Climatic and geographical conditions that effect on the health of sailors during marine voyage

The prolonged availability of seafarers on board of water vehicle during voyages forms the features of professional labor activity. When assessing the medical and sanitary situation of life and vital activity of the crew on board a ship, it is necessary to take into account a set of conditions that are integrated into a single notion — «ship environment ». The ship’s environment affects the personnel’s body for the entire period while people are on the voyage. It can cause changes in the state of health. The article presents a review of the literature devoted to the study of the influence of climatic and geographical factors accompanying maritime labor. Natural factors occupy a significant share among the large effects of the ship’s environment that affect the health of seafarers and, accordingly, their ability to work. Among them, the greatest contribution is made by temperature, physico-chemical properties of air, photoperiodic fluctuations. The homeostatic systems of the seafarers ‘ body are very closely dependent on the natural situation of the seas. These conditions impose high requirements and can cause the development of premorbid and pathological conditions. To ensure the protection of the health and working capacity of the crew, it is necessary to study the influence of external factors. The main directions for ensuring the safety and strengthening of the health of seafarers are: forecasting and prevention of health disorders, prenosological diagnostics and timely medical support, rehabilitation measures in the post-voyage period.

‘The company will fire you because you are too expensive’: a photo-ethnography of health care rights among Filipino migrant seafarers

With fatal injuries six times the rate of all US occupations, people who live and work at sea are part of one of the most dangerous occupations. Few ships have health care workers aboard despite many seafarers being at sea for months. While seafarers are guaranteed a right to health care through maritime labor laws and conventions, it is unclear whether or how they access these rights. Therefore, photo-ethnography was used to examine what health care access means for seafarers through the lens of structural violence. The study site was the vessel the seafarers worked and lived on, which docked in the Gulf of Mexico once-a-week, flies a flag of convenience, and travels in international waters. The photo-ethnography was implemented over a one-year period and included male Filipino seafarers who worked 9-month contracts at sea. The historical, structural, and political-economic production of injury, illness, and death were questioned to understand why migrant seafarers do not have de facto access to their de jure health rights. In this way, health prevention was analyzed through the discourse of power distribution instead of risk and disease. Results from the project reveal that seafarers routinely underreport adverse work and health conditions for fear of losing future work contracts. Adverse work experiences included dangerous vessels and routes as well as being encouraged to work with little sleep or through storms. Adverse health issues included severe to moderate injury and illness, which they concealed from management. Ultimately, it was revealed that political-economic systems are internalized and embodied among migrant workers who are employed under short-term contracts, leading to decreased healthcare-seeking behaviors and increased health disparities.

Optimalisasi Penerapan MLC (Maritime Labour Convention) di Atas Kapal KM Bukit Siguntang

Indonesia is an archipelagic country with 17,508 islands. Therefore, transportation by sea is very much needed to support trade flows in reaching areas between islands with one another through national and international waters. The purpose of this study was to determine the optimization of the implementation of the MLC (Maritime Labor Convention) on ships and to determine the effect of the implementation of the MLC (Maritime Labor Convention) for the welfare of seafarers. The data collection method is survey and interview methods. This research is included in qualitative research. The results of this study indicate that the 2006 MLC regarding the welfare of seafarers onboard KM Bukit Siguntang has been implemented well, but the rest time is not optimal so it is necessary to pay attention to its optimization. The implementation of the 2006 MLC had a major impact on the welfare of seafarers on board.

Juridical Analysis of Work Agreements at Sea for Seafarers from the Perspective of Affirming People's Welfare: A Study at the Batam Authority and Harbormaster Office

A Sea Work Agreement is a contract between a shipping entrepreneur and a worker in which the latter agrees to do work for pay as a captain or a member of the ship's crew under the entrepreneur's instructions. As a component of a more considerable agreement, a written or spoken labor agreement must satisfy both subjective and objective legal criteria of an agreement. The topic of this study is the legal arrangement of work agreements at sea for seafarers to promote human welfare. A study was conducted by the Batam authorities and harbormaster's office on the implementation and legal analysis of work agreements at sea for seafarers from an affirming people's welfare perspective. Also, the factors that act as impediments or barriers to solutions for work agreements at sea for seafarers from an affirming people's welfare perspective. This research aims to establish the legal structure of work agreements at sea for seafarers to improve their welfare and the execution and legal analysis of work agreements at sea for seafarers to enhance their welfare. Thirdly, determine the elements that lead to the formation of barriers or obstacles, along with some of the aspects that contribute to their resolution. This study aims to gather primary data via field research utilizing a normative approach. The study's findings show that although the legal control of work agreements at sea for seafarers has been chiefly implemented successfully to enhance people's welfare, there are still many barriers in the sector at both an internal and external level. It is anticipated that both ship entrepreneurs and ship personnel will adhere to their agreed-upon and signed maritime labor agreements, making this a legal requirement for builders. Keywords: Sea Work Agreement, Seafarers.

Sailors

European overseas expansion and the processes of early modern globalization depended on the labor of sailors. It is therefore not surprising that they are among the most thoroughly studied occupational groups of the early modern world, especially as their historical importance is reflected in a relative abundance of archival source material. Legal records of various kinds have proven an especially rich source that has allowed historians to recover in remarkable detail the lives of early modern sailors as they crisscrossed oceans and imperial jurisdictions, moving back and forth between ship and shore, switching from the fisheries to the merchant marine, and on to naval service and back again. As one of the first predominantly wage-dependent groups of workers in the emerging capitalist world-economy, sailors were subject to an unusually complex constellation of forces that together provided the structure of the international maritime labor market, including the interaction of the push and pull of demand and supply with the multiple and overlapping coercive recruitment systems that in wartime funneled mariners by the tens of thousands onto the gundecks of Europe’s burgeoning war-fleets. But scholarly interest has not only been stimulated by the fact that sailors sailed the ships that projected European imperial aggression overseas, and then carried people, commodities, and ideas back and forth across the oceans. Historians have also been fascinated by the peculiar culture that emerged below deck and in port cities around the world, including its characteristic cosmopolitanism, political radicalism, and sexual libertinism. The titles listed in this bibliography highlight some of the most prominent studies on these and other subjects, but interested researchers will want to consult other Oxford Bibliographies articles as well, including Oceanic History, Ships and Shipping, Piracy, Smuggling, and The Maritime Atlantic in the Age of Revolutions.

Сhanges of interpersonal behavior of russian mariners when working on international crews

Background. Psycho-emotional sphere of mariners is one of the most susceptible to severe conditions of maritime labor. Crew work at sea on ships of foreign companies often has abnormal working conditions. As a result, socio-psychological conflicts can arise, turning into psycho-emotional stress. Thus, the research of Russian mariners’ emotional sphere, working on the ships under flags of foreign states is very actual.The aim of the work is to define the features of Russian mariners’ emotional condition during their work with international crews and to substantiate the necessity of its correction during voyage and intervoyage periods.Materials and methods. Psycho-emotional condition of Russian mariners who worked on foreign companies’ ships during sea voyage was assessed using diagnostic method «Diagnostic of interpersonal relations» T. Leary, adapted by L.N. Sobchik.Results of the research and discussion. A rather high level of tension of the emotional condition during the voyage was found, probably, caused by difficult communication with foreign mariners, hard work and, as a consequence, occurrence of conflict situations. Emotional stress may contribute to neurotic reactions in mariners. It is recommended to select crews for work on ships under the foreign flag and not to allow contracting with psychologically unstable person.

Policy Analyses on Wages Protection of Seafarers Held Hostage by Pirates

The issue of piracy against merchant vessels still poses a significant threat to world shipping, and people onboard continue to be targeted and held hostage by pirates for ransom. Seafarers expect and deserve to continue receiving wages if held by pirates. However, this entitlement is still blurred in the current legal framework and the maritime industry practice. Traditionally, it was argued that seafarers held hostage by pirates did not have a right to continued payment of their wages. The world maritime community has made significant effort to reform the law and to address the need to protect the wages of seafarers. Amendments of 2018 to the Maritime Labor Convention 2006 (MLC 2006) was adopted aiming to ensure that while seafarers are held captive as a result of piracy or armed robbery, seafarer employment agreements (SEAs) remain in force and they must continue to be paid. While it was a significant move forward, there are no provisions of compulsory financial guarantees on captive seafarers’ wages in the Amendments. Through policy analysis on captive seafarers’ wages, it is argued that Amendments 2018 are not an adequate guarantee of wages of seafarers held hostage by pirates and true reforms are still far away.

Occupational Noise on Floating Storage and Offloading Vessels (FSO)

The purpose and scope of this paper are to provide guidance of the potential impacts of being subjected to high level noise recorded on 1st generation (30 years old) floating storage and offloading vessels (FSO) in sector offshore. The international community recognizes that vibroacoustic impacts from commercial ships may have negative consequences for both humans (worker’s) and marine life, especially marine mammals. As regards the effect of noise on human health, there are legal requirements imposing the noise exposure control on personnel working on ships. The acceptable noise exposure standards are established in European Union Directive 2003/10/EC (2003), the NOPSEMA Regulation (2006), the Maritime Labor Convention (MLC) guidelines (2006), and the recommendations of the International Maritime Organization IMO contained, e.g., IMO MEPC.1/Circ.833 (2014). These regulations inform employers and employees what they must do to effectively protect both the marine environment and the health and life safety of workers employed in the maritime industry offshore. This study also presents an analysis of the results of noise measurements carried out on exemplary 1st generation FSO units.

“Nowhere near Somalia, Mom”

Just as containerized goods appear to flow seamlessly across the planet’s oceans, internationalized and standardized certificates present seafaring labor as uniform and seamless. But underneath these certificates are the intimate and unequal entanglements of local masculinity norms, age, and kinship ties that sustain the maritime labor supply chain. In this article, we follow how three young, male seafarers from eastern India find ways to contain piracy risks at work and poverty risks at home, and their sense of obligation as men, sons, husbands, and fathers. By delving into the unequal conditions for industrial male workers from the Global South, this article demonstrates how containerized maritime labor commodities are not uniform but are dependent upon economic inequality and intimate kinship ties to be productive.

The impact of the Maritime Labor Convention on seafarers’ working and living conditions: an analysis of port state control statistics

Background The Maritime Labour Convention, 2006 (MLC2006) entered into force in August 2013 and is a milestone for better working and living conditions (WLC) for seafarers. As of March 2020, 96 countries have ratified the MLC2006, covering more than 90% of the world’s shipping fleet. A system of port state control (PSC) allows ratifying countries to inspect any foreign ship arriving in their ports for compliance with the convention. It is intended as a second safety measure for the identification of substandard ships that sail all over the world. Nine regional agreements, so-called Memoranda of Understanding (MoU), have been signed to coordinate and standardize PSC inspections and to increase efficiency by sharing inspections and information. This paper uses public PSC statistics to evaluate the impact of the MLC2006. Methods A preliminary analysis using registered tonnage and MLC2006 ratification was conducted and seven MoU were selected for the analysis. The annual reports of these MoU have been viewed in September 2019. Numbers on annual inspections, deficiencies and detentions and in particular data for deficiencies related to living and working conditions and certificates and documents, have been extracted and analyzed for the years 2010 to 2017. Results Across the eight-year period analyzed, inspection numbers remained stable among all MoU authorities. Deficiencies overall and deficiencies related to WLC declined, indicating an improvement in conditions overall and an increased focus on seafarers’ conditions on board. After the MLC2006 entered into force, three MoU reported WLC-ratios above 14%, while the numbers didn’t rise above 10% in the other four authorities. Deficiencies related to certificates and documents did not rise significantly between 2010 and 2017. Two European MoU showed the highest ratios for deficiencies in both categories analyzed. Conclusion The analysis confirmed that an increasing attention is being paid to the inspection of working and living conditions, especially in European countries. However, a clear positive impact of the MLC2006 could not be determined from the PSC statistics in this analysis. A large variation still exists among the MoU, a fact that demands increased efforts for harmonization of PSC procedures.