Social Structures
Author: Joanne McVeigh, Lecturer at the Department of Psychology and the ALL (Assisting Living & Learning) Institute, Maynooth University
June 25th marks the Day of the Seafarer, an international campaign aiming to increase governments’ support for seafarers during the pandemic, but to also more broadly ensure fair treatment and equitable employment conditions for seafarers. We often fail to appreciate our reliance on the world’s 1,647,500 merchant seafarers for the effective functioning of the global economy. However, international trade is underpinned by maritime transport, whereby approximately 80% of the volume of global trade and 70% of the value of global trade are transported by sea. In the book Ninety Percent of Everything: Inside Shipping, the Invisible Industry that Puts Clothes on Your Back, Gas in Your Car, and Food on Your Plate, British author Rose George questioned: “Who looks behind a television now and sees the ship that brought it? Who cares about the men who steered your breakfast cereal through winter storms? How ironic that the more ships have grown in size and consequence, the less space they take up in our imagination” (p. 2). Indeed, the importance of merchant shipping was brought into sharp focus by a container ship obstructing the Suez Canal in Egypt, through which more than 50 ships pass daily, constituting approximately 12% of world trade.
Despite the importance of seafaring to international trade, governments have historically failed to protect the human rights of seafarers, with some seafarers falling outside of the jurisdiction of the State with the duty to protect them. As noted by Hammond: “The COVID-19 global pandemic has exposed glaring gaps in human rights protection and systemic and entrenched inequalities”. For example, the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) has heavily criticised the Irish government for failing to protect vulnerable seafarers in the fishing sector. A 2017 report by the ITF highlighted indicators of trafficking such as deception, coercion and exploitation of non-European fishers in the Irish fishing sector, alongside the employment of migrant fishers that is “almost universally characterised by low pay, excessive hours and underpayment” (p. 23). Similarly, the US State department’s 2020 Trafficking in Persons Report has called for the urgent protection of fishers in Ireland, cautioning that “[t]he government continued to lack specialized accommodation and adequate services for victims, and the amended working scheme for sea fishers increased their vulnerability to trafficking”.
Seafarers are an invisible workforce, and ship owners’ violation of the rights of seafarers is frequently out of sight and concealed from regulators. For example, flags of convenience (whereby a ship is not legitimately affiliated with any nationality) allow shipowners to pay reduced registration fees and taxes, avoid labour regulations, recruit low-cost labour, pay minimal wages, enforce long working hours and unsafe working conditions, and reduce the standards of living and working conditions for seafarers.
Seafaring is also characterised by systemic inequities and discrimination. Seafarers from low- and middle-income countries including the Philippines have weaker economic power in the international maritime labour market and therefore have disadvantaged employment contracts and employment conditions compared to seafarers from higher-income countries. Indeed, the ITF has argued that “discrimination according to nationality is endemic in the shipping industry” (p. 24).
It is therefore unsurprising that seafarers are amongst occupational groups with the highest risk for stress; and psychological issues including depression, anxiety, suicide, and alcohol or drug dependence are recognized issues in the maritime industry. Significant changes in the maritime industry have increased occupational stressors, including faster turnaround schedules in ports, increased use of technology, decreased manning, labour intensification, and increased social isolation. As noted by MacLachlan (p. 4): “With larger ships, greater mechanisation and reduced manning levels, more is required from seafarers and there are fewer outlets for the sort of affiliation that sustains both a sense of collective identity and individual worth and support”.
Difficult working conditions for seafarers have been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Seafarers have been on the front line of the international response, while experiencing difficulties in relation to accessing ports, crew changeovers, and repatriations. As a result of the pandemic, approximately 200,000 seafarers on cargo ships are working extended contracts while stranded at sea, jeopardising both their physical and mental health. Seafarers are now reportedly working onboard far beyond the 11-month maximum period stipulated by the 2006 Maritime Labour Convention (MLC). Hundreds of thousands of seafarers have been onboard longer than their original tours of duty and urgently need repatriation; with some seafarers reportedly being onboard for more than 17 consecutive months, frequently without access to shore leave and/or medical treatment. Moreover, throughout the pandemic, many seafarers have been left onshore in foreign countries without the means to return home to their families.
As highlighted by the ITF, during the pandemic “[m]anning levels have been reduced as crew become hard to change and be refreshed; hours of rest are being ignored and replaced with non-paid hours of work and compliance performance; systems crucial for the safe operation of the world’s shipping fleet are being disregarded on a daily basis through superficial remote inspections” (p. 2). In response to these occupational hazards, the International Labour Organization has called for governments to categorise seafarers as key workers and to provide access to vaccines for seafarers as soon as possible, so that seafarers can travel through international borders and maintain global supply chains.
The 2006 MLC, now ratified by 98 countries including Ireland, provides for the rights of seafarers to decent working conditions. Similarly, the 2019 Geneva Declaration on Human Rights at Sea calls for increased awareness of the violation of human rights at sea and for international commitment to protect the rights of seafarers. The fulfilment of the rights of seafarers is also integral to the realisation of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It is evident that most of the 2030 Agenda goals are reliant on a sustainable transport sector that enables world trade and a global economy. On the Day of the Seafarer, let’s therefore remember that “human rights apply at sea, as they do on land” and reflect on the significance of the world’s seafarers.