Every year 380.000 sailors in the port of Antwerp

Last year 16.000 ships anchored at the port of Antwerp. Crews from all over the world are often the victim of miserable working conditions. Social protection is still too easily bypassed. MO* went to visit the ships with the Antwerp seamen’s missions.
Monday morning. After the daily tradition of “checking ship lists” with the other chaplains, Jörg Pfautsch takes me to the fifth dock in the old port. Pfautsch has been a port chaplain of the German seamen’s mission in Antwerp for twenty-two years now. With his colleagues of the Roman Catholic Stella Maris and the Anglican and Presbyterian seamen’s missions, Pfautsch cares for the spiritual and social well-being of the international seafarers at the port of Antwerp.
Every day five chaplains visit the incoming ships with an international crew. Hard work guaranteed: worldwide there are on a total of 50.000 cargo ships and 1.2 million sailors. One fourth of them originates from the Philippines. India and the former communist countries of eastern Europe are strongly represented as well. Roughly estimated, 380.000 of them arrive at Antwerp, the second port of Europe and the fifth of the world.

STRANDED ON A SHIP


Between the white vastness of the empty quays, the snow covered sheds and the half frozen waters of the river Schelde, the cargo ship Hannes C is docked. High up, two banners defy the eastern wind: ‘We are on strike’ and ‘Our families are hungry, we need our wages’. The crew - a Russian captain and some twenty Romanians, Ukrainians and Philipino’s - has been stuck in the ship since november last year. They have been waiting for their wage arrears for three months. The owner, a German shipping company, is broke and the ship is waiting to be sold.

On the Hannes C the crew has gathered in the smoky canteen. Their primary concern is their families, who have to make ends meet without the financial support of their relatives at sea. ‘We can eat, but our families are suffering. Our women are looking for jobs to compensate the loss of income’, they say. Despite the atmosphere of relative calm and solidarity, the uncertainty is threatening the peace of mind of the crew. Some of them are on the ship for more than a year. ‘The seamen’s missions provide us with coats, blankets, food and water. We’ll get diesel as well. But we want money and a little bit of hope’, says Valerij V. Solokov, the Russian captain. His job, as the intermediate between the crew and the owner, is not an easy one. But ‘if the men want to strike, it’s their decision’, and he respects that.

‘Debts at home are rising’, the Romanian electrician Eugen Oprescu tells us. He has to borrow money from friends and family to pay off his rent. ‘The motor of the ship has never looked so clean’ he grimaces when asked how he passed time. ‘Yes, I smoke a lot as well’, he says when he sees me looking at the orangebrown film on his fingers. ‘It’s not a healthy situation. The only time we can get some exercise and fresh air is when we walk from and to the daily shuttle bus, when we visit the Seafarer’s Centre.’

THE ONLY FOOTBRIDGE TO THE OUTSIDE WORLD


With the help of the welfare worker of the secular International Seamen’s House of Antwerp the chaplains have divided the port - a colossus of more than 14.000 hectare and 125  kilometres of quay walls. On a daily basis they bring the mainland to the ships mooring alongside their sections of the port. Not only with a friendly chat, but with reading material, usb-sticks, journals in every language, telephone cards and a brief introduction of the city and its port.
During every ship visit, the chaplains make sure that the sailors know their way to the Antwerp Seafarer’s Centre at the Italiëlei, a meeting place where the maritime workmen can have a chat and a drink. The seafarers who feel the need to attend church receive the Mass hours of the chapel of the centre. But filling the chapel with the faithful is not the chaplains’ primary concern. ‘Our mission is simple’, Pfautsch says: ‘To bring a touch of humanity and compassion to the hard and hectic life of the sailor.’

And the life of a sailor is hard. There are international labour conventions under construction to improve maritime working rights, but for now they are just dead letter. Low wages, temporary contracts, long and uninterrupted working hours, limited resting hours, inadequate safety measures and isolation at sea contribute to the hardships of the profession.

As a result of 9/11 the ISPS-code was adopted worldwide in 2004. It is a security code for sea vessels against maritime terrorism. Since then it became a whole lot harder to get in or get off ships in the world’s ports. In the new port of Antwerp you cannot get in without an Alfapass. On top of that, the cutthroat competition between transport companies has put a lot of pressure on the time schedules of loading and unloading. This results in shorter mooring periods of the ship, and a crew that can hardly go ashore due to the strict security regulations, not even for a few hours. ‘This creates stress, isolation and fatigue - crew members who don’t have the rank of officer sign contracts of six to nine months of continuous sailing’, Pfautsch says. ‘Our visits are often very brief, but just listening to them can be enough for the crew members to recover their breath.’

FLAGGING OUT


‘The Hannes C is a common story’, clarifies Joris De Hert, coordinater of the local branch of the international transport union ITF. ‘In this case it’s about a German shipping company sailing under the Flag of Convenience (FoC) to avoid taxes.’ All over the world western merchant ships flag out to avoid taxes, unions and strict labour laws. Out of the 58.000 ships sailing the oceans, there are at least 18.000 sailing under a cheap flag, like the Panamanian or the Liberian flag. Most Belgian ships however sail under their own flag, and are subjected to our national labour laws.

The FoC ships - sailing in a legal vacuum - are a thorn in the flesh of the unions. ‘There’s not much you can do because you have to deal with two parties. It often happens that the shipping company pays the flagstate to sail out - the wages of the crew included. When such a ship gets into trouble, the
Nothing romantic about it, sailing is about earning an income
parties start a tug of war.’

In the case of the Hannes C, which sailed out under Antigua-flag as Normed Istanbul, things could be worse, De Hert says. The shipping company has already applied for protection against debt creditors. The bank will pay the crew’s wages for the period after the 12th of january. The crew hired a lawyer for the period before the 12th. The lawyer included a claim settling the repatration of the crew members who exceeded their contract period. ‘And because we are dealing with a good ship, and there’s already a new owner, the sale and the payment of the wage arrears should be settled quickly - within a month.’

WAITING AT THE QUAY


The snow has turned into meltwater. But it doesn’t affect the sheer beauty of the Schelde as seen from the bridge of the German cargo ship Hanna. The Philippine officer who coaxes me along is not impressed. He has been in the business for twenty years now. Sailing is about making money, nothing else. With 2625 euro a month he is doing well by Philippine standards. Hard work and homesickness, eight months a year, is something he just has to deal with. And this ship is going to be fine, he says.
The Hanna is waiting for cargo, just like the Götawald. The former has been waiting since mid december, the latter is counting on a minimal waiting period. But the Hanna is first and foremost a new ship, where the crew gets paid and can go ashore anytime. It’s a luxury cruiser compared with the Hannes C. ‘Correct’, Pfautsch says when he drives me to the train station, ‘but make no mistake, it’s nonetheless a rough and damned lonely profession. Seamen from low wage countries have often little choice. And there are still too many ships where things go wrong.’

THE SOCIAL APPEARANCE OF A WORLD PORT


International ships are subjected to safety inspections. But if they respect social labour standards is another matter. The welfare workers try to see to that. When things are not right on a ship, they pass on the information to the international transport union ITF or to other institutes. Acting as a watchdog is important for the well-being of the seamen. But the future of welfare work is not looking bright.

Last year the city of Antwerp decided to demolish the International Seamen’s House of Antwerp at the Falconrui - a half a century old building. What will happen to the employees - transferred from the city to a npo for a couple of years now - is a question even Louis Van Den Abeele, the manager of the hotel-restaurant for seamen, cannot answer. He doesn’t know who will take over the work either. And that’s not all. The German seamen’s mission is not longer subsidised by the German state and loses almost a tenth of its income. The hotel of the Seafarers’ Centre is closed down and the revenues are shrinking. The seamen’s missions keep their head above water thanks to collections, gifts, the proceeds of events and happenings and the sale of telephone cards.

Unions and welfare workers believe that the introduction of a welfare tax would be a good thing. By charging a small toll from incoming ships, money can be set aside to pay for first aid for the crews of ships in need. In some European countries this system already exists, but Antwerp doensn’t seem to like the idea very much. ‘The question is on the agenda, but we have to look at this carefully’, says Anne Dirkx of the Antwerp Port Authority. ‘We can’t spend money like water. The Antwerp Port Authority pays  the sailors for the transport to the centre of the city, which is not cheap. Regarding the ships in need: in principle every ship is obliged to have an agent. The agent is accountable, and it is his responsibility to take care of the crew of a ship in need.’

The seamen’s missions can testify that, sadly, the golden years of the Antwerp maritime sector are over. There are occurring signs that the snowball effect created by the demise of the automobile industry affects the maritime sector as well. ‘The last month and a half less ships are coming in. The ships that come in stay longer than they used to, because they have to wait longer for their cargo’, Pfautsch says.

While the Antwerp Port Authority could come forward with good figures for 2008 - a growth of 3.5 percent - it expects a decrease in tonnages of fifteen percent. The whole transport sector is hit by the economic recession, so the port as well, says the ACV-Transcom union. In the port of Antwerp 30 to 35 percent of the dockers are unemployed, the union writes in a press release in the beginning of february. And Antwerp confiscation judges said in the media that the amount of confiscated ships has increased remarkably compared with last year. This is bad news for the crews as well.

MINIMUM WAGE AT SEA: 1256 EURO

When things go wrong, the international transport union ITF has leverage when ships have signed a collective labour agreement with ITF. According to that agreement an average sailor earns 1256 euro a month. The amount seems reasonable, but is still low for such a hard job with constant overtime and minimal spare time. Still, It is a lot more than the average minimum wage the International Labour Organisation (ILO) advises: 675 euro.

The ILO adopted the Maritime Labour Convention in 2006, a convention for every seafarer in the world. The convention was warmly welcomed by international unions and was called a “superconvention”. The convention imposes minimum regulations for work contracts, repatriation, rest and work times, working conditions like accomodation and nourishment, healthcare and social security. It will be in force when at least thirty countries sign. Target date: 2011.

The European Member States which would ratify the convention in 2008 didn’t make the deadline. The fourth state to ratify the convention was Panama, the biggest flagstate in the world, in the beginning of february. The other three are Liberia, the Marshall Islands and the Bahamas.


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