Maritime worker

“ Each Member shall have national policies to promote employment in the maritime sector and to encourage career and skill development and greater employment opportunities for seafarers domiciled in its territory. ”

“ Nothing in this Standard shall be deemed to impair the right of the master of a ship to require a seafarer to perform any hours of work necessary for the immediate safety of the ship, persons on board or cargo, or for the purpose of giving assistance to other ships or persons in distress at sea. ”

“ As was pointed out:
'The definition (§ 903 (a) ) is manifestly broad enough to embrace a railroad company, provided it has employees who 'are employed in maritime employment, in whole or in part, upon the navigable waters of the United States'. * * * From the standpoint of maritime employment, it obviously makes no difference whether the freight is placed in the hold or on the deck of a vessel, or whether the vessel is a car float or a steamship. A car float in navigable waters is subject to the maritime law like any other vessel.' 281 U.S. at pages 132 and 134, 50 S.Ct. ”

“ Each Member shall require ships that fly its flag to carry and maintain a maritime labour certificate certifying that the working and living conditions of seafarers on the ship, including measures for ongoing compliance to be included in the declaration of maritime labour compliance referred to in paragraph 4 of this Regulation, have been inspected and meet the requirements of national laws or regulations or other measures implementing this Convention. ”

“ He should be thoroughly well up in those sections of maritime law—and they are many—which affect the traffic; know how to deal with grasping brokers in foreign ports into which he may be driven by distress; be able to make good bargains and keep accurate accounts, since none but the finest passenger steamers carry pursers and clerks to take these onerous duties off his hands. ”

“ Guideline B5.3 - Labour-supplying responsibilities 1. Private seafarer recruitment and placement services established in the Member's territory and securing the services of a seafarer for a shipowner, wherever located, should be required to assume obligations to ensure the proper fulfilment by shipowners of the terms of their employment agreements concluded with seafarers. ”

“ Each Member shall, after consulting the shipowners' and seafarers' organizations concerned, establish clear objectives for the vocational guidance, education and training of seafarers whose duties on board ship primarily relate to the safe operation and navigation of the ship, including ongoing training. ”

“ Each Member that operates a public seafarer recruitment and placement service shall ensure that the service is operated in an orderly manner that protects and promotes seafarers' employment rights as provided in this Convention. ”

“ On ships operating with a prescribed manning of less than ten which, by virtue of the size of the crew or the trading pattern, may not be required by the competent authority to carry a fully qualified cook, anyone processing food in the galley shall be trained or instructed in areas including food and personal hygiene as well as handling and storage of food on board ship. ”

“ In determining the national standards, each Member shall take account of the danger posed by the fatigue of seafarers, especially those whose duties involve navigational safety and the safe and secure operation of the ship. ”

“ Shipowners shall ensure that seafarers who are engaged as ships' cooks are trained, qualified and found competent for the position in accordance with requirements set out in the laws and regulations of the Member concerned. ”

“ Then—as later, in the keen sailing days of our clipper ships—their hardest taskmasters were foremast hands, watchmates, the men they lived with and ate with and worked with—bitter critics, unpersuadable, who saw only menace and a threat to their own safety in the shipping of a man who could not do man's work. On the decks and about the spars of a merchant vessel, each man of the few seamen carried two lives—his own and a shipmate's—in his ability to 'hand, reef, and steer.' There was no place on board for a 'waister,' a 'swabber,' longshoreman, or sea labourer. ”

“ A full-grown man must ship for boy's wages upon his first voyage. It is not unusual to see a man receiving boy's wages and rated as a boy, who is older and larger than many of the able seamen.
The crews are not rated by the officers after they get to sea, but, both in the merchant service and in the navy, each man rates himself when he ships. The shipping articles, in the merchant service, are prepared for so many of each class, and a man puts his name down and contracts for the wages and duty of a seaman, ordinary seaman, or boy, at his pleasure. ”

“ Of this work a sailor's duties are largely made up, but when good people ashore wonder "whatever sailors do with their time," it would be useful for them to remember that a ship is a huge and complicated machine, needing constant repairs, which can only be efficiently performed by skilled workmen. An "A.B." or able seaman's duties are legally supposed to be defined by the three expressions, "hand, reef, and steer." If he can do those three things, which mean furling or making fast sails, reefing them, and steering the ship, his wages cannot be reduced for incompetency. ”

“ When the morning came, I went again to the ship, and when the people came on deck, asked them for the captain, whom I should not have known by his dress, which was very nearly similar to that of the sailors. On being asked if he did not wish to hire a hand, to help to load his ship, be told me I might go to work amongst the men, if I chose, and he would pay me what I was worth.
My object was to procure employment on board the ship, and not to get wages; and in the course of this day I found means to enter the hold of the ship several times, and examine it minutely. ”

“ The participation of some crew members in the longshore work does not obscure the fact that this dispute centered on the wages to be paid American residents, who were employed by each foreign ship not to serve as members of its crew but rather to do casual longshore work. ”

“ Seamen discharged by a consul in a foreign port on account of the voyage being continued contrary to agreement, or unseaworthiness of vessel, or bad provisions, or cruel treatment, are entitled to one month's extra wages and transportation to the United States. Seamen discharged at a foreign port at the request of the master, and not on account of neglect of duty, are entitled to employment on a vessel agreed to by the seaman and to one month's extra wages. ”

“ Every man in it is out for something that isn't his. The pilot wants his bit, the health doctor must get his, the customs take all your cigars, and if you don't put up gold for the captain of the port and the alcalde and the commandant and the harbor police and the foreman of the cargadores, they won't move a lighter, and they'll hold up the ship's papers. Well, an American comes down here, honest and straight and willing to work for his wages. ”

“ Beaten to the knees, the gear and tackle swaying perilously in breaking seas, the lifting-barges thundering at their curbs, the pumps groaning and protesting their inability to overcome the lap of blue water, there is no alternative but to abandon the work and return to harbour. From the beach the salvage officer may watch his labour of weeks—or months—savagely undone in an hour or two of storm and fury of the sea! ”

“ Now having spent the best part of my life in the service of the people, and being filled with the spirit that cannot rest, the spirit that is ever on the watch to sing out "All's well," or "Take care," I lately went with a merry heart on a cruise in a "labour vessel" to the South Sea Islands, bent on seeing all that belongs to this traffic and in the interests of humanity and for the defence of the character of a British Colony, to report minutely on all through which I might pass. As the Government attorney appointed to that vessel I looked forward to an instructive and novel voyage. ”

“ Men, upon first entering into the service, are allowed the advance of two months wages, in order to provide necessaries: but this, inadequate as it is for a long voyage, is not extended to pressed men. It is also argued against making large stoppages in seamen’s wages ”

“ If a seaman, at the time he ships, is laboring under a disease which incapacitates or is likely to incapacitate him during the voyage, and he conceals the same, no wages will be allowed him, or a deduction will be made from them, according to the nature of the case. [249] If, in consequence of sickness, a seaman is left at a foreign port, he is still entitled to wages for the whole voyage. ”

“ That leaves three officers and two apprentice boys to handle the ship, shift back and forth every half-hour or so, take stores aboard, put on 'tweendeck beams and hatches as required, and attend to the multifarious jobs connected with being in port. There isn't an earthly chance of going ashore further than the fruit shop over the way, especially for the mate, who has to be there all the time. ”

“ And by the next morning, when the ship would be down the river at the Belize, the tugboat was cast off, and then, and not until then, would the ship’s crew be needed to make sail and clear up the decks for sea.
It was the duty of the junior officer to receive and count the men as they came on board ship in every stage of intoxication. Some were brought over the gangway, absolutely helpless, by two stalwart runners; and when the ship’s quota had been duly delivered in the forecastle the shipping and boarding-house masters received a month’s advance pay for each man. ”

“ We have to face the ignorance of those who need our help, and gradually carry on our reforming movements. The clean, respectable seamen will help the untidy, careless fellows to appreciate what is being done for them, and will join hands with the ship owners in making the sailor’s calling desirable. A ship’s forecastle is not a temporary place for some college student who is working his passage across the Atlantic during his summer vacation. It is the permanent home of the sailor. Therefore, if we are to have good men on our vessels, we must offer them comfortable quarters. ”

“ It seemed to me that one man in four was looking: for a ship, and I found at least a dozen of them to be American sailors. In accounting for their being 'on the beach,' I received the same story from each and all, and from my knowledge of sea affairs this story rang true. English ships sign their sailors for the voyage, which means the round trip, sometimes lasting as long as three years; and they cannot sign off and receive their discharges until they reach the home port, which is England. Their wages are low, their food is bad, and their treatment worse. ”

“ For, sir,' he said, looking up at the captain, who still stood in front of him, 'we know that a [Pg 101] master in the merchant service is not paid wages which a wise sailor would dream of getting married on. And at present you have no ship, no employ, no more probabilities of work than other people walking about the docks—all excepting a brig, upon which heirloom I make you my compliments.' And he bowed with a sarcastic air. ”

“ The men of the mercantile marine have to put up with some hardship in this respect, for, when a vessel in which they may have shipped comes to an untimely end, like our unfortunate barque, they not only lose all their traps and personal belongings, but their wages as well—that is, beyond the period at which they actually assisted in working the ship, although they may have signed articles for a three years’ voyage. ”

“ The persons who engage in the Company's service, we are informed, are vagabonds and adventurers,—but not criminals, be it remembered,—to whom the fabulous reports of the state of affluence to be easily attained, which are industriously circulated, operate as an incentive to sail to America in the condition of Promiischleniks, a word originally signifying any who carry on a trade, but here, as it is the only occupation, restricted to those who collect furs. ”

“ I believe, Sir, while the masters of the transports think their own safety depends on admitting few convicts on deck at a time, and most of them with irons on, which prevent any kind of exercise, numbers must always perish on so long a voyage, and many of those now received are in such a situation from old complaints, and so emaciated from what they have suffered on the voyage, that they will never be capable of any labour. ”

“ The wages in the navy are, indeed, less: but then it is to be remembered, that they are certainly paid, and that the sailor is in less danger of losing, by a tempest or a wreck, the whole profits of his voyage; because, if he can preserve his life, he receives his pay. ”

“ Let there be a man shipped to be known as the forward mess steward, his duty at sea and in port to care for the dishes, knives and forks which the ship should provide; hold him responsible for all the utensils, having him turn them over to the chief steward at the end of the voyage. Have him keep the mess-room and men’s quarters clean. Have a large bathroom and lavatory far away from the men’s quarters and mess-room, put in it lockers for oilskins and sea-boots—as many lockers as there are rooms; men in room No. 1 to use the corresponding numbered locker in the bathroom. ”

“ Before that the passenger liner Queen Mary held the record. It took the United States 10 hours and 2 minutes less than the Queen Mary to cross the ocean.
The United States is really more than a ship. With a thousand people in her crew and two thousand passengers, she is a floating town. Besides the seamen who do their regular seamen’s work, there are crew members with special jobs. In the ship’s shopping centers, storekeepers sell souvenirs, and all kinds of things that passengers want and need. Movie operators work in her two theaters. A children’s nurse takes care of children in the nursery. ”