Hours of Work and Rest-Home truths on recording practices By Michael Grey
Posted: Mon Nov 23, 2020 6:47 am
Michael Grey is former editor of Lloyd’s List.
A fine piece of research has emerged from the World Maritime University which put together a team to look at the regulations surrounding the recording of seafarers’ hours of work and rest. Are people flogging their hours to stay apparently legal and ensure that any inspectors leave with smiles on their faces? Perish the thought! We need to think about the practice as one of “adjustment” which seems rather more respectable, when it is put like that.
Nevertheless, the report “A Culture of Adjustment” points to such widespread malpractices that you have to wonder what the point was of all those well-meaning regulations designed, several years ago, to prevent seafarers keeling over from exhaustion because of the normal operation of their ships. It summarises these as “systemic failures”, but it might better be described as all sides; shipping companies, regulators and the wretched seafarers themselves, effectively colluding in a system which just isn’t working.
It very effectively confirms all the anecdotal evidence that filters from the sea in their unofficial channels to the shore – that the whole concept of “safe” manning levels agreed between ship operators and flag states is wishful thinking and that there are just not enough bodies on most ships to do all the work that needs to be done. We have always known that “the ship comes first” and that if the choice is going to bed, or turning to and sailing, or completing a task, there really isn’t a contest. The researchers put it rather nicely - “prioritising your allegiance” – this conflict which invariably only settled one way.
It is made quite clear, from the large number of quotations from very many interviewees, that the most important aspect is not to implement the regulations, but to demonstrate that they are being complied with. That way, there will be no awkward questions from port state inspectors about red marks in the hours reports, and subsequent “we fail to understand” communications from angry managers ashore. The often terrible relationship between those afloat and ashore frequently seems to come to the fore, with people aboard more worried about their job security than they would be working for decent employers.
The researchers go to town on the sheer inhumanity and impracticality of the 6/6hr watch system practiced in so many small ships, and the utter impossibility of their operating/rest hours remaining “legal”. But they then point to the fierce defenders of such a system which involve people working hours that wouldn’t look out of place in a Victorian coal mine. They also emphasise that it is a ship’s time in port which throw up the most problems, from the port state inspectors waking up exhausted ships’ personnel to verify their hours of rest records, and visitors demanding attention from officers who haven’t been off their feet, possibly for days.
And in the macho culture of shipping, when the priority above all else is expediting the voyage, there seems little faith that any feedback from the ship will be treated with any serious intent. There is no sense that any appeal for extra hands to spread the burden more fairly will not fall on stony ground.
This report is well worth reading and also begs a lot of awkward questions about other systems that look brilliant on paper, but fall very flat when translated to the workings of a busy ship. How much of the doubtless important work at IMO, on necessary regulations, are going to end up with extra work for the ever-fewer people aboard ship? Think of the awesome amount of regulations on fuel and emissions in the current legislative pipeline that will keep masters and chief engineers burning the midnight oil in future years. And yet, think of the people who might have helped with this burden in past years – the pursers – radio officers – writers - additional officers – whose ranks were deemed superfluous by the bean counters and purged without a second thought.
The WMU work, which ought to ruffle a lot of feathers, talks of “cognitive dissonance , where deviance is normalised”. I suppose you might suggest that deviance is only normalised because anything else is seen to be impractical by all the “stakeholders”, although they would prefer to use the polite term “adjustment” to describe something less respectable. And you might also suggest that there is another culture - that of cheapness, which ensures that ships will continue to be under-manned, because their users just won’t pay for anything better. And that culture will take some changing.
https://commons.wmu.se/lib_reports/66/? ... e-86763977
A fine piece of research has emerged from the World Maritime University which put together a team to look at the regulations surrounding the recording of seafarers’ hours of work and rest. Are people flogging their hours to stay apparently legal and ensure that any inspectors leave with smiles on their faces? Perish the thought! We need to think about the practice as one of “adjustment” which seems rather more respectable, when it is put like that.
Nevertheless, the report “A Culture of Adjustment” points to such widespread malpractices that you have to wonder what the point was of all those well-meaning regulations designed, several years ago, to prevent seafarers keeling over from exhaustion because of the normal operation of their ships. It summarises these as “systemic failures”, but it might better be described as all sides; shipping companies, regulators and the wretched seafarers themselves, effectively colluding in a system which just isn’t working.
It very effectively confirms all the anecdotal evidence that filters from the sea in their unofficial channels to the shore – that the whole concept of “safe” manning levels agreed between ship operators and flag states is wishful thinking and that there are just not enough bodies on most ships to do all the work that needs to be done. We have always known that “the ship comes first” and that if the choice is going to bed, or turning to and sailing, or completing a task, there really isn’t a contest. The researchers put it rather nicely - “prioritising your allegiance” – this conflict which invariably only settled one way.
It is made quite clear, from the large number of quotations from very many interviewees, that the most important aspect is not to implement the regulations, but to demonstrate that they are being complied with. That way, there will be no awkward questions from port state inspectors about red marks in the hours reports, and subsequent “we fail to understand” communications from angry managers ashore. The often terrible relationship between those afloat and ashore frequently seems to come to the fore, with people aboard more worried about their job security than they would be working for decent employers.
The researchers go to town on the sheer inhumanity and impracticality of the 6/6hr watch system practiced in so many small ships, and the utter impossibility of their operating/rest hours remaining “legal”. But they then point to the fierce defenders of such a system which involve people working hours that wouldn’t look out of place in a Victorian coal mine. They also emphasise that it is a ship’s time in port which throw up the most problems, from the port state inspectors waking up exhausted ships’ personnel to verify their hours of rest records, and visitors demanding attention from officers who haven’t been off their feet, possibly for days.
And in the macho culture of shipping, when the priority above all else is expediting the voyage, there seems little faith that any feedback from the ship will be treated with any serious intent. There is no sense that any appeal for extra hands to spread the burden more fairly will not fall on stony ground.
This report is well worth reading and also begs a lot of awkward questions about other systems that look brilliant on paper, but fall very flat when translated to the workings of a busy ship. How much of the doubtless important work at IMO, on necessary regulations, are going to end up with extra work for the ever-fewer people aboard ship? Think of the awesome amount of regulations on fuel and emissions in the current legislative pipeline that will keep masters and chief engineers burning the midnight oil in future years. And yet, think of the people who might have helped with this burden in past years – the pursers – radio officers – writers - additional officers – whose ranks were deemed superfluous by the bean counters and purged without a second thought.
The WMU work, which ought to ruffle a lot of feathers, talks of “cognitive dissonance , where deviance is normalised”. I suppose you might suggest that deviance is only normalised because anything else is seen to be impractical by all the “stakeholders”, although they would prefer to use the polite term “adjustment” to describe something less respectable. And you might also suggest that there is another culture - that of cheapness, which ensures that ships will continue to be under-manned, because their users just won’t pay for anything better. And that culture will take some changing.
https://commons.wmu.se/lib_reports/66/? ... e-86763977