For decades, cruise companies have gone to great lengths to bypass US employment laws, hiring foreign workers for less than $2/hour. They’ve sheltered themselves as foreign entities while simultaneously benefitting from US taxpayer-funded agencies and resources.
What the novel coronavirus has revealed about the cruise industry is a “hidden in plain sight” problem — an international maritime regulatory structure that obfuscates and often ignores legal and social responsibility, accountability and culpability.
The question is whether the coronavirus will dent, deflect or alter what has been a phenomenon of our times, the many-times multiplication of ship sizes, of passenger numbers and of profits, generated by an industry that manufactures its own version of reality, then shapes the places that its ships visit in the image of that reality.
Back in the 1990’s a man started a project from a dream he had to build not only the largest ship ever conceived, but to combine a family cruise line, airport and residential community all in one. His dream carried on through decades after and now seemingly stalled, a new CEO is taken the helm.
In a process called “stretching,” the Star Breeze is getting pulled apart to make room for a new, 84-foot, 1,250-ton prefab midsection addition. Think of it like unsnapping (or unwelding) two Legos and putting another block in between. But with a boat.