Thu 6 Sep 2007
My last article “Shipping Still At Sea”
Posted by miren under General
Q&A: Shipping Still At Sea
Interview with David Cockroft, Int’l Transport Workers’ Federation
ROME, Sep 3 (IPS) - A first officer’s certificate to navigate a ship and deputise for captain. No training, no skills. Price, 4,500 dollars. David Cockroft sent shock waves through the shipping business when he bought that certificate back in 2001 to show corruption in shipping registries.Cockroft’s campaign to protect seafarers and promote the shipping industry has continued since then. In an interview with IPS in 2004, the British champion of seafarers worldwide spoke of his efforts to counter the negative effects of U.S. legislation introduced after Sep. 11, 2001. And that was not the last of the challenges. Now he has taken up the environmental issue after Secretary-General of the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) Efthimios E. Mitropoulos declared that environment is the main issue facing maritime transport today.IPS Editor-in-Chief Miren Gutierrez spoke to Cockroft, now Secretary-General of the International Transport Workers’ Federation, ahead of World Maritime Day, Sep. 27.
IPS: You have been the ITF Secretary-General since 1994 and outlived four consecutive congresses, the last one in Durban. What has changed in the world of seafarers since you started, and with the Flags of Convenience (a foreign flag under which a vessel is registered in order to reduce operating costs and avoid regulations)?
David Cockroft: The world of seafarers has changed a great deal since 1994, and so has the ITF. We have strengthened our global presence in defence of seafarers rights in ports all over the world so that substandard ship owners know that there is a growing chance that an ITF union somewhere will provide support for exploited seafarers. At the same time we have established a strong dialogue with decent ship owners and managers who have an interest in maintaining standards.
When I attended my first ITF Congress as General Secretary in Geneva in 1994, there were fewer than 2,000 Flag of Convenience (FOC) ships under ITF agreement — and the number was falling. Today there are more than 8,000 and rising. And more than half of those ships are covered by the world’s first globally bargained collective agreement within the framework of the International Bargaining Forum.
Of course, the other major change in the world of seafarers is that they are currently in very short supply. The number of cases of exploitation and abandonment of seafarers has fallen drastically, but not because ship owners have all suddenly become paragons of virtue, but because freight rates are at a historical peak due to the continued growth of export/import based economies, particularly China.
Skilled seafarers at present can virtually name their own salaries. Everyone connected with the industry knows that this cannot go on for ever. At some stage there will be a major downturn and suddenly — as previously — there will be a glut of tonnage chasing a declining market.
