Iris Baguilat, President, Döhle Seafront Crewing (Manila), Inc. presented truths about life onboard, underlying that even in this high-tech age, the lives of seafarers are characterized by isolation, tedium, and confinement apart from having to execute essentially challenging work.
As a manning agency, we are fully aware of the obvious and expected financial impacts when a crew falls ill or injured on board; in such case, we look at medical costs, unplanned crew change costs, sick wages; It also involve litigation cost and crew legal claims. Following calculations, in the end of the day, we see that cost reduction alone is not enough for a shipping company to review hidden costs of onboard injury or illness.
In the Philippines, we have robust, pre- employment medical examination. We also go into tried and tested formulas of root cause analysis through collaborative efforts of all stakeholders in the company when there is an incident happening. Data science or data analytics are available as a basis as well of every company to craft policies and create decisions to ensure that the intended results stem from facts.
So, we go to why this happen and what is really true of life on board?
One of the things that we have been talking about are the references to isolation. In a study by Sampson &Wu, in 2003, isolation exists on account on being on board but uneven to step ashore for various reasons; crew have fast turn arounds in ports, and since we are living in a high-tech age, we also have been characterized by isolation, tedium and confinement; it is not a hidden fact that a lot of seafarers now onboard don’t talk to each other because they would rather be on their gadgets, hidden in their cabins and that is also a trigger for isolation, as well as lack of sleep.
While it is good that you have technology to be closer with families at home; it is also a barrier at work, because then there is no more social life on board; this is a fact that we should remember.
Next is communication challenges; despite communication availability of technology, modern communication technologies are neither convenient nor cheap. According to a Smith study in 2016, recognized difficulties seafarers face are related to communicating properly with family back home and maintaining these relationships.
The work of a seafarer is inherently challenging; it is not for everyone. I keep on telling my colleagues at sea that this is not for everyone, it is not right to be at sea if you really do not fit for that work because by nature, the work is difficult. According to studies and anecdotal evidence, seafarers do not inform their partners or their families of how difficult or how harsh or even risky their working and living conditions are on board.
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There are many stressors of life on board; for example, it has been found that separation from partner and family is one of the most significant causes of stress for seafarers’ as factors influencing a decision to reduce planned sea service. In another study, seafarer rated the individual stress level of 23 different stressors aboard, with separation from their family ranked as the highest of all.
What’s more, last year, an IOSH study revealed that the following are the key stressors; first isolation, loneliness, lack of shore leave, fear of criminalization, fear of job loss and separation from family, all predisposed seafarers to mental ill health. However, these are not even technical issues but human challenges that our seafarers are facing at work. So, what can we do?
On top of the above, a study in 2012 by Lamvik, stated that for Filipino seafarers particularly, going out to sea is a deep compassion or concern for the family members back home: “At the core of Filipino maritime labour migration lies an impressive ability and willingness to endure hardship (pagsisikap in Tagalog) or make sacrifices for the sake of the family. [E]veryday life at sea comes with a price and that the family is part of the solution in handling life on board.”
I’ve had this argument several times with my colleagues of non- Filipino colleagues because they are saying, when you interview a cadet or an entering seafarer they would say I want to go, I want to sail because of family- they do not say because I want to be promoted; because I want to be a captain; because I want to be a chief engineer; this is always how my counterparts or other nationals would always look at it.
To me there should be no judgement; whatever motivates a person to go out, whatever is a purpose for working, is purpose enough, regardless of what it is. Then what do you do as a company; you leverage on that purpose; you anchor on that purpose; we do not create judgments- it’s okay you are motivated because of money, that’s good; you are motivated because of a stellar career, that’s good; if you are motivated to help your family, that’s not bad, it is equally the same. So whatever fits you; as a company, we do not distinguish.
For us, this is the underlining purpose for Filipinos. On our part, we realized that we need to have a program that is anchored and centered in family; so any performance management issues, contract matters, health and wellness concerns- we discuss with the Pilipino seafarer, will make sense to them when our conversation is put in the context of the family. For example, a solutions program that we have at the manning agency level involves parenting workshops, self-help guidance on improving mental resilience and wellness, focusing on health, physical, mental, emotional and spiritual wellness.
Our objective is to equip the seafarers and family with skills that would empower them to become effective even as a family unit, to overcome challenges such as health issues, to focus on their long-term goals as a family, including what will happen to them to the contract ends or when the seafarer retires and so that you provide them with the resilience to combat constant high risk factors at work, looming threats of piracy on board and associated risk to mental health in the workplace. Invariably, we attempt to address a gap in training to assist seafarers to better function within their family structure whilst separated from each other.
So, for a manning agency like ours this is one of the strategic and deliberate relationship with our seafarers that we are focusing on, we are the front liners, we are crew-facing, we prepare them before they join on board and we face them when they get sick or injured and on the flip side, we also face them when they litigate against our ship owners or claim against our owners, that is also a reality. Concluding, loss prevention, in a lower-down version, is something that we can all do in each of our organizations and with this I end.
Above article is an edited version of Mrs Iris Baguilat’s presentation during the 2019 SAFETY4SEA Manila Forum.
You may view her presentation herebelow
The views presented hereabove are only those of the author and not necessarily those of SAFETY4SEA and are for information sharing and discussion purposes only.
