have strong on-board human resources and medical teams dedicated to the well-being of crew members including their mental health, and this is combined with ongoing investment in crew facilities, programs and services,” the statement read.

Ms Chamberlain said she was moved to speak out about the pressure cruise ship workers were under when she heard about the deaths.

“I was devastated. I thought no this is not ok that this is happening and people are (taking their own lives) now. I want to do something.”

“I was lucky to meet some very special people on the ship who helped me adjust but not all of us are so lucky.”

Ms Chamberlain has started an online petition calling on Carnival Cruise Line - which employs 35,000 people and is owned by the world's largest cruise ship operator, Carnival Corporation – to give its workers one day off per week.

In the petition, Ms Chamberlain also calls for a trained psychologist to be on board every ship.

“Mental health is discussed during training but only one ‘human resources officer’ is provided per ship. There are no qualified psychologists on board,” she said, adding that she believed this could save lives.

Carnival Cruise Lines declined to comment on Ms Chamberlain’s petition.

Regarding its employment contracts, Carnival Cruise Line said it firmly adhered to “strict international conventions and requirements”.

“We have a deep commitment to practices that ensure that our crew can operate in a supportive, empathetic and positive working environment in which they are treated with respect as valued individuals. Our approach is to treat shipboard employees as we would wish them to treat our guests.”