MARITIME LABOUR PROBLEMS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22744, 3 December 1935, Page 4

MARITIME LABOUR PROBLEMS

DISCUSSIONS AT GENEVA SPECIAL SESSION TO BE HELD A special session of the International Labour Conference ■will be held late in 193(i to discuss maritime questions, according to Mr E. J. Riches, New Zealand member of the economic section of the International Labour Office, who. is visiting Dunedin, when asked last 'evening for details of a cabled report of -ft discussion at Geneva concerning the proposed convention to regulate the hours and manning on board ship. Mr Riches said that this would be the fourth special session of the conference called to consider maritime labour problems, the others having been held ,in 1920, 1926 and 1929. It would be in addition to the regular annual session of the conference to bo held in May dr June next, and was being held as a result of an agreement reached between the representatives of shipowners and seamen at the International Labour Office’s Joint Maritime Commission in March last. The discussions at present taking place at Geneva between representatives of Governments, shipowners and seamen were concerned with the technical preparation for next year’s maritime session. They w r puld cover, in addition to the hours and manning, the .question of holidays with pay for seamen. The special maritime session of the conference, added Mr Riches, would consider, in addition to these two questions, the protection of seamen in. case of' sickness, including the treatment of seamen injured on board ship, the promotion of seamen’s welfare in, ports, and the minimum requirement of professional capacity in the case of captains, navigating and engineer officers in charge of watches on board merchant ships. All of these questions, with the exception of holidays with pay, were the subject of a first discussion at the 1929 maritime session, so the 1936 session would be in a position, if it so desired, to proceed to the final adoption of draft conventions and recommendations, :_ The conventions adopted at previous maritime sessions, said Mr Riches; had been ratified and enforced by a'large number of-countries. Those adopted in 1920, and concerned with the minimum age for employment at sea, unemployment indemnity in case of shipwreck, and the placing of seamen in employment, had been ratified by 29, 23 and 23 countries respectively. Those of 1926, dealing with seamen’s articles of agreement and the repatriation of seamen, had been ratified by 19 and 16 countries, and those of 1929, concerned with the marking of weight on packages transported by vessels and the protection of dock: workers against accident, by 32 and four countries respectively. The lastnamed convention was, however, revised in 1932 and since then had not been «open to further ratification. The 1 revised convention had been ratified by five countries. As a result of the adoption of these conventions there had been many notable advances in the labour laws of almost all the chief maritime Powers.