Maritime Labour Convention

[John Arton]

This new international regulation is due to come into force shortly. Briefly it gives for the first time an internationally agreed and enforceable agreement covering terms of service, pay etc. for all seafarers.
Two of our lecturers attended a recent conference in London held by Lloyds register on the M.L.C. recently and I was chatting to one of them the other day.
Mostly it is a very sensible convention that covers such things as crew salaries (must be guaranteed and paid on time) etc. It also lays down cabin sizes etc. and fittings for all ships crews plus many other things.
The one thing that did surprise me though is the fact that ship owners/managers now have to provide bottled water on board.
Now when I was sailing with my Eastern European crews they always insisted I brought bottled water for them. Despite my protests that the ships water was perfectly o.k. for drinking and was tested regularly by Port Health, they still insisted on me buying bottled water. One or two of our European Captains also brought bottled water as a matter of course. I always used to take fresh water from shore in a couple of U.K. and Irish ports where I knew the water was top quality along with one or two European ports where I was happy to take on water. Any Scandinavian country we visited I always took water there. We had evaporators on board to produce our own water but I always used to like to "freshen" up our drinking water with shore water as it contained friendly bacteria. Ship produced water from the evaporator always seemed so bland and I always found that on long trips where we were reliant on evaporators for our water, gums tended to soften and once you got home it took a week or so before they got back to there best condition.
So, I know good water is not available everywhere in the world but do you really think there is a need to bow to the modern fad of wandering round with a bottle of "Volvic" clasped in your hand. I know one of my daughters used to insist on bottled water for her lunch box and it was only after she left school did I let her know that it was always the same bottled, refilled from the kitchen tap by me, that was in her lunch box. She turned out to be pretty good at anything she turns her hand too, so what's this deal with all this fancy waters. Del Boy made his fortune bottling Peckham tap water. Methinks I may do the same.
rgds
JA

rgds

[cappy]

iwould like to offer my services john the wife ses I must know everything about bottles I must have got thro millions over the years cappy

[Louis the Amigo]

Hi Shipmates, Water without it you would die everyone knows that? But all water is not the same.The secret of good tea, lies in the water Mountain water is the best taken from a spring. The next is rain water in spring and early summer, li ki chou dynasty{ 2nd century bc} The art of tea.

[j.sabourn]

John I started work on Australian manned vessels in 1991. The maritime unions here already insisted on bottled water then so must have been ahead of their time. Saying that however there was a need for same as most vessels were on bare boat charter with dubious backgrounds and the state of their tanks in most cases was very dubious. Although a lot of people decry the unions, they were mostly out here run by ex seafarers and had knowledge that shore based people seldom have. I have never decried maritime unions although have disagreed with same many times on certain issues. I certainly applauded them on bottled water, you were lucky on a British ship of years ago if you ever got a clear glass of drinking water, or even a glass to put it in. Cheers John Sabourn

[happy daze john in oz]

Yes John by then things had improved, but way back in the 60's the Australian unions did so much damage that many shipping companies would not come into Oz ports.

[j.sabourn]

Yes John, I saw this aspect of the unions from the deck of a British ship as well. I am stating from an Australian seafarers point of view. Supplying bottled water nowadays is considered the norm on Australian ships, there is no big outlay to the shipowner as they would have you believe 50 years ago when we were all brainwashed, to ships running costs. The British shipowner would never give anything away to the seamen in case it caused a precedent. I have been on ships where the crew have volunteered to do jobs at half the price of shore labour and was told the same they didn't want to cause a precedent with ships crews. You only have to look at the costs of changing ships accommodation and toilet facilities to accommodate female seafarers, where the Owners wanted to appear to be politically correct, they certainly would not do for male seafarers. Also on Australian ships all soft drinks are free supplied by the owner. Some may sneer at this, but is another point in fact where seamen were behind everyone else, this has always been the case on offshore installations but they are not considered seamen. Try getting these concessions from a British owner even today, he would rather have the system where he sells to the crew at a profit. Also to add to small inconsequential costs to the Owner which probably comes out of the spare cash drawer sweets and chocolates are supplied free gratis on most Australian vessels. This may sound childish to some, but having witnessed various shipowners of varying degrees of integrity, I know where I would prefer to work. I don't think as some would have you believe that these inconsequential running costs would cause the decline of the British merchant service if had been applied in our days. Cheers John Sabourn

[j.sabourn]

2 weeks before emigrating I was asked to do a couple of weeks on a small survey vessel working the Dover/Thames/ Lowestoft areas doing sea bottom surveys. Which literally meant dropping a core sampler on the sea bed and holding the vessel there whilst it was recovered. We had 7 of a crew and 9 what we called surveyors but mostly were line handlers for the gear used. Cases of soft drinks were put on board by the owners for the use of the shore people which were free gratis for them. However the crew had to buy. Another case of causing a precedent. This attitude was always taken as far as I know in the off shore industry. Others may have been fortuanate enough to have sailed with Owners not adopting this attitude, if so they were lucky. Cheers John Sabourn PS ref. the previous these were the instructions I received. Needless to say it was not carried out this way. The cases were divided between the crew and shore people unbeknown to anyone else. If one took notice of some of these W*nkers sitting in an office ashore there would be nothing but disruptions on ships. JS