Maritime Policy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Maritime Policy - Essay Example is the case, many nationals of these developing countries occupy a significant share of the workforce that mans the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries and open register’s fleets (Johnston, 1991). This movement of marine industry workers between flags as a result of the free working environment created by fleet managers and ship owners in assembling crews of different nationalities according to Ron, Stutchbury and Pascoe (1988) actually led to the firm establishment of the seafarers’ global labour market. This report seeks to analyze the global labour market in detail; its formation, and how it has impacted players involved in shipping companies from both developing and developed regions of the world. The report goes further to suggest ways and means of tackling problems experienced by stakeholders of the seafarers’ Global Labour Market (GLM). Initially, almost all ships were manned predominantly by people of the same nationality as the ship’s flag (Williamson, 1992). This tradition was held in part as a consequence of legal requirement with countries varying in strength in the enforcement of the law. Besides, it was also considered more practical in as much as recruiting seafarers from other countries was difficult and expensive (Tyner, 2000). Notable exceptions to these requirements, however, arose when the Liberian and Panamanian registers were created in 1949 and 1922 respectively (Tyner, 2000). Neither of the two nations involved had national seafarers’ labour markets. These anomalies however posed no significant threat to the well organised labour markets of Japan and European nations until the prolonged recession of the 70s and 80s hit world trade. The scale and pace of change in the marine workforce in the 80s was widely unprecedented. According to Alderton, in 1987 alone, there was a steady increase in the number of Filipino seafarers working in European-owned ships. The press, throughout the 80s,