The International Seafarers' Welfare and Assistance Network (ISWAN) has produced new guidance to assist welfare organisations when they are supporting seafarers who are abandoned or dealing with vessels that have been arrested or detained.
The meeting in Cartagena last week culminated with the launch of the ITF Latin American Contact Network, extending the ITF’s commitment to providing support to seafarers in the region.
Dockers are the workers trained in lashing, seafarers are not. That difference matters.
You should say no if your shipowner tries to force you to do it. If you can’t, know where to get support.
Since January 2018, 16 dockers and 12 seafarers have died from asphyxiation or explosions in confined spaces – or from falls after passing out due to bad air. That’s a shocking spike in deaths in confined spaces, a workplace hazard long familiar to the shipping industry.
Following a longstanding campaign, the ITF has won a commitment from the Irish government to bring in new measures to protect migrant workers in the country’s fishing industry.
Tanzania has become the 93rd member state of the International Labour Organization (ILO) to ratify the Maritime Labour Convention, 2006, as amended (MLC 2006). The MLC sets out minimum international working and living conditions for seafarers on board vessels.
More than 30 young Venezuelans are feared to have drowned while making the crossing to Trinidad, after the fishing vessel carrying them capsized in rough seas five kilometres from the Venezuelan coast. The Venezuelan and Trinidadian coastguards rescued nine survivors.
A US court has charged a Greek ship management company, corporate vessel owner and chief engineer on six counts of falsification of pollution records, obstruction of justice and witness tampering.
By Victor Figueroa, ITF strategic researcher
