Codifying Existing Practices

It was explained that health and safety standards in the MLC were also a codification of what “good shipowners” were already doing. This explanation was given mainly by shipowners’ group members. The “good shipowner” was a recurring theme in the interviews (further explored in Chapter 9). The shipowners were instrumental in the development of the MLC and it was made clear that those involved were seeking to re-regulate the industry to address unfair competition. These shipowners could be considered as the “good shipowners” operating at the better end of the market. One respondent reported:

Well originally it was… shipowners [– unclear] that pushed forward this idea because we wanted to try to negotiate with…we were fed-up …quite frankly of the bad shipowners giving the industry a bad name, think it’s like that all over... probably similar for airlines, you know… (KI- 4 – shipowners’ group).

Therefore, substandard shipowners who were driving global labour standards down were the targets of the MLC rather than “good shipowners.” The “good shipowners” wanted to make things better for themselves but did not wish to be subjected to additional regulations. It therefore made sense that they would wish to formalize some of their practices to bring substandard operators in line,

but which would require little change in their operations (as the findings in other chapters show). This finding is not unlike the development of the ISM Code which was also a codification of best practices of “good shipowners” (discussed in Chapter 3). A shipowners’ group member said:

…what we wanted…was really what the good shipowners, what the well established companies were doing already, which is basically what’s codified here in standard A4.3, so health and safety policies, on board programmes and the involvement of crew members...that’s not to say it was happening everywhere, but if you look at it from the point of view of, for example, a ship operator based in the European Union or flagged in the EU, there is already a pretty comprehensive body of health and safety law emanating from EU directives. (KI-5).

The EU was also reported as one of the influencers at the MLC meetings. One seafarers’ group member explained it was so the EU could monitor what was being proposed to ensure the final document was compatible with EU directives:

…the European Commission was also there advising us and also informing the European seafarers and shipowners’ groups of the necessity to make sure that nothing came into the convention would cause a problem at the European level, if we wanted Europe to embrace the convention…and don’t forget the EU would have to give the OK to member States to ratify the convention and did so. So, they got very nervous around the provisions because they didn’t want anything that conflicted with treaty obligations…there’re directives on this subject matter and so we would have been thinking about what the directives said as well. Of course that’s a sensitive issue because you can’t tell the rest of the word that they have to adopt European standards, but it’s quite possible that within the framework of these discussions in the corridors, in breakout groups, these issues would come up… what are existing ILO standards in other areas, other industries general ILO conventions and what EU directives are out there. (KI-3).

Another seafarers’ group interviewee also mentioned the EU’s presence as an important element in determining the text of the MLC and in this respect, its provisions for health and safety:

…the EU as well would want to make sure it was compatible with their system. The EU has its directives and requirements for risk assessment…there is the role for representatives in this… the EU system very much has worker representatives as part of health and safety. (KI-1). The documentary records were silent on any interventions by the EU although the list of participants at the end of each meeting report showed EU presence. However, documents do not provide accounts of all the other meetings that took place. Small group meetings were held where only the results were made public. It is also expected that informal discussions formed a large part of these negotiations as a seafarers’ group respondent pointed out (KI – 3). Greater involvement of the EU was recorded in two in-depth interviews with key figures, who were not available for this research (Trebilcock, 2008; 2009).

That the EU had no objections to the MLC text and directed its members to ratify the convention, is an indication of its acceptance of these provisions (EC, 2012). The MLC provisions were made into an EU directive to take effect simultaneously with the coming into force of the MLC. This is evidence of the compatibility with EU policy (EC, 2009). Directive 1999/63/EC replicates the MLC verbatim. This might also be considered as further evidence underscoring the conventional approach to representation which reproduces the status quo. As Chapter 2 discussed for land-based workplaces, these measures in their traditional form are not necessarily suited to an environment of fragmented (and precarious) work and what the evidence in this study has shown, is a continuous re-cycling of existing provisions for representation.