Seamen's House

Jan van der Doe
Berichten: 1371
Lid geworden op: vr 09 jan 2009, 14:19
Locatie: Fergus, ON. Canada

Re: Seamen's House

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The Black Sea project
Promoting education, legislation and unionisation
The Black Sea region is one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a seafarer.

Many ship owners and crewing agents have little regard for their workers, a significant number of whom were killed in accidents often caused by vessels in serious states of disrepair.

Seafarers around the ports of the Black Sea region are also subject to serious abuses of their human and employment rights.

These violations include:

the non-payment of wages, resulting in families being left destitute and crew being unable to return home
seafarers living on vessels far from home without clean water and provisions
boats unsuitable for harsh conditions that have run aground or even sunk, causing injury and death
young seafarers intimidated by blacklisting and older seafarers reluctant to complain
The Black Sea of shame report

The Black Sea area includes Bulgaria, Georgia, Romania, Russia, Turkey and Ukraine.

In June 2012, ITF affiliated unions compiled the Black Sea of shame report as a wake-up call to maritime stakeholders in the region. It highlighted the frequency of serious accidents and the poor living and working conditions endured by seafarers in the region. This was followed by a 2014 follow up report which found the problems were ongoing.

Read the 2012 ITF report: Black Sea of shame

Read the 2014 follow up report.

Since the report was compiled, little has changed.

What is the ITF’s Black Sea project?

ITF-affiliated unions are working together to tackle the challenges facing seafarers in the Black Sea region. They have adopted three key strategies:

Regulation
Unionisation
Education
Regulation: The Maritime Labour Convention (MLC), 2006

The MLC provides comprehensive protection for seafarers and promotes conditions of fair competition for ship owners.

Now in force in Russia and Bulgaria, it has strengthened unions’ resolve to improve living and working conditions for seafarers.

It has given hope not only to seafarers in the Black Sea, but also worldwide by:

guaranteeing a minimum standard of working conditions
covering employment terms, accommodation standards and recreation
making it possible for vessels that are unfit for purpose to be detained
Read and share the MLC.

Unionisation: together we’re stronger

ITF and its affiliates are committed to organising the region’s seafarers. As union members, they would be covered by collective bargaining agreements (CBAs) and have the full support of their union representatives.

Education: Black Sea action weeks

Through annual action weeks, we’re making sure that seafarers know their rights.

During this week of campaigning, teams of inspectors and union activists carry out concentrated inspections in many of the region’s ports. They also share vital information with seafarers about their rights under the MLC, and the work trade unions are doing to protect them.

As well as giving support to individual seafarers, the teams negotiate for CBAs to improve conditions for crews.

There’s still work to be done in the Black Sea of shame

To create positive change for the region’s seafarers ITF is:

lobbying governments of the Black Sea states to take drastic action
compiling regular reports to assess progress
encouraging unions to come together and share experiences, best practice and successes
Our Turkish affiliates have also created a film about the Black Sea project. Watch it now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tk440t7IIh8#t=323
Hartelijke Groet/Kind regards.

Jan van der Doe.

Varen is noodzakelijk, leven niet.
Jan van der Doe
Berichten: 1371
Lid geworden op: vr 09 jan 2009, 14:19
Locatie: Fergus, ON. Canada

Re: Seamen's House

Bericht door Jan van der Doe »

Afbeelding
Hartelijke Groet/Kind regards.

Jan van der Doe.

Varen is noodzakelijk, leven niet.
Jan van der Doe
Berichten: 1371
Lid geworden op: vr 09 jan 2009, 14:19
Locatie: Fergus, ON. Canada

Re: Seamen's House

Bericht door Jan van der Doe »

https://youtu.be/ZhgHD_MEBo0

Watch this. It might be important to you
Hartelijke Groet/Kind regards.

Jan van der Doe.

Varen is noodzakelijk, leven niet.
Jan van der Doe
Berichten: 1371
Lid geworden op: vr 09 jan 2009, 14:19
Locatie: Fergus, ON. Canada

Re: Seamen's House

Bericht door Jan van der Doe »

Houdt het dan nooit op.

Anchored Cornelia in limbo as probe nears one month

12/3 - Duluth, Minn. – Before the oceangoing freighter Cornelia became the subject of a federal investigation and month-long detainment offshore from Duluth, it was docked in the Duluth-Superior harbor and received by Pastor Douglas Paulson like every other foreign vessel he greets and boards.

It was early November, and the director of the local Seafarers Center recalled delivering Christmas boxes to the 20 men on board Cornelia. The boxes contained hand-knit hats and scarves as well as ditty bags full of shaving cream, toothbrushes, shampoos and notepads.

“We’ve been doing this for a number of years — we start at the beginning of November until the season ends the third week of December,” Paulson said. “It’s a way for us to extend some kind of hospitality.”

Nobody knew then that the Cornelia would be forced to anchor offshore from Duluth before it ever got underway with a load of grain bound for either southern Italy or northern Africa.

The tight-lipped investigation “for alleged violations of U.S. environmental regulations,” repeated the U.S. Coast Guard on Tuesday, has yielded no arrests, said Petty Officer 3rd Class Christopher Yaw of the Cleveland-based 9th District of the U.S. Coast Guard.

But the investigation has resulted in a crew stranded tantalizingly close to shore and a cargo going nowhere fast.

“A lot of people are being hurt here that didn’t do anything wrong,” said Stephen Sydow, a Duluth-based vessel agent for his family’s Daniel’s Shipping Services, which serves as the local logistics connection for foreign business interests. “It’s straining business relationships on three different continents, and it’s not a good thing for the port of Duluth.”

When reached by the News Tribune, neither the Coast Guard nor the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Minnesota would elaborate on the investigation, but Sydow said he believed the probe has boiled down to a negotiation over the final dollar amount of a proposed monetary settlement or fine.

Matthias Ruttman, managing director of the ship’s operator, the German company MST, seemed to corroborate that assessment when he said MST was “waiting for the owners to make decisions.”

MST operates dry-bulk carriers on the Atlantic Ocean, but the ship is owned by a German bank and registered in Liberia.

A third party, Canada’s Fednav, was chartered to manage the boat through the Great Lakes St. Lawrence Seaway System. Fednav could not be reached for comment in time for this story, but Sydow said it was another example of the entities being affected, including the flour millers at the end of the line in either Italy or Tunisia, a detail that had yet to be determined when Cornelia first landed in Duluth.

“That was going to be declared later, by the guy who bought the cargo — many times it’s decided later where he needs it most,” Sydow said. “The company that rented the ship and is receiving the cargo is really seriously suffering. You can’t get millions of dollars of cargo, not have it delivered and not have it affect your flour mill.”

Adding urgency to the situation is the fact that the international seaway system through the Great Lakes is scheduled to close at the Welland Canal on Dec. 26 at 11:59 p.m. The canal joins lakes Erie and Ontario near Niagara Falls and is the first domino to fall in the closing of the foreign shipping season on the Great Lakes. Travel through Montreal on the St. Lawrence River closes Dec. 30.

“You back it up from there, allowing for bad weather and maybe a tiny amount of ice,” said Duluth Seaway Port Authority spokeswoman Adele Yorde. “We tend to see the last saltie out of Duluth on Dec. 16, 17 or 18. After that is pushing it.”

The prospects of a protracted stay through the winter for the Cornelia are complicated. Sources for this story painted an unsettling picture. Shore passes for the crew are long expired. The grain probably would need to be offloaded and the vessel refueled and brought to dock, lest it be anchored and left to the mercy of the Lake Superior ice sheet. The vessel already is costing multiple entities across the world upward of thousands of dollars per day for being out of commission, and a lay-up would be exorbitant.

Then, there is the human cost for a crew that Yorde said is a diverse mixture of nationalities, hailing from the Czech Republic, Ukraine, Croatia and Phillipines.

The 575-foot-long Cornelia was built in 2000, making it less likely it would be Wi-Fi equipped, said Paulson, who is accustomed to bringing telephones and Wi-Fi hotspots aboard docked foreign vessels so that crewmembers can communicate with their families.

While it took on grain over two days at the CHS elevator in Superior, a number of crewmembers were transported by the Seafarers Center to the mall. They’ve had no such luxury since.

The local Sea Service, which supplies vessels with commodities and commissary items for crewmembers using its telltale blue-and-yellow pilot boat, the Sea Bear, told the News Tribune it has not visited Cornelia.

Paulson explained that while he holds security access for boats docked in the port, he is not allowed to board vessels at anchor out on Lake Superior. He was happy he delivered hats and scarves when he did.

“At least we did that so they could add some layers,” he said.

Sources agreed it’s likely the crew has run out of fresh food and is subsisting on canned and boxed fare. Paulson said he continues to check in with the Coast Guard to see how the crew is doing. Sydow is in contact with the captain and is eager to give the go-ahead for the Cornelia to get underway. Nobody, it seems, has an inkling of when that could be.

“I’ve had a number of people I’ve run into ask,” Paulson said. “First of all, they’re wondering what’s going on, and I don’t know that anybody has been given the full story. The other piece is that it does concern people how the crew is doing. They ask, ‘Are they OK?’ That’s a long time to be sitting there not able to go anywhere.”

Duluth News Tribune

Afbeelding
Photo: Barry Andersen
Hartelijke Groet/Kind regards.

Jan van der Doe.

Varen is noodzakelijk, leven niet.
Jan van der Doe
Berichten: 1371
Lid geworden op: vr 09 jan 2009, 14:19
Locatie: Fergus, ON. Canada

Re: Seamen's House

Bericht door Jan van der Doe »

Afbeelding
Hartelijke Groet/Kind regards.

Jan van der Doe.

Varen is noodzakelijk, leven niet.
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