Is age discrimination a reality in shipping?

Age discrimination is a form of unfair treatment at work. It happens when an employee is treated less favorably because of their age being different than the one that dominates the industry or specific department. Often there is an older person being preferred over a young one or vice versa. Ageism can happen at any point between the application stage through the termination of employment and beyond.

The optimization of recruitment and retention, as well as, a capability-based evaluation of all employees are crucial to tackling ageism. All stages of people’s lives and age give them different capabilities every time and that should not determine the job that they will do.

Roadmap to tackling ageism

Certain guidelines for ship operators do exist in order to understand the different forms of ageism and then try to avoid it through respect to recruitment, pay and promotion, training and retirement. The ILO Maritime Labour Convention 2006 has some key principles established, and in 2020 the International Chamber of Shipping decided to address ageism in the industry as well. With that in mind it launched the ‘Guidelines for Shipowners to Avoid Age Discrimination On Board Ships’, giving solutions on how to prevent age bias.

Obviously, the fact that the ICS prioritized the issue and has official guidelines proves that the problem of age discrimination does in fact exist in shipping. The guidelines focus on 3 things: protection against unfair treatment due to age, protection against harassment due to age and on avoiding different treatment because of age. The ICS guidelines set targets to:

•  Avoid age discrimination in all activities
• Make the workplace inclusive
•  Appreciate the advantages of a free of age discrimination workplace
• Create policies, plans and measures to eliminate it onboard ship
• Know how to handle situations of age discrimination
• Respect employees that voice their concerns about other co-workers
• Implement corporate age discrimination policies
• Understand that the shipowner should be aware of any age discriminatory actions

Types of age discrimination

Undeniably, in order to be able to recognize any type of exclusion like ageism, we need to have a better understanding of the forms that it can take.

Types of age discrimination:

1. Direct: direct discrimination happens when someone is treated wrongfully due to their actual age and can, often, be unintentional.

2. Indirect: this type of discrimination is less obvious and occurs when someone has a disadvantaged place due to their age compared to others of a different age group. It can, also, occur when a group of employees of similar age apply to a certain provision, criterion or practice.

3.Victimization: this happens when an employee suffers something that causes damage, harm or loss because of alleging discrimination, supporting a relative complaint, giving evidence about a complaint or bringing a grievance regarding discrimination.

What shipowners should keep in mind

Age stereotyping can have a seriously negative effect on a number of things, such as poor decision-making for recruiting, promoting or training, de-motivation of employees, untrustful relationships amongst staff and discrimination claims. In that case shipowners should not be influenced by stereotypes since age discrimination perceptions are almost always miles apart from reality. Luckily, there certain tips to avoid it:

• Avoid suggesting a specific age group when advertising a job and emphasize on skills
• Provide training and development opportunities to all employees irrespective of their age
• Give promotion opportunities irrespective of someone’s age
• Same terms and conditions of employment for everyone
• Treat all employees consistently when assessing their performance
• Redundancies should be decided in a fair way for all
• Shipowners shouldn’t assume, suggest or force retirement to someone because of their age
• Dismiss employees only for genuine reason through a fair process
• Consider all flexible working requests, wherever possible, and don’t make subjective assumptions

Conclusion

Age discrimination seems to be a harsh reality in shipping but there are actions taken towards the industry’s diversification and inclusion levels. Age stereotyping can, of course, be avoided by judging people based on their performance, differentiating the age groups in a team and encouraging different age groups to exchange knowledge and ideas.

Note that in discrimination, the recipient understands words and actions, that possibly matter more than what the deliverer’s intentions were. If an employee feels discriminated, they should talk to the Master, follow the onshore grievance procedure and the procedures outlined in the MLC 2006.

All in all, it is important to create and implement global policies that apply on a global scale in the shipping industry so as to reap the benefits of a more inclusive environment, which can be:

1. Reduced complaints, costs and disruption
2. Improved employee morale, productivity and motivation
3. Increased talent attraction for a company and lower retention rate
4. Transformative workforce that does not retire earlier
5. More diverse ideas and solutions through a workforce with different backgrounds and skills
6. Better understanding and meeting of clients’ needs