SEAFAIRER roundtable, Singapore 2022

To mark the first anniversary of the Delivering on Seafarers’ Rights Code of Conduct, the Institute for Human Rights and Business, the Sustainable Shipping Initiative, the Rafto Foundation and the Mission to Seafarers held an inaugural in-person “SEAFAIRER” roundtable in Singapore in October 2022, hosted by Swire Shipping with support from the Lloyd’s Register Foundation and the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs.

This event brought seafarers and seafarers’ welfare/rights organisations together with charterers, shipowners, ship managers & operators, cargo owners, unions, government and others to hear the seafarers’ perspective on welfare issues, and to hear the industry perspective on hurdles to and benefits of implementing the Code of Conduct. Many thanks to all the speakers and participants for their input. Below is a short summary of main issues discussed (Chatham House Rule observed).

The seafarer voice was central to the conversations throughout the day with current and former seafarers participating, and many aspects of seafarer welfare were covered, including those the Mission to Seafarers’ Happiness Index tracks on a quarterly basis. While there has been a post-COVID bump in terms of seafarers reporting greater levels of happiness as normal life returns after being stranded for many months on board during the crew change crisis, many systemic challenges persist.

In addition to the roundtable, SSI and IHRB have published a progress report reflecting on the twelve months since the launch of the Code of Conduct and self-assessment questionnaire in October 2021. The report is intended to signpost progress within the industry in respecting seafarers’ rights and welfare, and reflect on areas for further work and improvement.

Several points were discussed in relation to manning and shore leave, which are interconnected in their impact on seafarer welfare. Ever decreasing crew numbers due to lower recruitment and retention, exacerbated by the COVID crew change crisis, shorter shore leave, and low wages result in widespread physical and mental fatigue, overwork and low morale. Issues raised included:

• Safe manning levels are often interpreted by ship operators as the ‘minimum required’ manning level, which often still leads to seafarers being overworked.
• The loss of the role of pursers on board in particular was lamented is this particularly has resulted in increased work pressure on the crew.
• Low manning levels lead to fatigue which seriously impacts health and safely, and often results in many seafarers not taking shore leave even when available.
• Limited time in port, low wages and the cost of shore leave excursions also discourage seafarers from going ashore.

In relation to welfare more generally it was agreed, unsurprisingly perhaps, that happier workers lead to improved safety onboard and reduced accidents. One participant raised the case of a vessel inspector valuing two identical ships, one that had been managed by a company that had prioritised crew welfare, the other that hadn’t. The former’s subsequent financial value was higher than the latter, demonstrating that prioritising crew welfare is beneficial to the bottom line.

The importance of communication between seafarers and onshore management came up frequently:

• There tend to be fewer former seafarers working in the office than in the past, meaning less knowledge of day-to-day issues facing seafarers and correspondingly less empathy between onshore staff and seafarers.
• There is a common perception among seafarers that their rights are less important than those of onshore staff. There should be no gap between rights afforded to onshore and onboard workers.
• Insufficient capacity to assess or effectively remediate seafarer problems and grievances both onshore and on board needs to be addressed by employers. 

Possible solutions:

• Ensure better ongoing open communication between ship and shore.
• Ensure that seafarers have someone to speak to in their own language.
• Provide career transition opportunities from onboard to onshore for former seafarers as this can have multiple benefits, including not only empathy with serving seafarers and practical understanding of the impact of policies on crew but also retention rates due to onshore career progression opportunities.

The Maritime Labour Convention explicitly prohibits charging of recruitment fees to seafarers. Nevertheless, recruitment fee abuse is widespread and can take many forms, including payment of fees to secure a job, unpaid apprenticeships, lower wages than promised, illegal or improper retention of documents, with consequences of refusal or exposure including blackmail, threats, and physical violence to seafarer and/or family.

Initial research by a recruitment platform that connects seafarers directly with potential employers and by an academic institution has shown that payment of recruitment fees is a significant issue among seafarers, particularly in India and the Philippines where up to 30% of seafarers have reported some kind of corruption related to attaining and/or retaining jobs at sea. Issues raised included that:

• In India, recruitment fees are so prevalent that seafarers prepare for manning fees before they apply for a job.
• It is so much the norm in some countries that some seafarers (and other migrant workers) may believe a job is not worth taking if there is no recruitment fee charge.
• It is difficult to get seafarers to report recruitment fee corruption as doing so might imperil future work opportunities.
• The sophistication of corrupt manning agents makes it difficult to uncover illegal recruitment fees. For example, in certain countries banned corrupt recruitment agencies can reopen a week later under a different name.
• Often seafarers are unaware of any mechanism by which they can file a complaint on this issue.

Possible solutions:

• There needs to be awareness-raising for seafarers around the illegality of manning agencies and labour brokers charging them fees, and the existence of direct recruitment platforms where no fees are charged and crewing agencies are removed from the equation.
• Unions and seafarers’ organisations could join forces to raise awareness on this issue.
• ITF runs a ShipBeSure programme to report corrupt crewing agencies, and find ethical ones.
• Some kind of anonymous reporting mechanism that charterers and others can refer to would be helpful, perhaps along the lines of the IMO/ILO database on abandoned seafarers.

The issue of gender under-representation and discrimination in the shipping industry is long-standing: currently, roughly 2% of seafarers are female, unchanged in the past 40 years. Shipping is traditionally a highly hierarchical environment, with considerable segregation based on rank, gender and nationality, both during training and onboard. Reports indicate that sexual harassment and assault on board vessels is not uncommon and often goes unreported or unpunished. The lack of career progression from ship to shore jobs and lack of female representation in senior roles are all reported as barriers to entry into a seafaring career for many women in particular.

Possible solutions, including some already underway with large shipowners and operators:

• Inclusive gender-awareness and diversity training should be provided, with full support from senior officers.
• More female leadership is needed onshore as well as at sea.
• It is important to support and educate male seafarers in supporting their female colleagues.
• Mentoring and guidance are important, but need to be handled sensitively to avoid divisiveness between male and female seafarers.
• Mechanisms where women can share confidential feedback on their experiences during voyages, including focus groups etc either with employers or impartial third parties. Conversations should happen pre, during and post shipping contract.
• Initiatives such as crewing women in pairs or more on vessels.
• Recreational opportunities which are gender-inclusive to be considered alongside provision of adequate privacy.
• Short-term roles where seafarers can move from sea to shore to sea, and programmes allowing seafarers to make the longer term transition from sea to shore, in order to promote changes based on their experience at sea, are needed.
• Include seafarers when devising diversity and inclusion strategies to allow co-ownership.

The issue of private maritime security companies (PMSCs) was discussed in a dedicated panel. Points raised included:

• Maritime security is a global issue, beyond piracy in high-risk areas (HRAs).
• Owners are not always transparent about security risks.
• PMSCs are difficult to hire due to lack of information on which are ethical – flag states have no reference list but expect you to hire a suitable and qualified team.

Areas to consider when employing PMSCs include:

• Shore-based staff need to ask - what does security look like on board ships?
• How do contracted security staff treat seafarers, how do they treat threats, and how are the security personnel themselves treated when on board.
• How well are seafarers supported and heard, how do companies support risk, and is there adequate safeguarding information.
• Shipowners have to be transparent with seafarers on contractual/legal rights. Seafarers have the right to refuse to go into HRAs and the right to bonuses if going into HRAs.
• PMSCs should be registered with ICoCA (through ISO 28007) and ship owners and operators should use the resource offered by ICoCA to strengthen security standards and response protocols.

[N.B. since the roundtable, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has published a report on maritime security, in which it states that shipowners and operators ensure that contracted security companies have clear policies and procedures in place on human rights.]

Views and feedback from industry on implementing the Code of Conduct included:

• As mandatory human rights due diligence comes on stream in the EU and beyond, customers will increasingly be requiring ship operators to demonstrate how they are implementing policy commitments.

Investors are already demanding more – just saying you have a policy is no longer enough - you have to show how that policy is implemented; this also means companies cannot rely on declarations from suppliers.

• The self-assessment questionnaire is complicated, and long, particularly for first time adopters, but no more onerous than many others, and provides a helpful gap analysis and benchmark for tracking year-on-year progress.

• The division of responsibility between ship managers and ship owners needs to be clarified.
• There needs to be commitment from the top in order to achieve lasting progress in this area.
• Compliance costs need to be factored into negotiations and contracts.

A retailer and shipping company have completed a joint pilot project on including a modern slavery clause within annual contracts between container cargo owners and ship operators. Some outcomes of this pilot, which could be expanded to include the Code of Conduct, include:

• Cargo owners need to use leverage and financial incentives to ensure progress and get everyone not in the room on board.
• More cargo owners need to ask ship operators for data.
• Ship operators need to be educated on doing the right thing.
• For container cargo owners, annual contracts mean that performance change is easier to grade and expectations can be set up-front.
• There needs to be a balance between supporting smaller operators who may lack resources and the bigger ones who have the ability and systems in place.

In addition to the possible solutions mentioned above, the final session concluded that:

• It is critical that compliance on welfare doesn’t create more work for seafarers as this would be counter-productive.
• Communication between crew onboard and staff onshore is fundamental to addressing welfare challenges, pre-empting and mitigating risks, and providing remedial action where necessary.
• The S of ESG is often the poor relation but must be strengthened to shine an ongoing spotlight on crew welfare and rights.
• Internal buy-in to the Code of Conduct from management and senior crew is important to ensure that crew welfare remains a priority beyond COVID times.
• Further research must be done to establish the extent of recruitment fees in the industry.
• Verification of compliance to the Code of Conduct is essential both onshore and onboard.
• Might it be possible for a ship to be certified on labour/welfare issues?
• The entire industry needs to move forward in the same way.
• Demonstrable commitment to the Code of Conduct should be an essential requirement for doing business with a shipping company.

• Amazon
• Anglo American
• Asian Shipowners’ Association
• Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement
• BIMCO
• British High Commission, Singapore
• BSR
• BW Group
• Coles
• Eaglestar
• Elevate
• Embassy of the Philippines in Singapore
• Forum for the Future
• Global Maritime Forum
• Happiness Index
• IHRB
• IMC Shipping
• International Code of Conduct Association
• International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF)
• Lloyd’s Register
• Maersk
• Mission to Seafarers
• Norwegian Business Association Singapore
• Norwegian Seamen’s Church
• Ocean Network Express (ONE)
• Pacific Carriers
• Rafto
• RightShip
• Royal Danish Embassy in Singapore
• Royal Norwegian Embassy in Singapore
• Singapore Maritime Officers Union
• South32
• Standard Club
• Sustainable Shipping Initiative (SSI)
• Swire Bulk
• Swire Shipping
• Target
• Transient Workers Count Too (TWC2)
• Turtle Recruitment
• Wilhelmsen Ship Management
• WWF

Plus individual seafarers.

The event was funded with additional support from Lloyd’s Register Foundation and the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs.