No 4 2010 Shipgaz 25
Safety
»Companies should not expect loyalty from seafarers until they demonstrate long term commitment to their employees« ally and, at another level, the attitude of ships’ officers toward those they command. For too long, and too widely, seafarers have been treated as a disposable commodity. For the most part they are hired by manning agencies to work on ships that are managed by another company on behalf of the shipowner. At best their loyalties are divided and probably strongest to whoever directly pays their salary. Many seafarers are hired on a single contract with no guarantees of long term employment. Not surprisingly their commitment is short term and based on “what’s in it for me?” So if the opportunity arises to make some big money from a big corporation that does not treat you decently then, not surprisingly, whistleblowing can be a way out and a way up.
another case Also in 2007, Overseas Shipholding Group was fined USD 27.8 million and was sentenced to pay another USD 9.2 million to marine environmental projects for repeated illegal discharges of oily water. 12 crew members were rewarded USD 437,500 each for having blown the whistle on the illegal discharges.
Spotlight
INTERIOR INSULATION VENTILATION PIPING ELECTRICAL
Companies should not expect loyalty from seafarers until they demonstrate long term commitment to their employees – obvious really. You’ll get loyalty from people you treat with respect and if you put systems in place to ensure that crews are treated with respect. One way of showing that is to have a system through which seafarers can report their concerns in confidence without putting their jobs or shipboard relationships at risk, and by making it very clear on a fleet-wide basis that breaches of Marpol are not acceptable and will be firmly dealt with. Then the seafarer becomes the watchdog you need to enforce compliance.
In a recent case it was found that a company had rehired an engineer who had already committed Marpol violations. He then proceeded to commit further offences. No monitoring was put in place to make re-offending difficult. It is self-evident, and clearly evident to crew, that Marpol violations are acceptable on the company’s ships.
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