TIM eMagazine Vol.3 Issue 3
Credits: www.itfglobal.org
Union calls for “real”
increase in global
seafarer wage
T
Nautilus International
general secretary Mark
Dickinson
he ITF and Nautilus International will call for an
increase in monthly pay for the world’s lowest paid
seafarers.
The International Transport Workers’ Federation
(ITF) and Nautilus International, the maritime profes-
sionals trade union, are set to tell the International
Labour Organisation (ILO) that the time has come
for a significant rise in the global minimum wage for
seafarers - the only internationally-agreed pay floor
applied to an entire industry.
In June, Nautilus International general secretary Mark Dickinson will
lead the seafarers’ delegation on behalf of the ITF at talks within the Joint
Maritime Commission - an ILO standing body that has brought together
ship owners and seafarer representatives since 1920.
The Commission is responsible for setting the global minimum wage
Credits: nautilusint.org/
for seafarers – currently the equivalent of approximately USD614 per
month.
Mr Dickinson believes this is scant reward: “Crewing the world’s rough-
ly 52,000 ships are approximately 1,647,000 seafarers, many of whom
work dizzyingly long hours, in dangerous conditions, and for far too many,
in return for a pittance.”
Seafarers commonly work over 90 hours a week, and are away from
home for up to eight months at a time.
“When you consider what seafarers endure at work and the efficiencies
that the merchant navy has achieved in recent years, as well as the impor-
tance of cargo carrying to the global community, it is clear that the time
has come for a significant rise,” said Mr Dickinson.
“The case I will be making in Geneva is fundamentally a moral one -
seafarers deserve a pay rise. Seafarers deliver for us every day, it is time we
delivered for them."
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