A three-year exhaustive study has shown the structures supporting implementation of work/rest regulations at sea are being broken with close to two-thirds of seafarers adjusting their work/rest records.
Under the Maritime Labour Convention 2006( MLC), a seafarer has the right to regulated hours of work and hours of rest.
Hours of work are stated as either maximum hours of work, or minimum hours of rest. The maximum hours of work must not exceed 14 hours in any 24-hour period, and 72 hours in any seven-day period; or
The minimum hours of rest must not be less than 10 hours in any 24-hour period, and 77 hours in any seven-day period.
A record of a seafarer’s daily hours of rest or hours of work must be kept on board in the working language of the ship and in English, and must be signed by the seafarer and the master or other authorised person. The seafarer must be given a copy.
In his PhD dissertation for the World Maritime University, funded through support from the ITF Seafarers’ Trust, Bikram Bhatia surveyed 6,304 seafarers, interviewed 55 port state control (PSC) officers, and went through the data of 16,551 PSC inspections.
Key findings of the research include the statistic that 64.3% of seafarers adjusted their work/rest records, while PSC officers are struggling to detect non-compliance.
More worrying is the coercion from shore. 66.7% of respondents had reports questioned by their company, 60.1% were expected to adjust their reports, and 49.1% were instructed to.
High compliance rates reported by PSC masked seafarers’ reported non-compliance, creating what Bhatia has described as a false narrative at policy levels.
Reconciling wellness with excessive demands appears implausible, suggested Steven Jones, the founder of the Seafarers Happiness Index, in a recent article for Splash.
“Crews face overwhelming demands while grappling with chronic underreporting of work hours, and the threat of punishment for infractions,” Jones argued, adding: “Seafarers face a difficult choice: being honest about over work can lead to punishment, while dishonesty may allow them to escape consequences. This creates a troubling lack of incentive for proper, effective, open, and transparent recording of work hours.”
