Seafarers’ rights
Advocating for the ‘forgotten people of the world’
by Marianne Arbogast

On the morning The Witness interviewed Douglas Stevenson, he had just hung up from a phone call with a government official in Cyprus. A ship had been abandoned by its owner in the Suez Canal area, Stevenson explained, leaving the crew stranded without food, wages or any means of returning home. Since the owner was residing in Cyprus, Stevenson was attempting to enlist the aid of the agency that regulates shipping in that country.

Such interventions are routine for Stevenson, a former U.S. Coast Guard lawyer who now serves as director of the Center for Seafarers’ Rights of the Seamen’s Church Institute of New York and New Jersey. Its name is potentially misleading: Although based in New York, the work of the Center is international in scope.

It is "the only maritime ministry in the world that has a full-time legal staff devoted exclusively to seafarers," Stevenson says. "What we try to do is be an advocate for seafarers who don’t otherwise have a voice. Foreign seafarers are not a constituency of any legislature in the U.S. They are visitors, they’re transients. They don’t vote."

Although we rely on seafarers for many of our daily needs, most people rarely consider their situation, Stevenson says.

"They’re the forgotten people of the world. We don’t realize how much we depend on ships to sustain our life. I hear estimates that 90 percent of everything we consume has traveled on a ship at some stage, particularly in this global economy. We very much depend on shipping, but we don’t know anything about it."

Today’s seafarers are increasingly from developing countries, Stevenson says. "The largest group of seafarers are Filipinos. But there’s also a growing number of Chinese, and there’s a number from Eastern Europe." Most – with the exception of maids and housekeepers on cruise ships – are men, although some Eastern European women are employed in traditionally male seafaring positions.

They face all of the usual workers’ issues, in an unusual work environment.

"When you work at the Cadillac factory in Hamtramck you go home every night," Stevenson points out. "If you’ve got a problem with your employer you can walk down the street and sue him in court – or you have the police next door if there are other problems."

But ships’ crews are "living and working in the same place, in a mobile working environment that goes from one legal jurisdiction to another through very hazardous conditions. Because of this mobility, an unscrupulous ship operator can try to avoid regulation and avoid standards."

National security and shore leave

From time immemorial, the sea has been understood to be a dangerous place. But the respect accorded those who brave its hardships seems to have diminished.

Traditionally, "if you worked on a ship, your pay was considerably more than working on land, as compensation for the long separations and dangers involved," Stevenson says. But recent years have brought "an erosion of the traditional rights of seafarers, eroding pay and benefits and eroding lifestyle."

The Center for Seafarers’ Rights works on several levels, from direct intervention in crisis situations to advocacy for legislation to better protect seafarers.

Seafarers have felt the impact of tightened security regulations over the past year, Stevenson says.

"You have ongoing problems of seafarers not being paid their wages, not being provided with medical care, and other forms of abuse and intimidation, but the big issue I’m dealing with today is the backlash from 9/11 and the preoccupation of government agencies with protecting security by denying shore leave to seafarers," he explains.

The Seamen’s Church Institute is located very close to Ground Zero, Stevenson adds – and, in fact, provided extensive hospitality to rescue workers after the attacks.

"There aren’t any agencies that have a better understanding about the need to protect security than we do, because we were directly affected by it. So we are not saying that government agencies should not be allowed to exclude people from entering the borders if they pose a security risk, but those measures should be reasonably calculated and not just be a knee-jerk reaction to keep people from entering the country – particularly those on ships."

A Seamen’s Church Institute press release points out that "maritime law and practice has long recognized that shore leave is essential for maintaining seafarers’ mental and physical health." Moreover, it explains, "mariners who are well-paid and well-treated by their employers are extremely unlikely to jump ship. Greatly increasing penalties to the owners or operators of ships from which crew jump would prove a far more effective method of preventing illegal entry than increasing restrictions on shore leave."

The U.S. is the only major country in the world that requires crew members to have visas as a condition of shore leave, says Stevenson, who regards this as an unnecessary and burdensome requirement.

Legal training and assistance

The problem of abandoned ships, like the one near the Suez Canal, is one that Stevenson deals with on a regular basis. Owners facing financial difficulties will sometimes simply walk away, leaving a ship’s crew stranded far from their homes.

"They’re in a foreign place, they probably haven’t been paid in several months, they have no ability to buy food or anything. It’s really a horrible situation," Stevenson says. "We work to provide direct assistance to seafarers who are the victims of injustices, and at the same time, we try to work systematically to correct the problems so they don’t recur. We are trying to promote legislation in the U.S. to require proof of financial responsibility for any foreign ship that comes into U.S. waters."

The Center also provides training to port chaplains worldwide, to help them better understand maritime law and seafarers’ rights.

"Many ports around the world have church maritime agencies that provide services to seafarers. When they have legal problems with seafarers they contact me and we give them assistance. We’re very collaborative in that regard and very ecumenical. We are also involved in helping develop and sustain new maritime ministries in ports where they don’t now exist – we’re focusing now primarily in Latin America."

The Center assists seafarers in understanding their legal rights and will assist with litigation when necessary. Although they do not directly file lawsuits, they can intervene with letters or phone calls, and sometimes help seafarers find lawyers.

"The leverage we have varies from case to case," Stevenson says. "Sometimes we have no leverage. Sometimes it’s just the moral force of the church. Sometimes it just astonishes me that anyone would even open my letters. We generally have legal standing, but there are the practicalities – the cost of litigation may far outweigh the amount in question."

Sometimes the Center’s role consists in bringing publicity to abusive situations that might otherwise go unchecked. Last August, for instance, they learned that a recruiting firm was illegally taking money from Kenyan citizens in exchange for cruise ship jobs they could not have taken, due to lack of maritime certification. Stevenson’s concerns were publicized in a Kenyan newspaper, on the web and in a maritime publication.

"This was another area in which we find absolutely unscrupulous people taking advantage of some of the poorest people in the world," Stevenson says. "They take the fee and give nothing in return. In the case of Kenya, the government was complicit in it, probably through some corrupt officials."

Lack of adequate maritime training is a growing worldwide problem that leads to unemployability, Stevenson says. "In the U.S. the unions provide a lot of schools, but in most other parts of the world the seafarers have to pay for it themselves. In some countries the schools are no longer certified, so the seafarers have no way of getting training. Basically the entire seafaring workforce of Tanzania has been put out of a job, because Tanzania doesn’t have qualified schools any longer."

The Center’s staff consists of Stevenson, one assistant attorney, and law school students who work as interns. Stevenson considers the mentoring of young attorneys "one of the hidden programs" of the Center.

"We’ve been fortunate in being able to attract the best and brightest from some of the top law schools in the country who have a desire to do some public service work before they begin their life career," Stevenson says. "And they have a very unique opportunity to really help people, in very interesting, hands-on work. We may not be dealing with a large number of young lawyers, but I think at least some of the future leaders of the legal profession will have a background of understanding that law isn’t just about making money. They will have at the beginning of their career some very good experience in public service, and also see how the church can work in this environment."

Developing international standards

Stevenson is currently involved with two significant U.N. efforts to develop international standards on living and working conditions for seafarers.

"The first is that the International Labor Organization (ILO) – which is a specialized agency of the U.N. headquartered in Geneva – has decided that it’s going to try to consolidate its many different conventions dealing with seafarers into one major convention," he says. "This is quite a monumental task and one we strongly support."

There are currently two major maritime conventions that every country has to follow, Stevenson explains. One is SOLAS – the Safety of Life at Sea convention – which deals with technical safety standards for ships, and the other is MARPOL, or the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships.

"What we want to do is have a third major convention which would have equal status with the other two, which deals with the living and working conditions of seafarers. So instead of having a bunch of little conventions dealing with a variety of issues that no country has ratified, we would have one major convention that combines all of them that would be capable of being ratified. This would be a great way of raising the consciousness of states about the importance of ships’ crews, and it would set worldwide standards for them."

As part of the International Christian Maritime Association delegation to the ILO, Stevenson is helping with background information as well as drafting work.

The second effort has to do with setting human safety standards on ships.

"The International Christian Maritime Association also got NGO status at the IMO – the International Maritime Organization. In the past few years the IMO has come to realize that since 80 to 90 percent of maritime casualties are caused by human factors, it’s time to start looking at those human factors in developing safety standards. If people are fatigued, if they aren’t well fed, if they’re not taken care of, that reduces their efficiency and safety. Very few maritime disasters are caused by boilers blowing up, which used to be the major cause of maritime accidents 100 years ago. Now the world has pretty much legislated ships to be pretty safe machines – but the human beings are unsafe, because the standards for them need some development."

Stevenson travels to Geneva regularly, and recently spent a week at an IMO meeting in London.

"We feel that we have a very important voice in this process because really it’s the maritime ministries, it’s the port chaplains, who have a better understanding of the problems that seafarers are encountering than probably anybody in the world, other than the seafarers themselves. So it’s a very important opportunity – and obligation, I think – for the church to share its experience and knowledge with the bodies that are creating standards that affect the lives of seafarers."

Creating awareness of seafarers

The Seamen’s Church Institute, which includes the Center for Seafarers’ Rights, is a nonprofit ecumenical agency affiliated with the Episcopal Church that has existed since 1834. Its other programs include the Center for Maritime Education, an independent maritime education program to enhance mariners’ safety and professional competency; and the Center for Seafarers’ Services, which provides direct care to mariners in the greater Port of New York/ New Jersey and along 2200 miles of inland waterways. The Institute trains port chaplains and has initiated new programs such as Ministry on the River, which offers pastoral and practical assistance to mariners serving on river vessels, and to their families, through a network of "River Friendly Churches."

Stevenson feels that the church could play a stronger role in helping people become aware of the existence and needs of seafarers. Some churches observe "Maritime Day," he says, and he has put on educational programs in churches that have requested them. Anyone interested in supporting the Center’s legislative efforts can find information on the SCI website (www.seamenschurch.org) or subscribe to their free periodic newsletter.

"Even if you could include seafarers in your prayers, there would be some focus on them," Stevenson says. "The first step is understanding and knowledge. We have to do a better job of bringing to the wider public’s attention the world of mariners."

Detroiter Marianne Arbogast is associate editor of The Witness.