Powerful unions, vulnerable workers: the representation of seafarers in the global labour market

Sampson, Helen ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5857-9452 2003. Powerful unions, vulnerable workers: the representation of seafarers in the global labour market. Presented at: Brazilian Congress of Anthropologists and Sociologists, Caxambu, Minas Gerais, Brazil, 21-25 October 2003.

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Abstract

In the late twentieth century, the labour market for seafarers, which had always been international to some extent, became increasingly organised on a global basis. Shipping companies who had previously registered their vessels with their home State and were bound by national legislation with regard to wages and labour conditions began to have the option of registering their vessels with open registers (so called ‘flags of convenience’). As a result of this related ‘de-regulation’ they went in search of cheap labour sources. Such labour market changes (particularly when combined with a move by many owners to contract the daily running of their vessels out to crew management companies) have resulted in the development of a plethora of crewing agents across the world, from Croatia to the Philippines and beyond. Today, approximately 20% of the world’s seafarers (employed in the deep-sea fleet) are Filipino, and over sixty per cent are employed aboard vessels with mixed nationality crews. Substantial numbers of seafarers from all over the world are engaged on temporary, fixed-term contracts, often at low wage rates. Seafarers’ conditions at sea vary enormously and ILO conventions (e.g. ILO 147) designed to protect minimum living standards aboard ship are ratified by few countries and largely ignored by Port State Control inspectors worldwide. The International Transport Workers Federation (ITF) (and many of its national affiliated trade unions) is both feared and vilified by many shipowners because of the power it wields. The ITF has enjoyed considerable success in negotiating wages and enforcing wage agreements aboard a variety of vessels. Nevertheless, many seafarers continue to work and live aboard substandard ships. They enjoy increasingly rare opportunities to go ashore in the course of their contracts. They have little job security and work long hours, often seven days a week. This paper will argue that this situation arises as a direct consequence of the globalisation of the seafarer labour market, and of the industry as a whole. It will outline the living and working conditions of multinational crews of seafarers and will describe the barriers to their effective collective action aboard ships. In doing so, the paper will draw on data collected in the course of five ethnographic voyages conducted by the author, over a period of 118 days at sea, as well as an extended period of fieldwork conducted in India with seafarers and their families.

Item Type:	Conference or Workshop Item (Paper)
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Seafarers International Research Centre (SIRC)
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	18 March 2024
Last Modified:	18 Mar 2024 20:49
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/167321

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