GENEVA (ILO News) - A new consolidated maritime labour Convention, to be voted here on Thursday by the International Labour Organization's Maritime labour Conference, reflects "labour history" in the making by providing a modern approach to addressing decent work and a fair globalization, ILO Director-General Juan Somavia said today.
"Your work has delivered us to new territory - a place that will not only help ensure decent working conditions for the world's seafarers, but one that also moves us all to a higher plane of innovative approaches to address globalization", said Mr. Somavia while presenting his report on developments in the maritime sector to the Conference ( Note 1).
Noting that the draft had achieved a "wide consensus", Mr. Somavia added, "Let us take pride in your accomplishment, as we forge our way forward together. Full steam ahead."
The Maritime Session of the International Labour Conference has been meeting since 7 February to consider a major new international labour instrument, the Maritime Labour Convention, 2006. Some 900 delegates representing the world's more than 1.2 million seafarers, global ship owners and some 100 governments are to vote on the Convention on Thursday, the final day of the Conference.
The proposed Convention sets out a wide range of rights to decent working conditions for seafarers and covers subjects including health, safety, minimum age, recruitment, hours of work and other vital issues affecting seafarers' lives. The final draft under consideration consolidates and updates more than 65 international maritime labour instruments adopted by the ILO over the past 80 years. (For complete coverage of the Conference and background information on the Convention, see the maritime link at www.ilo.org)
The ILO Director-General cautioned, however, that much work remained to be done even after the draft Convention is adopted in terms of ratification and implementation of the new instrument by the ILO's 178 member States.
"All of you have taken up the challenge and sailed towards uncharted waters", he told the delegates. "We must ensure that 20 years from now, on other issues, we will not look back at missed opportunities, but rather at fulfilled expectations."
Prospects for the Convention, which will require 30 ratifications covering 33 per cent of world gross tonnage before it comes into effect, have been integral to the discussions going on here, Mr. Somavia said. The fact that the concerns of the ILO's tripartite social partners had been taken into account in the discussions indicated that "we might conclude that early ratification is a reasonable expectation".
"I have spoken of a 'cohesive tripartism' based on a sense of common purpose and a way to permit us to confront objective differences of interests in ways that promote the highest common denominator. A forceful tripartism that proves its worth through action, a united tripartism that reaches up and out and shows how the sum can be far greater than the parts. You have brought this notion of a cohesive tripartism to life", Mr. Somavia said.
The ILO was ready to work with the maritime world "to provide the assistance that you consider appropriate", he said, and would establish technical cooperation programmes to promote ratification of the Convention.
"'Quality shipping' cannot be achieved without decent conditions for those who work and live on the ship", he said. "Thus, the social dimension of globalization, what happens to people, families and communities in globalization, is now at the heart of political debates everywhere. Yet poor working conditions and jobs at any cost cannot be the basis of a sustainable development strategy or of international competitiveness.
"A fair globalization requires that processes, regulations and rules of the game be fair for everybody", he said. "At the same time, the market should have the necessary space to perform its key functions for the economy and for society."
Note 1 - See Report II - Report of the Director-General, ISBN 92-2-117942-7.