***Duty bound to help abandoned sailors
While amendments to the Maritime Labour Convention, 2006 cover abandonment, flag states should play their part too
UNLESS the situation has changed radically, the Panamanian-flag B Ladybug, a 27,003-dwt vehicle carrier managed from Singapore, remains adrift off the coast of Malta about a year after its owner got into financial difficulties.
International Labour Organization (ILO) representatives visited the ship’s crew and made a film about the case.
That film was shown to the 300 representatives of seafarers, shipowners and governments, meeting at the ILO’s headquarters last week. They agreed that the first amendments to the ILO’s Maritime Labour Convention, 2006, (MLC) will protect abandoned seafarers as well as provide financial security for compensation in cases of death and long-term disability due to occupational injury or hazard.
The amendments were developed over nearly a decade by a Joint Working Group established by the ILO and the International Maritime Organization (IMO) in 1998 and will strengthen the 2006 convention. They establish mandatory requirements that shipowners have financial security to cover abandonment, as well as death or long-term disability of seafarers because of occupational injury and hazard.
“These legal standards will provide relief and peace of mind to abandoned seafarers and their families wherever they may be,” said Cleopatra Doumbia-Henry, director of the ILO Labour Standards Department. “In addition, by adopting these amendments to the convention, shipowners and governments are also strengthening its provisions aimed at ensuring a level playing field for quality shipping around the world.”
Under the new provisions, ships will be required to carry certificates or other documents to establish that financial security exists to protect seafarers working on board. Failure to provide this protection may mean that a ship can be detained in a port.
As at March 2014, the ILO’s Abandonment of Seafarers Database listed 159 abandoned merchant ships, some dating back to 2006 and still unresolved.
“The new measures will guarantee that seafarers are not abandoned, alone and legally adrift for months on end, without pay, adequate food and water and away from home,’ Ms Doumbia-Henry said. “They also clearly make flag states responsible for ensuring that adequate financial security exists to cover the cost of abandonment, and claims for death and long-term disability due to occupational injury and hazards.”
A further set of amendments was also agreed on, regarding shipowners’ liability to ensure financial security is provided, certified and inspected, in order to deal with contractual claims as quickly as possible.
The MLC came into force on Aug 20, 2013 and so far 57 ILO member states, representing more than 80 per cent of the world’s global shipping tonnage, have ratified the convention.
For the shipowners, International Shipping Federation (ISF) spokesman Arthur Bowring said ISF members were particularly concerned to see the new ILO video on the B Ladybug, where the crew has been without financial or welfare support from the shipowner for well over 12 months.
He said: “This is the sort of deplorable situation that the new amendments to the MLC, 2006 will help to speedily address. The MLC 2006 is intended to bring social justice and fair competition to the shipping industry and the lack of a specific reference to abandonment in the mandatory instruments of ILO and IMO was an omission that needed comprehensive action.”
He added: “Shipowners have a responsibility for seafarers under their contractual employment arrangements, and the problems created when the seafarers are abandoned needed specific legislative measures. The new amendments not only provide that safeguard but also recognise the role to be played by flag states and labour supply states.”
Mr Bowring said that while only a “very tiny proportion” of the world’s seafarers experience the despair of abandonment, “that does not make the occurrence any less serious for the affected seafarers and their families”.
International Transport Workers‘ Federation president Paddy Crumlin said the vote “represents a genuine turning point for the convention”. He continued: “It proves that seafarers, shipowners and governments are committed to continuously reviewing the implementation of the MLC in order to ensure that it is a truly global and living instrument for the protection and benefit of all seafarers. Abandonment is a particularly dark stain on the industry and the new amendments are real and concrete relief for seafarers facing that dire predicament.”
Whether there will be any speedy relief for the B Ladybug crew remains to be seen. Most probably the only help they will get will be from voluntary organisations that still provide a much-needed safety net for the industry. But the amendments should help prevent such occurrences in the future. Therefore, they should be welcome. We will only know how well the financial guarantee system will work in practice when actual abandonments occur after the amendments come into force.
But really the situation is morally quite straightforward. On the high seas ships are the territory of the country whose flag they fly, and that country benefits from the registration fees it charges the shipowner.
When things go very wrong, is it right for the flag state to just stand back and watch? I don’t think so, and that is the case whether or not the MLC explicitly puts a duty on the flag state.
The amendments were developed over nearly a decade by a Joint Working Group established by the ILO and the International Maritime Organization (IMO) in 1998 and will strengthen the 2006 convention – PHOTO: REUTERS
FROM TRADEWINDS:
***MLC change set to help ‘abandoned’ seafarers
Unions and employers have welcomed a revision to the Maritime Labour Convention 2006 (MLC) that will improve seafarers’ financial security in the case of abandonment.
The agreement was reached after an International Labour Organisation (ILO) tripartite meeting in Geneva of governments, the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) and employer representative the International Shipping Federation (ISF).
The parties agreed to add a requirement for flag states to make sure financial security is in place to meet seafarer’s outstanding wages, repatriation and other costs in the case of abandonment.
The seafarers trapped on the 7,600-car-equivalent-unit (ceu) car carrier B Ladybug (built 2012) during the financial collapse of owner Today Makes Tomorrow (TMT) were highlighted as an example of the suffering caused by abandonment.
The vote in favour of the amendment was unanimous.
ITF president Paddy Crumlin said: “Abandonment is a particularly dark stain on the industry and the new amendments are real and concrete relief for seafarers facing that dire predicament.”
The ISF’s Arthur Bowring said: “The new amendments not only provide a safeguard but also recognise the role to be played by flag and labour supply states.”
FROM THE HANDY SHIPPING GUIDE (UK):
***Shipping Container Terminal Operator Penalised for Health and Safety Issues
Ongoing Labour Unrest with Company Affects Ports on Two Continents
US – HONDURAS – The longstanding dispute between the longshoremen who work in the Port of Portland and employers simmers on, and the latest development will doubtless engender an ‘I told you so’ from the dock workers who are employed at the ICTSI Oregon container shipping terminal based within the East Coast port. For more than two years the International Longshore & Warehouse Union (ILWU) has stood accused by the operator of illegally slowing down work whilst, for its part, the union has repeatedly claimed that Health and Safety measures are not as they should be.
Now the Oregon Occupational Safety and Health Administration has fined the company, which took over the running of Terminal 6 in 2010, a total of $18,360 for breaches of safety which were said to have been uncovered during a routine inspection at the North Portland site. Although no injuries were apparent from the company’s failings, over a dozen violations were revealed including insufficient guards fitted to machinery and lack of risk appraisals and information for staff exposed to airborne lead and its potentially deleterious effects.
The company still has a right to appeal and no mention of the problems appear anywhere on the ICTSI Oregon website, nor on that of its Philippine based parent company, International Container Terminal Services Inc., which operates ports around the world, nor was any statement forthcoming. The offences are grist to the workers mill, as internationally the employer is already under attack after accusations of serious wrongdoing at its Honduran operation where the father of local union boss Victor Crespo was murdered in January, Crespo himself having fled the country three months previously after assaults and death threats.
In March the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) said it had won a promise from the Honduran ambassador to the UK to investigate the death threats and victimisation of trade unionists in the city of Puerto Cortés where the local union, Sindicato Gremial de Trabajadores del Muelle (SGTM), has been trying to negotiate with the ICTSI subsidiary over a collective bargaining agreement for workers at the port since ICTSI took it over in 2012.
The ILWU workers refused to cross a SGTM picket line last month when the Honduran union blocked entrances to the Oregon terminal and Victor Crespo himself spoke at the London meeting on the 21st March with the Honduran ambassador. Commenting on the ruling by the Oregon authorities to fine the company, ILWU spokeswoman Jennifer Sargent, speaking from San Francisco, said:
“We’re grateful that OSHA is stepping in to hold ICTSI accountable for its failure to protect the men and women who work at Terminal 6. ICTSI is accustomed to operating in low-wage countries where workers don’t have the same rights we have in the United States.”
Photo: The Columbia River looking upstream toward Terminal 6.
FROM THE SHIPPING TRIBUNE (INDIA), HELLENIC SHIPPING NEWS (GREECE), SCOOP (NZ), AFRICAN OIL AND GAS NEWS ETC:
***MPHRP responds to prize honour
Commenting on last night’s Seatrade Award to the Maritime Piracy Humanitarian Response Programme (MPHRP) for ‘Support and assistance to seafarers and their families affected by maritime piracy’, MPHRP chair Peter Swift said:
“We are most grateful for this recognition of the Programme’s work supporting seafarers and their families before, during and after incidents of piracy and armed robbery.
“The award recognises the exceptional dedication and commitment of the MPHRP team members, the tremendous support provided by the Programme’s partners, and the very generous financial assistance of the ITF Seafarers’ Trust, the TK Foundation and Seafarers UK.
Swift continued: “The award also recognises the hardship and suffering of many seafarers and their loved ones who are affected by piracy, for some of whom the MPHRP is often the only provider of support and assistance.
He concluded: “Today we also remember the nearly 50 seafarers and fishers still held hostage in Somalia, all of whom have been held for more than two years – some for several years – and encourage everyone who can do so to tirelessly work for their prompt release and to support and assist them and their families.”
Source: Press Release
FROM FAIRPLAY:
***ILO throws abandoned seafarers a lifeline
Abandoned seafarers. Photo: Seafarers Rights International
The International Labour Organization (ILO) has agreed an amendment to the Maritime Labour Convention 2006 (MLC) to protect seafarers when their employer abandons them, allowing them to be swiftly repatriated.
The resolution was passed unanimously, but will need to be formally approved by ILO’s International Labour Conference next month.
The ILO meeting of 300 industry stakeholders also agreed amendments on shipowners’ liability to ensure financial security is provided, certified and inspected.
International Transport Workers Federation (ITF) president Paddy Crumlin described seafarer abandonment as “a dark stain on the industry”. In January, the charity Mission to Seafarers said that shipowners who do not pay seafarers their wages are more damaging to the industry than Somali pirates.
ILO director-general Guy Ryder said in a statement: “When they come into force, these measures will ensure the welfare of the world’s seafarers and their families if the seafarers are abandoned, or if death or long-term disability occurs as the result of occupational injury, illness or hazard.”
Crumlin agreed, responding: “The new amendments are real and concrete relief for seafarers facing that dire predicament.”
MLC came into force on 20 August 2013. It has now been ratified by 57 states, the latest being Republic of Congo (RoC). Signing the document on 6 April, RoC merchant marine minister Martin Parfait Aimé Coussoud-Mavoungou said: “The MLC 2006 is of major importance because it guarantees the right to decent work for all seafarers.”
UN figures – almost certainly an underestimate – list 2,379 seafarers stranded on 199 ships in the past decade.
FROM EXPRESO (SPAIN):
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El uso de los dispositivos electrónicos durante el vuelo, cómo actuar durante una turbulencia, con un pasajero insubordinado o prevenir accidentes son algunos de los temas que se tratarán en la capital española este mes de mayo.
Madrid acogerá los días 20, 21 y 22 la primera conferencia de la IATA (Asociación del Transporte Aéreo sobre seguridad en las operaciones de cabina, que tendrá lugar en el hotel Meliá Castilla, según un comunicado de prensa de la organización.
La conferencia, que incluirá ponencias, talleres prácticos y sesiones de análisis interactivas, prevé congregar a un gran número de representantes de compañías aéreas, agencias reguladoras, proveedores y fabricantes.
La implementación del Sistema de Gestión de la Seguridad en las cabinas de las aeronaves y los dispositivos de seguridad para menores serán algunos de los temas que se estudiarán y debatirán en el evento.
Coincidiendo con el mismo está previsto el lanzamiento del Manual de Seguridad de la Tripulación, un documento de la Organización Internacional de Aviación Civil (OACI) aprobado por la IATA y la Federación Internacional de Trabajadores del Transporte (ITF).
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