DM Pay

[TMHeimer]

Another professional/non-professional distinction:

In addition to diving, I also umpire baseball—and it pays more per hour than being a divemaster. The distinction between professional and amateur umpires is not the pay status of the umpire—but that of the players. All umpires (except volunteer adults working Little League) get paid.

Professional umpires work games played by professional players; amateur umpires work games played by unpaid players.

However, as an amateur umpire, I can make more money than a professional umpire in the low minor leagues can. That’s because the rookie league and single-A umpires are the disposable up-or-out, sink-or-swim, how-bad-do-you-want-the-dream divemaster equivalents of the baseball world.

As an amateur umpire, you are working "professionally" because you get paid. Have you considered that calling one an "amateur umpire" is simply describing the game (league) that one is getting paid to umpire (one which consists of amateur players), as opposed to describing the umpire his/herself? Hey, yet more semantics...

 

[Scraps]

Of course.
The point of my comment was to play with semantics—since that’s all this thread has aspired to accomplish from its very beginning.

 

[TMHeimer]

Of course.
The point of my comment was to play with semantics—since that’s all this thread has aspired to accomplish from its very beginning.

No argument here.

 

[Mike Walker]

Not only to charge what you're worth...but to ensure you're protected in the event of workplace accidents/injuries/illnesses...which in some cases last long after the weekly reimbursement for the work performed has been spent...

Imagine losing a lifetime worth of income...after being permanently injured while performing a ''fills and favors'' job...for which you were not eligible for accident/injury/illness compensation...

Yes - that is an extremely important point and why I'm so specific about the details on this.
Anyone not working as a fully paperworked 'employee' owes it to themselves to do a good bit of research on their exact standing.
In some places you may have to take a calculated risk as the laws are not worker friendly - but it's important some effort is put into doing that math accurately.

I'm a big fan of Alberta's system (despite being a payer rather than beneficiary) in that it all but ensures universal coverage and puts the burden of proof on the 'next guy up the chain' as to whether they are responsible. Basically, if you don't have a 'WCB clearance' provided by the government from someone you contract (individual or business) you have to assume you are the one paying for their insurance and will be legally responsible if there is an injury. I generally hire freelancers on a hourly/daily basis - I pay WCB for almost all of them. The system is really simple to be a part of and a small financial burden eliminates a large administrative burden.

(To make this relevant to diving... I believe BC's system is pretty closely aligned with Alberta's)

you do not have to be covered under the owners WSIB you can be a sub contractor then the WSIB is on you ...... the employer still has some obligations but its limited .some one who has worked for other people all their lives AND never been a 'dive professional " wouldn't know that as some one who has owned 2 dive shops and a chrome plating facility for over 20 years I HAVE employed sub contractors in all the business's

Again, this is very location specific. Based on 'WSIB' I'm assuming Ontario for you. Your experiences are not necessarily applicable across the country and certainly not across NA or the world.

This isn’t an employment law classification, it’s more cultural in origin.

In several parts of Canada (phrased carefully due to my previous posts ) one area where 'professional' actually does exist in the law is for a 'Professional Engineer' - as opposed to a train engineer or a building engineer or an audio engineer. Now, this is partly a valid attempt to ensure the safety of the public and partly gatekeeping on the part of those with that occupation - but, nonetheless, it is an example where the term has actually been defined legally.

However, outside of that, I agree that the phrase is very much subject to cultural interpretation.
Calling someone a 'dive professional' is nothing more than marketing.
The venn-diagram of people who are good at their jobs and people whose business cards say 'professional' doesn't necessarily have a large area of overlap.

 

[bfw]

"Professional" means a lot of things.

Not really. Words have meaning. Professional means an activity is done for compensation
Synonym: mercenary
Antonym: Amateur. Amateur is often incorrectly connotated as implying less proficient or inferior, but this ignores the etymology of the word. Amateur takes its first two syllables from the Latin root for love, and means one who does something because they are passionate about it.

Put another way:
Your wife is an amateur.
That young lady on the street corner in the thigh high stiletto boots, micro mini skirt, and sequined tube top is a professional

 

[pauldw]

Not really. Words have meaning. Professional means an activity is done for compensation
Synonym: mercenary
Antonym: Amateur. Amateur is often incorrectly connotated as implying less proficient or inferior, but this ignores the etymology of the word. Amateur takes its first two syllables from the Latin root for love, and means one who does something because they are passionate about it.

Put another way:
Your wife is an amateur.
That young lady on the street corner in the thigh high stiletto boots, micro mini skirt, and sequined tube top is a professional

Except that by the other common definition of "professional," the young lady is not a professional because she is not engaged in a profession.

 

[Barnaby'sDad]

Except that by the other common definition of "professional," the young lady is not a professional because she is not engaged in a profession.

It is often referred to as “the oldest profession.”

 

[ScubaSquatch]

.

 

[boulderjohn]

I know this is an old thread, but several points have not been made in it.

1. Many of the practices described in this thread are violations of the law, as the first dive shop I worked for discovered before changing its policies. Dive shops get away with it because some people don't know better and because the ones that do know better have decided it is better to live with it than report it to the appropriate authorities. (I am one who never reported those abuses to authorities, even when I confirmed with an expert that they were illegal.)

2, In some cases you hear of and report on threads like this, people are lying. I used to do all my diving on a dive boat whose captain had a regular practice of imploring divers to tip the DMs because "they work for tips." I finally challenged the legality of that in private, and the regular spiel became something along the lines of "the DMs depend on tips for much of their income."

3. The definition of professional for diving differs in large part because professionals are required to carry professional liability insurance. They are required to carry that insurance because of the possibility they might be sued. For that to happen, payment does not have to be involved; you are a professional if you are acting as one. What is involved is an understanding on the part of the plaintiff that he or she could count on the professional to provide some level of service, usually including safety. There is a myth perpetrated in ScubaBoard threads that DMs have no responsibility to be a safety factor when leading dives. That is simply not true. DMs are not expected to pull off miracles, but they are expected to provide a reasonable level of safety; in one famous case, the DM was successfully sued when he refused to share air with an OOA diver who died. In another case, two DMs (and their agency) were successfully sued when they failed to notice that a diver was missing when they called the roll. In that last case, the DMs were not members of the boat crew but were instead unpaid members of the dive club that had chartered the boat. In the discussion threads mentioned above, dive operation owners regular jump in to say that they absolutely demand that their DMs provide a reasonable level of assistance for safety, but those posts are routinely ignored by the posters who say DMs have no responsibility for your safety.

In some cases, there is an understanding that a role needs to be performed by a professional, even if the person in that role is not literally a professional. In a case in the San Diego area about a decade ago, a DM on a boat jumped into the water to help a diver who was having trouble on the surface while trying to get back onto the boat. The DM helped the diver out of his BCD, evidently not realizing that the diver had a weight belt rather than integrated weights. The predictable happened. Although the DM had been certified years before, he was not carrying liability insurance, so he was technically not a professional while acting in a job that required a professional. The DM committed suicide, and the shop went out of business.

I have been warned that if I were to buddy with an insecure diver and say, "I'm an instructor; you can count on me to help with this dive," then I am a professional even though I am not getting paid, and I can be sued. If I do not make that sort of statement, I am most likely free from liability, even if I am a known instructor, although there have been some very troubling cases in that regard of late.

 

[rjack321]

For that to happen, payment does not have to be involved; you are a professional if you are acting as one. What is involved is an understanding on the part of the plaintiff that he or she could count on the professional to provide some level of service, usually including safety.

What you are getting at is this
Compensation almost always creates a duty to act. Not being financially compensated (or only getting free air or tips) does not mean that no duty exists however. Duty Definition

The captain saying that the DMs "work for tips" is creating a duty for the DM to act professionally and that's really all that matters.