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Below Deck: Filipinos make up nearly a third of all cruise ship workers

story.californiasunday.com

1–10 of 209 posts

Re: Below Deck: Filipinos make up nearly a third of all cruise ship workers

#4
post #3

Hate to nitpick, but how is "Regie eventually settled for $25,000 — after attorney fees were taken out, roughly equivalent to a year’s middle-class income in the Philippines." factual if the GDP per capita of the Philippines is ~$2600?

maybe because the equivalent of "middle class" is so rare there?

Re: Below Deck: Filipinos make up nearly a third of all cruise ship workers

#5
I visited Olongapo a number of times in the late 80s with the US Navy. As the article mentions we had a very large number of Filipinos in the USN and there were whole departments completed dominated by Filipino leadership (at the enlisted level).

It's interesting that as our bases shut down and we left that our cruise lines started picking people up.

I think this article should be a cautionary tail to those who would think that large businesses can be trusted to treat people properly on their own.

Re: Below Deck: Filipinos make up nearly a third of all cruise ship workers

#7
post #3

Hate to nitpick, but how is "Regie eventually settled for $25,000 — after attorney fees were taken out, roughly equivalent to a year’s middle-class income in the Philippines." factual if the GDP per capita of the Philippines is ~$2600?

maybe because the equivalent of "middle class" is so rare there?

Judging from my own time living in Manila I can vouch for this. The middle class has been slowly emerging since the 1980s - thanks to increased education and foreign investment - but it's still a tiny proportion of the country. I used to live in Makati and when touring the rest of the country it felt like the entire non-poor, but non-superrich were confined to just that part of Manila.

(Shout out to ISM Bearcats!)

Re: Below Deck: Filipinos make up nearly a third of all cruise ship workers

#8
post #3

Hate to nitpick, but how is "Regie eventually settled for $25,000 — after attorney fees were taken out, roughly equivalent to a year’s middle-class income in the Philippines." factual if the GDP per capita of the Philippines is ~$2600?

The income distribution of the Philippines, like many developing economies is very uneven, which leads to great disparities between median and mean incomes. I'm not convinced that GDP is a reliable proxy for "average income" anyway.

Re: Below Deck: Filipinos make up nearly a third of all cruise ship workers

#10
post #6
post #2

That's terrible man. $190/month as a dish washer $45/month as a waiter (with tips that could reach to 2k if you always work overtime and not complain about the lack of extra pay)

Terrible by what country's standards?

Almost every country.
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