ITF ACTING general secretary Stephen Cotton has told Fairplay he’s confident that with the enforcement of the Maritime Labour Convention 2006, there would be fewer opportunities for applicants with false qualifications to work aboard ships.

Realistically, the shipping industry in certain countries such as Indonesia and the Philippines allows for paid opportunities – meaning a seafarer can get a contract from a shipping agent to work on board vessels by paying for that contract, he said.

“Now with the MLC, this will become less prevalent through port state controls and flag state regulations,” said Cotton, who added: “I believe we can tackle these issues. Specifically for cargo ships, it has become less prevalent partly due to the growth of ITF agreements, helped by responsible employers.”

Cotton also noted that an area that remained to be tackled under the MLC was whether to recognise hotel workers aboard cruise ships as seafarers and whether they should be given the same rights of existing safety and security standards as the crew.

“We are working with the International Labour Organization and cruise ship companies to help ensure that fee-paid crew agents is the norm and not having cruise service staff paying for their tickets to get on board,” Cotton explained.

The MLC 2006, which came into force on 20 August and is more commonly known as the Seafarers’ Bill of Rights has been ratified by 46 members of the International Labour Organization, representing 76% of the world’s aggregate gross tonnage.

***Crew abuse rife in Indonesia

Violence towards crew is so institutionalised in Indonesia that some seafarers agree to accept beatings, writes Zoe Reynolds

Perhaps the most telling and damning clause in a ‘contract’ some Indonesian seafarers are signing is the one that says: “I agree to follow the orders of the captain and my superiors, even if they lose their temper and beat me.”

An investigation by Fairplay has found that Indonesian seafarers are being required to sign such a contract to obtain work on some Taiwanese and South Korean shipping trawlers. The document also stipulates that the seafarer must work a minimum 15-hour day, seven days a week for three years.

One such ‘contract’ sighted by Fairplay was signed by Sarpin Tunnya in Jakarta on 2 May 2012 and bears his thumbprint, but there is no company name or employer signature.

These ‘contracts’ are all too common in the commercial fishing industry, according to the Indonesian Seafarers’ Union (ISU). “We estimate that around 80% of contracts covering foreign fishing vessels are illegal,” said Edison Hutasoit, the ISU chair of organisation welfare and legal matters.

“It is mad, sadistic,” he said. “But it is not just the foreign companies to blame; Indonesian crewing agents are the ones getting Indonesian seafarers to sign to be beaten up and abused.”

Crew exploitation and abuse, however, are not confined to the fishing industry.

Seafarer Herpin bin Mariang was one of a half dozen crew waiting for a job when Fairplay visited the union’s pick-up centre in Cikini, Jakarta. He told Fairplay how he had witnessed crew going overboard and being eaten by sharks on Australian prawn trawlers and being abandoned in the Mediterranean without food or water after his Greek cargo vessel broke down.

While exploitation exists in merchant shipping, it has become the norm for Indonesian seafarers in the long line fishing industry.

On a visit to Jakarta’s Muara Angke fishing port, 32-year-old Javanese seafarer Tjunadi told Fairplay he lasted only 10 months on a two-year contract on a Taiwanese trawler.

“The work is hard,” he said. “You have to work fast, up to 24 hours a day, or they get angry. You don’t sleep. You are standing the whole time. Sometimes the master is really cruel. No one dares stand up to the captain. He can send you home without your wages or confiscate your passport.”

Tjunadi has been a seafarer since 2001 and is now content for low-pay piece rates on traditional vessels, which only venture out to sea for a day and a night.

“My wages were $300 a month [on the Taiwanese vessel] but while the money I get now isn’t much [$20-$50/month depending on the catch], I prefer to work here.”

A second worker told Fairplay he had been sent home sick from a Taiwanese vessel without any wages. “Even though I’d worked over a year I got nothing,” he said.

Back in the Jakarta union rooms, the ISU’s Hutasoit showed Fairplay contracts requiring crew to pay their own medical expenses if injured or ill.

“If they are union members we can help them or get the International Transport Workers’ Federation to help,” he said. “But we have about 60,000 Indonesian seafarers who are not in the union, so we have set up a company to help them,” he said.

One high-profile case was that of the Korean fishing vessels FV Oyang 75 and FV Shin Ji. When the vessels docked in New Zealand in 2011, the Indonesian crew fled, alleging they had been tortured, sexually abused, and never paid. Charges were laid against the owners.

Christina Stringer of Auckland University Business School, who investigated the allegations, found conditions “shocking”. She cited evidence of abuse, both physical and sexual, adding: “On one vessel the whole crew was lined up and hit with shovels. It’s widespread amongst the Indonesians, the Filipinos, and even the Chinese crews.”

Hutasoit said that during spot checks by his union of private, offshore labour supply compan­ies that place workers on fishing vessels, some companies attempted to avoid scrutiny by offering bribes.

“We’d go to the agent’s door to do an inspection and they’d rush away and come back with an envelope full of money. We wouldn’t take it,” he said.

“They were supposed to provide [sleeping] bunks, but we found people sleeping on mats on the floor. Many were only fed once a day,” he said. “They were not allowed any outside communication, even with family.

“Agents take a placement fee, but many also cut from [seafarers’] monthly wages,” said Hutasoit.

The ISU has reported more than a dozen Indonesian crewing agents to the Department of Labour, the Directorate General of Sea Transportation, the National Board for The Placement & Protection of Indonesian Overseas Workers (BNP2TKI), and the police.

Many of the crew agents are no longer listed, but Fairplay found and contacted five agents for comment. None had responded by the time of going to press.

Complaints included use of false seamen’s books.

The ISU is pushing the Jakarta authorities to shut down crewing agents that are in breach of regulations. It is also lobbying the government to ratify the Maritime Labour Convention and says it is making some headway.

zoerey@ozemail.com.au