Seafarers work on board of Atlantic Diana for the second year running

Seafarers who, due to the pandemic and restrictions on rotation, are forced to work on ships for more than a year are not a fiction at all. The Chairman of the Kaliningrad Territorial Organization of the Seafarers' Union of Russia  (SUR KTO) Vadim Mamontov and SUR KTO Labor Inspector Lyudmila Izmalkova were convinced themselves of that after having visited the Atlantic Diana (IMO 9515539, Panama flag) in port of Kaliningrad.

The crew consists of  Filipinos, and they are real record — breakers in terms of employment contract's  length. As Lyudmila Izmalkova said, the seafarers' contracts were concluded for a period of nine months (plus / minus one).

“However, almost the entire crew joined  the ship in last June, so the crew had been staying on board  for 14 months,” she says. - But this is not the limit. One rating had been working  on board since March 2019 or 16 months!

Such situation  could not but surprise the union representatives, especially since the  Atlantic Diana is covered by the IBF Collective Agreement. However, the situation on board is the result of movements restrictions imposed around the world.

- The vessel operated in Africa and South America, where there was no opportunity to change, - Vadim Mamontov explains. - But a chance is about to appear: the captain has showed the rotation plan which stipulates that 10 crew members would be signed off  at the next Danish port, and another part of the crew would be disembarked  in Morocco.

We add that, according to the estimate of International Transport Workers' Federation, which is based on the latest data from vessels operating under IBF Collective Agreements, about 300 000 seafarers are currently stuck on bord the  vessels around the world, and the same number of their colleagues can be considered unemployed, since they cannot travel to  join the vessels and change the crews. In the whole the crew change crisis affected about 600 000 marine workers.