Shipping industry, unions welcome action from President Marcos Jr on key seafarer issues

Shipping industry, unions welcome action from President Marcos Jr on key seafarer issues
15/12/2022 https://www.hellenicshippingnews.com/shipping-industry-unions-welcome-ac...

Yesterday, global leaders from organisations representing seafarers, shipowners and other maritime employers, met with His Excellency President Ferdinand ‘Bongbong’ Marcos Jr, as part of his foreign policy tour in Brussels.

President Marcos ordered a new advisory board to be made up of employers, shipowners and unions and the ILO, to give expert advice on major maritime issues.

Reform was urged of the country’s seafarer claims industry where ambulance-chasing lawyers target seafarers in order to defraud employers.

The Philippines is one of the major suppliers of maritime labour globally.

Marcos pledges action to stave off EMSA threat to 50,000 jobs

Top of the agenda was the immediate concern of employers and crew that as many as 50,000 seafarers faced being barred from crewing European Union-flagged vessels over qualification issues.

The threat is due to a warning from the bloc’s maritime regulator that the Philippines needed to address unacceptable deficiencies in crew’s education, training and certification. Failure to do so would push out Filipino seafarers, a labour source so critical that one delegate described as ‘too big to fail’.

Delegates were reassured to hear Marcos pledge that his administration will do “everything” to address these deficiencies identified by the European Commission’s Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA) “to prevent job losses among Filipino seafarers,” he said.

Employers, unions urge reform of predatory claims industry

Delegates also urged Marcos to defend Filipino jobs, by reforming the country’s problematic seafarers claims industry.

While intended to secure speedy resolution and compensation for injured and aggrieved crew, the injury claims industry system today sees seafarers’ hardship and goodwill exploited by ambulance-chasing lawyers.

The victimisation of Filipino Seafarers by people or groups to make fraudulent and costly injury claims against their employers, has resulted in companies to look elsewhere for their seafarer workforce.

In 2000, Filipino crew made up 28.5% of the global seafarer population, however by 2020, that figure had dropped to just 14%. Any further decline would jeopardise the $6.54b USD in wages Filipino seafarers send home each year to their families – money critical to the Philippines economy.

Seafarers’ unions, including Philippines-based AMOSUP have supported employers’ calls for a crackdown on the unethical practices of the claims industry, who, they say, “capitalise on the hardships and even the demise of seafarers.”

ITF, ICS and IMEC called upon to form Marcos’ new maritime advisory committee

President Marcos also revealed to the delegates that he had ordered his Department of Migrant Workers minister, Secretary Susan ‘Toots’ Ople, to establish a maritime advisory committee to address the training issue and consider reforms to the broken seafarers’ claims system.

The International Advisory Committee on Global Maritime Affairs (IACGMA) will draw on experts from both industry and the workforce to support the Philippines’ government. IMEC, ICS, ITF and the International Labor Organization will all be invited to share their expertise.

The committee’s advice could be key as the Philippines, like other global maritime leaders, looked to navigate its way through the challenges of the future, such as climate change.

A recent Maritime Just Transition report revealed that as many as 800,000 seafarers will need some form of training or familiarisation by the mid-2030s to handle the fuels, technology and vessels of the future. Understanding what was needed for the Philippines to make the most of the opportunity decarbonization provides, would be critical to securing an equitable and sustainable future for its seafarers and the industry.

The meeting with the President in Belgium represents the first official engagement of IMEC, the ICS and ITF, with a national leader since the bodies recently signed an MOU with the aim of maximising the impact of their advocacy efforts on behalf of crew and industry.
Source: ITF