MARK DAVIS explains how the ITF International Seafarers’ Union Development Programme (ISUDP) is assisting the development of strong maritime trade unions.

In the maritime industry, different forms of trade unionism have evolved. In the “traditional” seafaring countries such as Norway, the United Kingdom and Greece, unions grew in parallel with the growth of national fleets and the demand for their own nationals to crew them. They have a strong “service” orientation.

Unions in more recent labour supply countries such as the Philippines, by contrast, developed quickly in response to the demand for their seafarers to crew the international merchant fleet. In them we often see a more commercial focus.

Others such as those in Turkey, Egypt and Indonesia developed under government influence. In former Soviet Union countries the industry-wide, Soviet-style, social partnership unions now compete with a new breed of more confrontational seafarers’ unions.

We have to deal with these differences in a way that best promotes better living and working conditions for the seafarers these unions represent. This is the challenging mandate of the ISUDP, which started operations on 1 January 1999.

In the ISUDP, all issues are approached by asking: “If I was a seafaring member of this union, what would I want to see improved and how would I go about improving it?” Things cannot change from within unless a union’s structure is truly representative of its membership, and its operation is democratic and independent of government and shipowners.

An example of success has been the reform of the Indonesian Seafarers’ Union (Kesatuan Pelaut Indonesia, KPI). Under the Suharto regime, union positions were reserved for government employees. Rank-and-file seafarers were prevented from rising to influential positions. Disenfranchised seafarers’ groups began agitating for reform and the ITF responded with a fact-finding mission, a team to negotiate changes to the KPI constitution, elections monitoring, and a national development programme.

This has involved management of the union’s financial crisis, training of union leaders and educators and education activities throughout the country’s many islands to reach those disillusioned seafarers who for so long received no service for their union fees.

The legal framework within which unions operate is key. There is a disturbing trend to exclude the maritime industry from national labour laws. The ISUDP is assisting unions in Panama, Tanzania and Turkey to challenge bad maritime labour law constitutionally or through the International Labour Organisation.

Successful pressure can only come from a united seafarer trade union movement. But many governments and employers are using the age-old “divide and conquer” strategy against seafarers’ interests. The ISUDP is fostering inter-union co-operation in countries such as Panama, the Philippines, Russia, Tanzania and the Ukraine.

In the next phase, the ISUDP will be drawing on the vast pool of expertise that exists within ITF seafarers’ affiliates, asking some to help provide education and support to others, in the continuing effort to build effective, democratic seafarers’ unions.