Still standing together

WHAT would happen if the International Shipping Federation (ISF) did not exist?”

That is how Spyros Polemis always counters in reply to questions about whether the ISF is relevant today. He has no doubt about the answer.
“There would be a tremendous void,” insists Mr Polemis, president of the federation for the past three years.
The ISF, commemorating its centenary last week with a gala dinner in Greenwich near London, was as important now as it was in 1909 when maritime employers formed the association in response to the growth of organised labour and greater collaboration between seafarer unions, he believed.
Reminiscing
More than 300 guests are expected to attend the celebrations in the Old Royal Naval College’s Painted Hall, including International Maritime Organization secretary-general Efthimios Mitropoulos and other industry dignitaries.
“It will be a family occasion,” says ISF secretary-general Tony Mason.
Each guest will receive a souvenir booklet charting the 100-year history of the ISF, and containing contributions from Mr Mitropoulos, the International Labour Organisation’s (ILO) director-general Juan Somavia, plus several others including reminiscences of the ISF from former director John Whitworth and past presidents Juan Kelly and Rolf Westfal-Larsen.
But as Mr Polemis is quick to point out, this is not an organisation living in the past.
Last week, delegates representing ISF members, that comprise national shipowners’ associations from more than 30 countries, were meeting in London to address issues very much of the here and now.
Items on the agenda included employment practices, piracy, training, officer shortages, and the criminalisation of seafarers.
Mr Polemis believed the federation’s greatest achievement of recent times was its contribution to the ILO’s Maritime Labour Convention, which was agreed in 2006 and consolidates more than 60 existing ILO labour standards in to a single instrument.
The ISF is the official social partner responsible for coordinating national maritime associations at the ILO.
The convention covers seafarers’ contractual arrangements, responsibilities of crewing agencies, working hours, health and safety, crew accommodation, and medical and catering standards.
Involved
Five countries have ratified the convention so far, with the ISF hopeful that the necessary 30 signatures will be obtained in time for the convention to come into force next year, or by 2011 at the latest.
The ISF was able to help bring together the various parties that needed to reach consensus on the new convention, acting as a “gel” during the negotiations, said Mr Polemis.
He is one of a rare breed of senior shipping figures prepared to accept industry duties and takes very seriously his position as president of both the ISF and International Chamber of Shipping (ICS), which share the same secretariat.
“I want to assist any organisation that I join,” he says.
“I am the type of person who wants to contribute.”
Mr Polemis moved to London in the 1960s and later formed his own agency business, Seacrest Shipping, which represents several shipowners’ interests in the UK.
Once Seacrest was established and running well, he started to become involved in wider industry matters, first as chairman of Intercargo, before being elected president of the ISF and ICS in 2006.
He admits that remaining a board member of such organisations was not enough.
“If I can do more, I will strive for that,” he says.
Whether to stand next year for another two-year term is a decision Mr Polemis has not yet taken.
More immediately, one of his pet projects is a joint effort by the ISF and other Round Table industry associations, including Intertanko, Intercargo and BIMCO, to produce a radical new approach to seafarer recruitment and employment.
Remuneration should no longer be a deterrent, given how much pay scales have risen in recent years.
A ship’s master is now likely to command a salary of around US$150,000 a year. Neither is there such a serious shortage of ships’ officers as some scaremongers have claimed, with a joint BIMCO/ISF analysis in 2005 putting the deficit then at around 10,000, equivalent to 2% of the workforce.
Those figures will be updated next year. With a combination of the recession, that may boost recruitment, and ship lay-ups, which are likely to reduce demand, it is expected to produce somewhat different results.
Despite some crewing concerns, the ISF is unaware of any cases where an owner could not find a ship’s crew.
“We would have heard by now if shipowners were having problems and we have not,” says Mr Polemis.
Career path
Even so, employers believe the time is right to consider what they will need to do in future to ensure the seafaring profession remains an attractive choice.
In Mr Mason’s opinion, possibly the biggest challenge for the ISF over the next 100 years “will be ensuring we have sufficient well-trained and motivated seafarers to crew the increasing number of ships that will be required as world trade continues its inexorable growth – notwithstanding the deviation to the long-term trend caused by the present global financial problems”.
One goal is to make life on board as close to a home-from-home as possible. That may be easier said than done, in some cases.
An obvious step would be for shipowners to promise 24-hour internet access to all crewmembers. But as Mr Polemis cautions, the industry would first have to be sure that round-the-clock web connections did not pose a security risk.
Other considerations include the promise of a more structured career path, and ways to ensure qualified seafaring personnel do not feel compelled to keep switching from one company to another.
Youngsters
Recommendations are likely to be finalised and published in the next few months, with the ISF insisting that while the shortage of officers is not as acute as some have claimed, there is no room for complacency.
Mr Polemis admits that maritime employers “constantly struggle with how to inform people about the industry” and acknowledges that “it is our fault to a large extent”.
But one or two countries are having success raising the profile of shipping, with Mr Polemis citing efforts in Denmark and Greece as good examples of what can be done to encourage more youngsters to go to sea.
The ISF has also produced a DVD detailing careers in international shipping. It will be available in seven languages and there are plans to distribute 10,000 copies.
Most people, though, give little thought to shipping, much to Mr Polemis’ frustration.
“We do a tremendous job quietly, with no fanfare,” he contends.
Shipping rarely hits the headlines, except in the case of an accident or, most recently, piracy. With attacks on the increase, the industry is in the middle of a heated debate about whether ships’ crews should be armed.
Mr Polemis is in no doubt that they should not. Neither is the ISF in favour of security guards on board ships.
“We do not want to escalate the fight,” he says. Furthermore, what would be the rules of engagement in the event of an attack, he asks.
But ISF members still need to consider what else could be done to protect crews from hijackings, and whether governments should be urged to do more.
The federation is confident that great strides have been made since the days when seafarers were sometimes abandoned in foreign ports by irresponsible owners, something that is an extremely rare occurrence these days.
Sadly what is less unusual are cases of officers being thrown into jail after an accident at sea.
The ISF highlights concerns about the criminalisation of seafarers in its 2009 annual report, warning that fear of potential imprisonment could damage retention rates among existing officers at a time when there are still manpower shortages, as well as discouraging new recruits.
Legal lottery
“It has been a matter of serious concern that, in the course of providing their important service to world trade, seafarers are exposed to the vagaries of different national laws, with some jurisdictions imposing criminal sanctions for pollution even when there is no intentional or wilful misconduct,” the federation observed.
The ISF hopes to persuade governments that some international understanding is required to ensure seafarers are treated the same in different jurisdictions rather than face a legal lottery.
During the celebrations, though, ISF members were looking back with a certain amount of pride at what has been achieved over the past 100 years. And they expressed their admiration for those who had the vision to set up such an organisation back then.
As Mr Mitropoulos noted: “When the ISF was founded in 1909, labour affairs, manning, training and seafarers’ welfare were not generally high on many government agendas.
That shipowners should form a body to represent their interests in such matters reveals how prescient they were, given that it is only relatively recently that the importance of human resources in shipping has received the widespread recognition it deserves.
In this respect, the ISF can truly claim to have been considerably ahead of its time.