2023 – A better year for seafarers?

Last year has been difficult for most people in many ways but, in particular, 2022 will not be remembered fondly by those concerned with the welfare of seafarers. Lingering Covid restrictions still had an impact when the war in Ukraine broke out and caused another seafarer welfare crisis, while many other long-standing concerns did not go away and even got worse.

As the chief executive of marine liability insurer Gard, Rolf Thore Roppestad, said just before Christmas: “With the holiday season approaching for many, another topic needs to be stressed: the continued need to put seafarers’ welfare front and centre.”

He noted: “Positive changes are happening in many regards – Gard launched an international medical app this year, tailored specifically to seafarers. Moreover, the pandemic is receding in many countries, and some of the crew change challenges we have grappled with over the last few years have largely been resolved.

“The fact remains, however, that many of the world’s seafarers continue to be under significant pressure. Some are even persecuted and criminalised, with little or no regard for basic human rights – a grim reminder that our work for seafarer justice is far from done.”

He added: “Faced with these and other challenges, the maritime industry needs to show what we are made of. We need to work together, and to rally around our shared principles and our shared institutions – the International Maritime Organization (IMO), the International Chamber of Shipping (ICS), and the International Group of P&I Clubs, to mention a few. Standing alone, we can only do so much. Standing together, we can do a lot. Together, we can work for a fairer, safer, and more sustainable maritime industry.”

Perhaps, just perhaps, things are moving in the right direction.

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Recently, new measures to improve conditions for seafarers, including those who have been abandoned, were adopted at a meeting involving governments and maritime workers and employers’ organisations. Guidelines on how to deal with seafarer abandonment have been adopted by the first meeting of a joint International Labour Organization (ILO)–IMO Tripartite Working Group, held in Geneva.

The guidelines are intended to respond to a significant rise in cases of abandonment of crews reported to the ILO, which have risen from less than 20 cases per year between 2011 and 2016, to 40 in 2019, 85 in 2020, 95 in 2021 and 114 cases as of mid-December 2022.

The aim is to improve coordination among countries, including flag states, port states, states in which seafarers are national or resident, and states in which recruitment and placement services operate, in order to resolve abandonment cases more quickly, including getting seafarers paid and repatriated home to their families.  

The new guidelines draw on relevant ILO international labour standards, notably the Maritime Labour Convention, 2006, as amended (MLC, 2006), including its most recent amendments; an earlier joint ILO-IMO resolution adopted in 2001 (Resolution A.930(22)); relevant IMO international frameworks and agreements; and relevant trends and developments in regional and national law and practice.

Under the MLC, 2006, flag states – countries where ships are registered and/or whose flag the ships are flying – must ensure a financial security system is in place for ships under those flags. The new guidelines encourage flag states to verify, at least annually, the validity of this financial security.

Port states are encouraged to pay particular attention to this financial security during their inspections of foreign ships that visit their ports. States where recruitment and placement services operate are also called upon to regularly verify that those services include a system to ensure the protection of the seafarers they recruit and place.

The new guidelines set out procedures to be taken by states if a shipowner fails to fulfil their obligations to arrange and cover the cost of repatriation of seafarers, outstanding wages and other contracted entitlements, and the provision of essential needs, including medical care.

In these circumstances, seafarers are then considered abandoned. These procedures include developing, in cooperation with seafarers’ and shipowners’ organisations, national standard operating procedures to explicitly define the liabilities and obligations of the competent authority and the roles to be played by the various national stakeholders.

These stakeholders include the relevant national seafarers’ welfare boards, shipping agencies, seafarers’ and shipowners’ organisations, seafarer welfare organisations, seafarer recruitment and placement services, and others.  

This all sounds very good and may well help if seafarers are lucky enough to be abandoned in port states that actually implement the guidelines, and if all the other states involved in a particular case do what they are supposed to do. In the real world, the chances are that this is not the case. 

Nevertheless, it is important to set out what should happen, as it provides ammunition for the seafarer support organisations when they try to persuade states to live up to their responsibilities when seafarers are abandoned.

Another important meeting took place in December, this time in Brussels. Global leaders from organisations representing seafarers, shipowners and other maritime employers met President Ferdinand Marcos Jr of the Philippines as part of his foreign policy tour. President Marcos has ordered a new advisory board to be made up of employers, shipowners and unions and the ILO, to give expert advice on major maritime issues.

Top of the agenda was the immediate concern of employers and crew that as many as 50,000 seafarers faced being barred from crewing European Union-flagged vessels over qualification issues. The threat is due to a warning from the bloc’s maritime regulator that the Philippines needed to address unacceptable deficiencies in crew’s education, training and certification. Failure to do so would push out Filipino seafarers, a labour source so critical that one delegate described as “too big to fail”.

The president pledged that his administration will do “everything” to address these deficiencies identified by the European Commission’s Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA) “to prevent job losses among Filipino seafarers”, he said.

Industry and union representatives also urged the to defend Filipino jobs, by reforming the country’s problematic seafarers claims industry. While intended to secure speedy resolution and compensation for injured and aggrieved crew, the injury claims industry system today sees seafarers’ hardship and goodwill exploited by ambulance-chasing lawyers.

According to the industry, the victimisation of Filipino seafarers by people or groups to make fraudulent and costly injury claims against their employers has resulted in companies looking elsewhere for their seafarer workforce.  

In 2000, Filipino crew made up 28 per cent of the global seafarer population. However, by 2020, that figure had dropped to just 14 per cent. Any further decline would jeopardise the US$6.54 billion in wages Filipino seafarers send home each year to their families – money critical to the Philippine economy.

If action is taken quickly to implement the president’s pledge, 2023 should see improved prospects for Filipino seafarers while the moves on abandonment are to be welcomed. But, as Roppestad pointed out, there is a lot more to be done.