On Monday morning, the Washington State Ferries (WSF) announced that 13 of its 18 ferries were out of service, after 23 engine room employees “called in sick.” Additionally, every qualified employee subsequently refused to fill in for the absent workers.
For passengers, the consequences were immediate: missed connections, disrupted commutes, delayed medical visits, and general uncertainty ensued. Island communities are especially vulnerable to ferry outages, obviously, because when a vessel loses sailings, alternative travel is usually limited, expensive, or just plain impossible to find.
“The ferries cannot run without these roles being filled,” a graphic read on WSF’s Instagram account. “All of the employees calling in sick and declining to fill those vacancies are represented by the Marine Engineers’ Beneficial Association (MEBA), who represent engine room employees.”
WSF’s Instagram post continued: “We understand how disruptive this is to thousands of Washingtonians. We expect our employees to return to work as soon as possible.”
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Just below the water’s surface, though, lurked more context.
WSF has suffered from severe staffing issues since at least 2020, and it’s an open secret that the system relies heavily on worker overtime to keep the boats running. Some reports say that engine room workers typically work seven days a week, and they often exceed 1,500 hours of overtime per year.
In 2024, MEBA representative Eric Winge told Q13 FOX that “decades of underinvestment and poor management decisions by state administrators” were key factors contributing to the staffing crisis. “Engine room staff are often called on to work backshifts,” Winge also said, “often sleeping in their cars and at the docks.”
Plus, each vessel requires three or four marine engineers aboard, as mandated by the US Coast Guard, and safety rules greatly limit the agency’s ability to substitute workers on short notice. The staffing shortage in the engine room is so dire that if a single worker calls out sick and can’t be replaced, it can dock a whole ferry.
Another central complication in Monday’s incident is that the engineers are legally prohibited from striking under state law. Although the work cancellation was called a “sick-out” by some, WSF has not confirmed that the absences were coordinated. MEBA Secretary-Treasurer Roland “Rex” Rexha told KOMO News the union did not authorize the incident either. “The union didn’t take any action today,” Rexha said. “This is not a coordinated effort by any means.”
The distinction matters. WSF employees are legally allowed to use sick leave when they cannot report for work, per the state, but a coordinated labor stoppage would be illegal.
So why did this happen?
An important moving part here is the age-old pay gap between above-deck and below-deck workers at WSF. Masters, mates, and pilots working on the bridge can earn up to 25 percent more than the similarly licensed and experienced engine room staff, while workers on the deck get about 20 percent more than same-level workers below deck. The gulf between wages is even more stark, considering the amount of overtime that WSF workers put in—the difference paid at time and a half across the board, adds up.
Another possible mitigating factor is the MEBA workers’ contract, which workers are latterly unhappy with. Negotiations for their upcoming 2027–2029 contract ended in July after they went to arbitration. While the contract dispute focused partially on pay, bargaining attempts also included negotiations on WSF staffing levels and overall workload, to ease stress and burnout among engine room crew members, along with securing proposed provisions for potential future bargaining within the broader contract lifecycle.
As such, in July, MEBA’s unionized workers were seeking a 20 percent wage increase for their upcoming 2027–2029 contract. This pay raise would mean their salaries would approach the salaries of their above-deck coworkers as well as the pay grade for the same jobs in private-sector or other regional maritime system equivalents.
Instead, the arbitration decision was for a zero percent raise in 2027 and a wage reopener in 2028, which allows both parties to revisit the issue then. Per their existing 2025–2027 contract, MEBA-represented workers received an annual wage increase of 4 percent on July 1, 2026, as they also had a year prior.
Rexha, however, told Seattle Times on Monday that the October work cancellations aren’t related to MEBA’s contract negotiations or any collective bargaining effort.
As a possible nod to this wage parity issue, WSF wrote on their October 5 Instagram post: “The employees who work in the engine room play a vital role in providing WSF’s safe service. This is why Chief Engineers have a base salary of $157,000, and can make more than $350,000 a year with overtime, as well as annual sick and vacation leave, and retirement accrual.”
All of this came to a head this summer.
On June 17, 2026, the engineers’ union, MEBA, held a press conference at Seattle’s Colman Dock to express concern about WSF staffing levels, overtime demands, and the serious wage disparity among workers that could make recruiting and retaining credentialed marine engineers even more difficult in the future. Per the union’s weekly Telex Times publication, a survey of WSF engine room personnel found “widespread dissatisfaction, with more than 55% reporting low morale and over 60% saying they are likely to retire or seek employment elsewhere.”
The same issue of Telex Times pointed out that buying new ferries would not fix the problem, as many have suggested. Because engineers operate, maintain, and repair engines and other mechanical systems that allow the boats to sail safely, having a full complement of them on board is crucial before a vessel can depart.
“Billions of dollars are being spent on new ferries,” Winge wrote, “but if the state doesn’t close this wage gap, we won’t have enough licensed crew to operate and repair the new hybrid electric vessels when they come into service.”
While all of this has created a powder keg in the ferry engine rooms, multiple reports allege there was another trigger. Reportedly, a chief marine engineer—the same role whose pay was coincidentally mentioned as an example in WSF’s October 5 announcement—disobeyed a captain’s direct order earlier in the summer, and the captain’s union was in a dispute with WSF over whose fault it was. The incident between the captain and the chief engineer was supposedly a final straw on the camel’s back, further exacerbating the ongoing pressure and disgruntlement that’s been building for months, and it resulted in Monday’s supposed “sick-out.”
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The scale of the disruption highlighted how fast a worker dispute can become a transportation crisis in a watery part of the world like ours. Most of WSF’s ferry routes were effectively kneecapped, leaving thousands of islanders, commuters, and holidaymakers alike on hold all day.
The Mukilteo–Clinton route—WSF’s busiest run for vehicles—was down to one boat on Monday, rather than two boats orbiting one another per usual, creating a two-hour-minimum delay. The Vashon–Tahlequah route was in service but experiencing delays as well. All other routes experienced either route cancellations or total service suspensions, and Western Washington’s would-be ferry passengers were left only with service updates and rebooking measures.
In a statement released Monday by Washington state Governor Bob Ferguson, who met with MEBA that morning, he said: “My expectation is that every vessel on every route is fully operational no later than the first vessel sailing [Tuesday] morning.” His prophecy came true, with WSF’s system mostly returning to normal service with some delays on Tuesday.
The Stranger emailed several union organizers and WSF execs asking for comment on Monday’s alleged “sick-out” incident, none replied by press time.
Although the boats are back on the water as of Tuesday, WSF still must resolve its long-term worker compensation, staffing shortage, and retention challenges. Monday’s cancellations show that fleet capacity alone does not guarantee dependable service; they also need skill, experience, and willingness.
The incident has once again exposed the fragility of a ferry system—the second-largest in the world, just behind BC Ferries—that had recently emphasized improvements in service and staffing. Overall, the so-called “sick-out” incident, whether coordinated or coincidental, proved to be a real test of WSF’s endurance, resilience, and adaptability—one that it didn’t exactly pass with flying colors.
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