The International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) has launched a new online index to tackle the exploitation and abuse of workers at sea.
The Seafarers' Breach of Rights Index lists companies and individuals that deny and abuse seafarers’ basic human and trade union rights – including not paying wages, failing to provide essentials including food and water, and abandoning them at sea in unsafe conditions.
Steve Trowsdale, ITF Inspectorate Coordinator said: “Seafarers not only combat the forces of nature on the world’s oceans, they remain an unseen workforce, often spending many months away from loved ones in challenging living conditions.
We have zero tolerance for anyone who denies and abuses the rights of seafarers who work for them in any capacity. This index will name and shame companies, ship owners, ship managers, and others, who deliberately ignore and undermine seafarers’ rights and international conventions that govern working and living conditions on board”.
ENDS
Media contact: media@itf.org.uk
About the ITF: The International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) is a global, democratic, affiliate-led movement of 740 transport workers’ unions recognised as the world’s leading transport authority. We fight passionately to improve working lives; connecting trade unions and workers’ networks from 153 countries to secure rights, equality and justice for their members. We are the voice of the 20 million transport workers who move the world.
About the Seafarers' Breach of Rights Index: The ITF Seafarers’ Breach of Rights Index seeks to identify action by shipowners, ship managers, flag states or other parties, which violate seafarers' fundamental rights, either individually or collectively. This includes but is not limited to actual or threatened physical or sexual abuse; non-payment of wages; persistent violation of employment agreement or collective agreement provisions; violation of health and safety standards; sub-standard food and water; sub-standard crew accommodation, repeated abandonment; and persistent disregard of international standards relating to maritime safety, crew accommodation, and other relevant standards.
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