Ferguson Urges Ferry Service to Resume Tuesday After Engineers' Sickout Stalls Fleet

The Morning the Boats Stopped

On a foggy day in West Seattle, the ferry horn usually cuts through the gray. Not this Monday. A dock worker named Tiffany stood near Fauntleroy and said the same thing to every car that rolled up. "Sorry, no boats today. We'll see you tomorrow." She said it over and over, a broken record for a broken system.

Behind her, the numbers were brutal. Twenty-three engine room employees called in sick Monday morning. Washington State Ferries tried to find qualified relief workers. Every single one declined the call. At one point, 13 of the system's 18 operating vessels sat dark and useless.

The state ferry system is the largest in the nation. It moves commuters, tourists, freight, and island residents across Puget Sound. On Monday, it moved almost nobody. Seattle-Bainbridge went dark. Edmonds-Kingston shut down. The Fauntleroy-Vashon-Southworth triangle stopped running. On the Mukilteo-Clinton route, drivers waited an estimated two to three hours for the boats that did run.

The ripple hit small places hardest. On Vashon Island, pharmacy workers needed to get to work. No ferry meant no pharmacist. No pharmacist meant the pharmacy stayed closed. One worker told KIRO Newsradio that people found rides on small boats, friends with skiffs, anyone with a hull that floated. Vaccinations for shingles, COVID-19, and the flu got pushed to another day. "It's hard," Chris, a pharmacy worker, said. "There is not enough staff."

That is the picture. A foggy Monday, a dead fleet, and a lot of people standing on docks, waiting for something that did not come.

What Ferguson Said

Governor Bob Ferguson did not wait long to respond. By Monday morning, he had already met with local and national leadership from the Marine Engineers' Beneficial Association, the union that represents the engineers who keep the engines running.

His public statement carried a specific weight. "As a regular rider on our state ferries, I know how important our ferry service is to Washingtonians," Ferguson said. He acknowledged the union's perspective. He said his door remained open. He said he remained committed to improving staffing levels.

Then he drew the line. "Causing significant harm and inconvenience to the people of Washington state is not the way to address those issues," he said. "I was very direct in our meeting: My expectation is that every vessel on every route is fully operational no later than the first vessel sailing tomorrow morning."

The tone matters here. Ferguson did not threaten. He did not plead. He set a deadline and walked away from the microphone. That is a governor who has pushed hard on ferry reliability since taking office. That is also a governor watching his signature issue stall on the water.

By Tuesday morning, Ferguson was posting again. "Good news — our ferries are back in action and operating normally with just a small number of cancelled sailings this morning due to absences from last night," he wrote.

The word "good news" carried an exhale. But the exhale came with a catch. Not every boat ran. Not every route ran on time. The system was back. It was not whole.

The Union's Side

Roland "Rex" Rexha did not blink. The secretary-treasurer of MEBA told KOMO News the union took no action Monday. "This is not a coordinated effort by any means," he said.

Rexha described a system running on fumes. One MEBA member worked more than 1,800 overtime hours in the past year. Union engineers collectively logged over 100,000 overtime hours to cover crewing shortfalls.

That is not a staffing plan. That is a tourniquet.

The contract covering roughly 400 ferry engineers expired. Negotiations continue. The engineers want a 20% pay increase to bring their wages closer to the deck workers they serve alongside. State law bars them from striking. A coordinated walkout would be illegal. So the question of whether Monday was a sickout or a spontaneous overflow of exhaustion becomes a legal question as much as a labor one.

Rexha pointed to data the union collected. Over the summer, a survey of more than 80 members found that over 60% were somewhat or very likely to retire or leave the ferry system for another job. More than half reported poor morale among their colleagues.

"One person taking off sick shouldn't shut down the service that people rely on," Rexha said. "And neither should 23."

He said he hoped every route would run Tuesday. He planned on it. He stopped short of a guarantee. "We want the vessels to run," he said. "We want them to run on time. We want them to run safely. I think we all have the same goals here."

Everyone says they want the same thing. The fight is about what it costs to get there.

Pay, Numbers, and the Noise Around Them

Washington State Ferries pushed back on the narrative with numbers of its own. The agency posted on social media that staff chief engineers have a base salary of $157,000. With overtime, that figure can climb past $350,000 annually, alongside sick leave, vacation, and retirement benefits.

Those numbers are real. They are also incomplete. The base salary tells you what a chief engineer makes in a normal week. The overtime number tells you how many weeks were not normal. One engineer worked 1,800 overtime hours in a year. That is not a bonus. That is a life consumed by the job.

Rexha called the agency's messaging "passive aggressive." He has a point. Releasing top-end compensation figures while your workforce is calling in sick paints a picture of greedy workers. The union's picture shows workers who cannot stay home without the whole system collapsing.

Both things can be true. The pay is solid. The workload is unsustainable. The system has leaned on overtime for so long that overtime has become the system.

Tuesday Morning: What Actually Happened

Tuesday did not dawn with a clean slate. Washington State Ferries said most routes were operating on regular service. Several morning sailings were canceled. Mukilteo/Clinton runs were scrapped through 6:30 a.m. Edmonds/Kingston sailings were canceled through 7:55 a.m.

The Fauntleroy/Vashon/Southworth route ran a two-boat schedule. The third vessel, Kitsap, stayed docked due to a crew shortage. It would remain out of service until staff was available.

At Coleman Dock in Seattle, reporter Natalie Fahmy found travelers learning their morning sailings were gone. The Seattle/Bainbridge route started with a 5:20 a.m. departure from Bainbridge Island. WSF posted that service levels were "back to normal with minimal early morning cancellations."

"Back to normal" is a phrase with a short memory. Normal for this system means boats running, engineers stretched, and a contract still expired. Normal is a temporary state. The system returned. The problem did not leave.

The Structural Problem Nobody Fixed

This did not start Monday. The union warned in June that staffing levels were already stretched thin. It said the shortage could lead to less reliable service and more canceled sailings. That warning came true three months later.

Ferguson has made ferry reliability a centerpiece of his first term. He has pushed for more boats, more funding, more attention to a system that carries millions of riders every year. That push ran into a wall Monday. The wall was not made of policy. It was made of people who were too tired to show up.

The structural problem is simple to describe and hard to solve. You need engineers to run ferries. You need enough engineers so that one sick call does not kill a route. You need a contract that makes the job worth keeping. You need a system that does not depend on 100,000 overtime hours to stay afloat.

None of that exists right now. What exists is an expired contract, a burned-out workforce, a governor with a deadline, and a public that just wants to get across the water.

What Comes Next

Contract negotiations will continue. Ferguson said his door remains open. Rexha said the union wants the same thing the governor wants: boats that run, on time, safely. The difference is how you get there and who pays for it.

Another sickout is possible. The underlying conditions have not changed. The overtime hours are still there. The morale is still low. The contract is still expired. If anything, Monday showed how fragile the system has become.

For riders, the lesson is simpler and harsher. The ferry is not a guarantee. It is a service held together by people who are running out of gas. When they stop, the islands stop. When the islands stop, the pharmacies close, the commuters scramble, and the governor gets on X to say "good news."

The boats will run Tuesday. Most of them. The Kitsap will wait. The contract will wait. The engineers will come back to a job that asks too much and pays well enough to make leaving complicated.

That is the picture. Fog on the water. A dock worker saying sorry. A governor drawing a line. A union saying the line was already crossed a long time ago.