Border controls leave an army of invisible workers trapped on floating sweatshops

Border controls leave an army of invisible workers trapped on floating sweatshops
Geoff Thompson and Benjamin Sveen 21 Nov 2020 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-11-21/maritime-workers-left-floating-in...

Ronbert Bibat had been trapped inside the rusty belly of a lumbering 39,000-tonne cargo ship for well over a year.

"Four times we received the news that we can go home, but it suddenly got cancelled," he said. "I don't know why."

He was one of 22 Filipino crew members confined to the bulk carrier MV Starlight as it crisscrossed the oceans, hauling coal, manganese ore and grains.

The 41-year-old seafarer longed to return to his wife and his two young daughters.

"My firstborn, next month she celebrates her birthday. She's 15 years old," he told the ABC from some remote point on the Pacific Ocean.

Mr Bibat worked seven days a week, sometimes 12 hours a day, sweeping ore and coal dust and scrubbing seven cargo holds, each as vast as an empty concert hall.

It was an exhausting, Sisyphean task that earned him about $400 a week for 80 hours of work — that's about $5 an hour.

His only respite came in his beige and pokey cabin, which resembles a room at a budget motel.

It's what some seafarers call the Laminex Prison. But for Mr Bibat, it was also his haven.

"Every break-time I go to my cabin, I try to manage not to get bored, not to get frustrated, not to get depressed."

His luggage was always left packed under his study desk, just in case he got the green light to return home.
A developing humanitarian crisis

After governments enforced border restrictions to stall the spread of coronavirus, around 400,000 seafarers like Mr Bibat were stranded at sea, unable to set foot on dry land.

With crew changes more difficult than ever, unions say there's now a humanitarian crisis within eyesight from our shoreline.
"For seafarers, it means you're stuck on ships, to a degree where you can't even get down the gangway and stand on the wharf."

"I'm seeing seafarers now that have been on for 18 months without a day off."

Just like Mr Bibat, thousands of seafarers are right now enduring the same degree of extended isolation and uncertainty with no end in sight.
"It's against the law in this country for a seafarer to take a five-minute break on the wharf, and you could imagine what that does to their health, to their mental health," said Dean Summers, the national coordinator for the International Transport Workers Federation (ITF) in Australia.

"For seafarers, it means you're stuck on ships, to a degree where you can't even get down the gangway and stand on the wharf."

"I'm seeing seafarers now that have been on for 18 months without a day off."

Just like Mr Bibat, thousands of seafarers are right now enduring the same degree of extended isolation and uncertainty with no end in sight.

see also Crew repatriation, retention and the possibility of a Covid vaccine
19 Nov 2020 https://www.rivieramm.com/news-content-hub/news-content-hub/tanker-exper...