What happens if seafarers stop working?
That’s a question posed by leading consultant in the container shipping industry, Lars Jensen, in a recently published LinkedIn blog.
The plight of the 200 000 seafarers stranded at sea – an estimate by the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) - awaiting repatriation has grabbed the headlines for some time, but what if crew members down tools to force the issue?
“In the whole play-out of the pandemic’s impact on shipping much focus has been levied on the typical bottlenecks for capacity such as vessel availability, container equipment availability, port capacity, trucking availability, online tools for documentation etc. Now we are getting to a point where a usually invisible – but vital – element becomes important. Namely the seafarers themselves,” says Jensen.
The International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) and its affiliated seafarers’ unions has vowed to assist hundreds of thousands of seafarers to exercise their right to stop working, leave ships, and return home.
“The new approach, which could be highly disruptive to global trade, comes after insufficient action by governments to designate seafarers as ‘key workers’, exempt them from Covid-19 travel restrictions, and facilitate repatriation,” said ITF seafarers’ section chair, Dave Heindel.
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