| Pay-Wages-Expenses
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1. Comparison of wages 1942 - 19562. Lighthouse time |
 Employee Record |
1. Comparison of Wages 1942 - 1956 In the photo on the left is a photocopy of the "Employee's Record" (1942 - 1956) for Thomas Moran, lightkeeper at Barrett Rock  , an isolated station just outside Prince Rupert Harbour, British Columbia.
Unfortunately his pay scale for his starting date in 1942 is missing. The first indication of his salary is 1 Jan. 1947, a maximum (max) amount of $1824.00 per annum. In 1947 the average weekly wage for a male person working as a labourer in the manufacturing industry was $2933.00 per annum - about $1100.00 per annum more than a senior lighthouse keeper working in isolation for seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day, every day of the year! (see table below from StatsCanada) From this wage he had to support his family and pay an assistant keeper (if one was required). He also had to pay a relief keeper if he wished to leave the station for holidays or medical problems. Year Male salaried employees Annual Weekly Hourly 1956 4,918 99.05 2.51 1955 4,636 93.50 2.36 1954 4,499 90.99 2.31 1953 4,327 86.43 2.19 1952 3,985 82.60 2.07 1951 3,852 77.55 1.94 1950 3,507 69.35 1.73 1949 3,317 65.37 1.60 1948 3,147 63.47 1.54 1947 2,933 60.21 1.46 1946 2,680 53.21 1.27 This inequality continued until just recently (August 2005) when the lighthouse keepers were granted a substantial 10.5% increase to bring them closer to an employee working in town. Click here to see a copy of the wages from the Collective Agreement with the Treasury Board of Canada. - John Coldwell (Keeper on Pulteney, Kains, Pachena, Green, McInnes 1969 - 2001) |
Additional Employee Records of Thomas Moran
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2.Lighthouse Time On the lighthouse we worked to get the job done. When it was done we could relax. We were on duty all the time. In the early days (1920s - 1950s) it was a one family station and if an assistant was required for heavy work then it was up to the keeper to hire a person from his own wages from the local community. The keepers hours of duty were long and hard and were broken only when the wife was free to help out. Two man and/or family stations were only on very isolated stations with keepers on duty approximately twelve hour shifts but usually longer. Actually, at that time, no shifts were set down on paper - the station had to be manned no matter what. 1950s to 1970s stations with more duties, equipment or isolation had an extra man so there were one-, two- and three-man stations. These people were on duty at all hours. A one-man station required the keeper to sometimes sleep in the engine/fog alarm room when heavy fog was prevalent for days on end. Mid 1960s the two-man stations had a shift time of twelve hours each man and three-man stations eight hours each. The early 1970s saw some automated equipment installed and most three-man stations reduced to two-man and a susequent increase in the number of hours on duty without an increase in pay. Late 1970s brought more talk of automation but no increase in the keepers pay. In fact the first closing of some stations was started, automation equipment was put in place and keepers were ignored. Finally by the mid 1980s a job description was given to most lighthouse keepers and this would be what their wages were based on - more duties more pay. Keepers were requested to submit a list of the duties they performed and the time involved. But, only Coast Guard related work was to be on the list. All the extra work the lightkeeper did were not recorded - jobs such as weather reporting, sea water samples, search and rescue, bird and animal surveys, pollution watch, radio watch, etc. This, according to the Coast Guard was not the job of a lighthouse keeper. Again in the mid 1980s, automation in Ottawa and the lights designated that we had to have hours of work laid down. Up to that time we were paid a yearly wage divided by the number of government paydays in a year (52). This gave us our bi-monthly wage. Divided by the number of hours we were on duty (seven days a week), this worked out to way less than the minimum wage at the time. Finally the government worked out that we would all have an eight hour shift each during "daylight hours" and they worked it out this way: 
As you can see the by the first table the shifts were 8 hours long as we were supposed to ignore the station during our one hour break at lunch and breakfast and supper. The second table shows that weather reports did not fit into this shift pattern at lunchtime. The third table shows the extra quarter/half hour we used to make the observations and record all afterwards. The result was a normal nine- to ten-hour day but we were only listed as working eight. You will notice on the attached pay stub the highlighted number 56 under "Hours of Work". This is eight hours a day for seven days (8 hours X 7 days = 56 hours). You can also see by the shift chart that "daylight hours" (which were imposed to stop us collecting shift differential) were an impossibility unless you were working in the summer above the Arctic Circle!
But, there was a good side. We worked as we wished. No office supervisor and no daily logging in and out. We could work twelve hours here and then go fishing for four hours, always mindful of the radio, the weather, engines, fog, and the light. We could work a morning shift and spend the next eight hours unloading a supply ship (no overtime) and then hit the sack. Next day we could "take it easy"! Only the weather reports at 3AM , 6AM, etc. But then the Coast Guard decided that we had to report "exactly" what we were doing! They issued us with log books and a new set of rules and we were supposed to log everything we did during our shift! Well we filled the books with every little detail we could think up. Contrary to our job description we included all the local, marine, synoptic, special and extra weathers. All the radio contacts, all the ship contacts, all the jobs done and listed every minute of the shift. We filled reams of books and sent them into the office every month. It didn't help us, didn't help them, but gave us an extra entry in the logbook "0900-0910 Filling out logbook"! Present day (November 2006) the Coast Guard has removed most of the foghorns (no monitoring), lowered or changed the intensity of the lights, removed range lights, removed radio beacons, removed weather equipment such as barometers, wind recorders, etc., and removed from the lightkeepers duties most weather reporting details so that they have become "glorified groundskeepers", but rest assured, as long as the government lets them remain on duty, they will come to your assistance with a radioed weather report, a can of gas or a friendly hello. God Bless all lighthousekeepers! - John Coldwell - (Assistant and Senior lighthouse keeper 1969 - 2001) |
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| John Coldwell (retired BC lighthouse keeper) Galvanistrasse 8 A-4040 Linz, Austria Tel: +43 (732) 750515  |
