Sea of shame and greediness

It took a lot of years for trade unions of the Baltic and Northern Europe regions to banish ship-owners violating laws of this area.  While every effort was made to make vessels follow the ITF rules those pursuing easy profit rushed to the Southern Europe region which became a dump yard for all kinds of old rusty buckets – leftovers from the ex-USSR fleet.

Here you could buy a Master’s certificate, a license and other documents and feel like at home anywhere from Russia, Ukraine and Moldova to Greece and Turkey, often offering low freight costs. Ship-owners take chances and are ready for any fishy venture. Though their actions contradict the proverb “In god we trust, all others pay cash” they lure seafarers by words-only promises. “We’ll pay you later”, they say. And, as we know from Lewis Carrol’s “Through the Looking-Glass” – “The rule is jam tomorrow and jam yesterday but never jam to-day”. Virtually everything is possible almost anywhere in the Black and Azov seas. As a result, you can encounter an ancient unseaworthy vessel which was never supposed to operate in a stormy sea to begin with, with a Master without proper qualification.

One can work on a substandard vessel for a long time without ever seeing the company’s registered stamp, learning the name of the general manager or laying a hand on one’s contract (there may be no contract at all in fact). It could be not so bad if after signing off many seafarers did not have to look for help in recovering their wage arrears. And again, unpaid wages can be a bad enough thing, but, moreover, in case of injury or illness things could get even worse.

It is ITF who makes employers follow international laws, regulations and standards to ensure safety working conditions for seafarers. Of course, implementation of all the rules makes old-fashioned rusty buckets non-profitable, and certain shipowners who would not play fair, call the ITF names; they say that by helping to eliminate substandard shipping, the “ITF mafia” eliminates the industry and deprives seafarers of their jobs!

The recent case of foundering of the m/v “Volgo-Balt 199” should become a lesson for everybody. This was a case of human greediness that caused the death of crew and a lifeguard. We present our condolences to the relatives of seafarers and lifesavers and express our disappointment of the fact that even no names of the victims were mentioned by mass media.

It is only by joint efforts of trade unions, dockers and ITF-inspectors and through enforcement of compliance to all safety regulations that we can prevent new tragedies.