The world’s leading maritime nations and representatives of ship owners and seafarers, are to address the issues of abandonment of seafarers and the rapid settlement of claims for compensation in the case of a seafarer’s death or long-term disability at the first meeting of a Special Tripartite Committee established under the ILO’s Maritime Labour Convention, 2006 (MLC, 2006).
We had arrived in China at just about the same time as Typhoon Utor. Which was a bit of a problem, since our cameraman Damien Riunaud and I had travelled to Shenzhen to board the Singapore-bound APL Boston container ship and produce video footage documenting life at sea. The trip was meant to coincide with the coming into force of the ILO’s Maritime Labour Convention (MLC, 2006), also known as the Seafarers’ Bill of Rights.
Following the official entry into force date of the MLC a few days ago ILO published a very interesting article about the expectations to improve the lives of seafarers. Being a seafarer was a childhood dream for Alex de La Cruz. He was raised in the southern part of the Philippines, where most of his neighbours and relatives were working as seafarers.
The Maritime Labour Convention (MLC) 2006 could turn out to be a paper tiger, Dr Cleopatra Doumbia-Henry has told delegates at Apostleship of the Sea’s 23rd international congress in the Vatican. Dr Cleopatra Doumbia-Henry, director international labour standards department of the International Labour Office (ILO) in Geneva, said that the MLC 2006 was simply a tool that had to be used wisely. “But if not used or improperly used may be of little consequence – the so called ‘paper tiger’ (meaning something that seems as threatening as a tiger, but is really harmless); or they may even cause harm, if only because it is then very difficult to mobilize the political will to replace an international instrument.
The ILO has received the 30th ratification of the Maritime Labour Convention, 2006 (MLC, 2006) fulfilling the last condition for the first global standard that spans continents and oceans to go into effect in a year’s time.
“This is great news for the world’s more than 1.2 million seafarers,” said ILO Director General Juan Somavia. “It was a dream of the ILO as early as 1920, and I pay tribute to the international maritime community for having made it a reality.”
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Officer of the Watch 