***Will Drone Cargo Ships Sail the Seven Seas?
Courtesy Rolls-Royce Holdings
Drone ship concept
The prospects for driverless cars and aerial drones delivering packages for Amazon.com (AMZN) made headlines in 2013. But when Oskar Levander, Rolls-Royce Holdings’ (RR/:LN) vice president for innovation in marine engineering, advocated drone cargo ships at an industry conference last May, the audience scoffed and other panelists dismissed the idea. The skeptics haven’t deterred the London-based maker of engines and turbines. “If everybody in the industry would say, ‘Yes, this is the way to go,’ ” Levander says, “then we are too late.”
Rolls-Royce has created a virtual-reality drone prototype in Norway that simulates 360-degree views from a vessel’s bridge. Eventually, it says, captains on land will use similar gear to command fleets of crewless ships. Rolls-Royce figures the drones would be safer, cheaper, and less polluting for the $375 billion shipping industry. “Now the technology is at the level where we can make this happen, and society is moving in this direction,” says Levander.
The European Union is funding a €3.5 million ($4.8 million) study of unmanned vessels, with researchers readying a digital prototype for simulated sea trials next year. Even so, maritime operators, insurers, engineers, labor unions, and regulators doubt unmanned ships could be safe and cost-effective anytime soon. “I don’t think personally that there’s a huge cost benefit in unmanned ships today,” says Tor Svensen, chief executive officer of maritime for DNV GL, the largest certifier of vessels for safety standards.
Crew costs account for some 44 percent of operating expenses for a large container ship, says consulting firm Moore Stephens International. Levander says ships would be 5 percent lighter when empty and burn up to 15 percent less fuel if the bridge, where the crew lives, were replaced with cargo space and the electricity, air conditioning, water, and sewage systems for the crew area were eliminated.
The International Association of Classification Societies, a ship safety group, hasn’t set guidelines for drone ships, Permanent Secretary Derek Hodgson says. “Can you imagine what it would be like with an unmanned vessel with cargo on board trading on the open seas?” he asks. “You get in enough trouble with crew on board.”
Unmanned ships are illegal under international conventions, which set minimum crew sizes. If drones don’t comply with such rules, they’d be considered unseaworthy and ineligible for insurance, says Andrew Bardot, executive officer of the International Group of P&I Clubs, whose members insure 90 percent of the global fleet.
The International Transport Workers’ Federation, which represents about 600,000 seafarers, is also opposed. “The human element is one of the first lines of defense in the event of machinery failure and the kind of unexpected and sudden changes of conditions in which the world’s seas specialize,” Dave Heindel, chairman of the ITF’s seafarers’ section, said in an e-mail.
Levander counters that crews will offer no safety advantage once equipment improves for remote control, preventive maintenance, and emergency backups. Plus, he says, cameras and sensors can already detect obstacles in the water better than the human eye. “It’s a given that the remote-controlled ship must be as safe as today,” Levander says. “But we actually think it can be even safer.”
FROM INTERNATIONAL.TO:
***Crumlin blasts Aurizon lockout
Friday, 28 February 2014 21:50 Sam Dawson 0 Comments
28 February 2014. ITF (International Transport Workers’ Federation) president Paddy Crumlin today described Australian rail freight operator Aurizon’s lockout of 200 freight train drivers in New South Wales as “totally unacceptable”.Crumlin, who is also national secretary of the MUA (Maritime Union of Australia), was speaking in his capacity as president of the ITF global union federation, which represents over 700 transport trade unions worldwide, including the RTBU (Rail, Tram and Bus Union). He said: “Aurizon’s lockout is a stunning misjudgement. Lockouts usually are: the only thing they achieve is to send both labour relations and the company’s reputation into a tailspin.
“This looks like an act of desperation, and of revenge against a workforce that took lawful, protected industrial action backed by 94 percent of the workforce at a ballot supervised by the Australian Electoral Commission.”
He continued: “The ITF, along with its member unions stretching across the world’s transport networks and supply chains, wholly condemns the practice of locking out workers. Our unions are on standby to see what support the RTBU needs. We would strongly advise Aurizon to step back from the path of confrontation and accept the RTBU’s longstanding offers of negotiation.”
The RTBU’s response to the lockout can be seen at http://rtbuexpress.com.au/aurizons-lock-out-of-workers-is-avoidable-unnecessary-and-reckless
FROM UCA NEWS:
***Singapore pastor’s lifeline for trafficked fishermen
Absence of enforced laws leaves seafarers prey to slave labor
Pastor Wilson Wong, second left, talks with foreign fishermen at the Seafarers’ Welfare Centre in Singapore’s Jurong Fishery Port
- Theodora D’cruz, Annabelle Liang and Danson Cheong, Singapore
- Singapore
- February 26, 2014
At the crack of dawn every day, Pastor Wilson Wong of the International Lutheran Seafarers’ Mission (ILSM) in Singapore fills two bags with newspapers, brochures and reading material, and heads to the Jurong Fishery Port.
For the last seven years, ministering to the fishermen that dock at the port has been his routine and that of his colleagues at the ILSM.
“These men sometimes spend many months at sea and they don’t have newspapers so they don’t know what is going on,” said the 55-year-old.
The ILSM is an international organization that helps seafarers and fishermen in distress.
They are one of the few groups in Singapore – or anywhere else for that matter – that these migrant workers can approach for help.
Indeed, the International Labour Organisation classifies fishing as one of the most hazardous and physically exploitative industries in the world.
Fishermen often work between 18 and 20 hours daily, have no contact with their family for months at a time and are paid next to nothing despite their two to three-year bonds, Pastor Wong said.
In Southeast Asia, migrant fishermen hail largely from impoverished nations such as Cambodia, Indonesia and the Philippines. According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Asia accounts for 85 percent of the world’s 45 million fishermen and 75 percent of motorised fishing vessels.
A growing group of these men are trafficked to serve as what the UNODC calls “forced slave labor” on fishing boats.
These boats dock in Southeast Asian ports, including Singapore, said the 2013 US State Department’s Trafficking in Persons report.
The report added that these workers face “severe abuse by fishing boat captains, the inability to disembark from their vessels, the inability to terminate their contracts and the non-payment of wages”.
Yet there is scant hope for help and justice from governments. Singapore, for instance, has not specifically outlawed human trafficking and court cases charging traffickers in countries like the Philippines and Cambodia remain mired in process and bureaucracy.
So Christian and Catholic ministers have stepped in to fill the void. They lend a sympathetic ear, provide counsel and in some cases launch investigations of their own to help the men get home.
“I see poor people getting bullied. It’s the 21st century, yet this is still happening,” said Pastor Wong. “They’re treated like slaves.”
Former fishermen such as Condrad Banihit Vincente from Aklan province in the Philippines have men like Pastor Wong to thank for their eventual escape from the industry.
Three years ago, Vincente was working 20-hour shifts, hauling tuna from the depths of the Indian Ocean aboard a Taiwanese longliner.
The 34-year-old was initially promised a monthly salary of US$550 by a broker in his village but after paying close to US$560 in broker fees, he found out he was only going to be paid US$200 when he arrived at a staffing agency in Singapore.
“The first time I saw the contract I was shocked,” he said. But it was too late and saddled with debt, Vincente signed off the next three years of his life to an uncertain fate.
He got lucky when, after 10 months, his boat docked at Cape Town, South Africa. For the first time since he set sail, he was able to call his family.
“My family told me to come home, but this was one week before my ship was going to leave for the Indian Ocean,” said Vincente in his home in Aklan.
His family scrambled and contacted Reverend Monsignor Isagani Fabito from the Iglesia Filipina Independiente Church in Aklan for help.
Reverend Fabito raised hell, bent on getting Vincente back.
“We were desperate, I contacted the recruitment agency in Singapore, the ILSM and the Apostleship of the Sea (AOS) in Singapore,” he said.
He finally managed to find someone from the International Transport Workers’ Federation in Cape Town to help Vincente get off the boat and on a plane home.
The recruitment agency paid for the flights, but it was the reverend who arranged for a priest from the AOS to meet him after the transiting flight in Singapore.
“I was afraid someone from the agency would come and get [Condrad] at the airport and put him on a ship again,” Fabito added. “I told him, never mind if you don’t bring home any money as long as you come home safe.”
This is the fate many migrant fishermen face after being trafficked aboard commercial boats, often after being duped by informal brokers and recruitment agencies in their home countries.
Rights groups have said many men have begged to be sent home, unable to withstand the laborious conditions on the high seas.
But doing so incurs early termination fees and flight ticket costs, which often offset the already meagre wages, said Father Romeo Yu-Chang, the East Asia regional coordinator at the AOS.
So Father Romeo tries to use church funds to put fishermen on a flight home. He also prays with these men and sometimes offers them a bed in the church’s retreat centre.
The AOS in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, also has a shelter and assists seamen. The shelter can house about 40 people and is usually fully occupied, mostly by fishermen, said port chaplain Father Ranulfo Salise.
He added that the AOS there has been observing an increasing number of complaints from fishermen since 2009, mostly from Indonesians.
That said, only 32 have filed legal cases to pursue their unpaid salaries since 2009.
“Most of them come to [our] shelter to sleep and go home. They don’t usually chase legal disputes,” said Father Salise.
The situation is similar in Singapore, although both Father Salise and Pastor Wong feel the men keep silent out of fear of repercussions.
Said Pastor Wong: “A lot of them swallow their pain because they don’t want to be blacklisted. They need the job.”
Many of the Taiwanese fishing companies seem to have no qualms about overworking them to minimize costs, said Father Salise.
It is easy for the companies to be irresponsible because they “do not necessarily have a contract with the workers,” but with the agencies and brokers who recruit the men.
And although convictions for forced labor have been increasing – according to the US State Department’s 2013 TIP report – this has not done enough to reduce these incidents, said Father Salise.
Drawing loopholes in the Taiwan legal system, he added: “It is necessary to enact a more just labor policy for foreign workers.”
Labor protections are often lacking because there are few international legal instruments that protect the rights of fishermen. The Work in Fishing Convention has only been ratified by four countries and is not yet in force.
In contrast, the Maritime Labour Convention, which covers seafarers, has been ratified by 54 states, including Singapore.
But despite the legal hurdles that hinder progress in the treatment of migrant fishers, these men of the cloth still find ways to go the extra mile.
Since June 2013, ILSM has been providing assistance to the crew of an Australian tuna longliner, the Pacific Raider No 4 – left stranded in Singapore after the vessel’s owner went bankrupt.
This includes engaging lawyers and filing a case for the wages of these six men in the courts. The ship is currently up for auction.
“When they come on board, they give us telephone cards to call home,” said second engineer Jing Qingshun, who is owed almost US$40,000 in wages. “They have been a great help to us.”