Ice age for the wages of seafarers due to economic crisis is over
Agreement on an increase in the ILO minimum wage for an AB seaman Seafarers, like many other workers around the world have, if still lucky enough to have a job, been enduring a pay freeze since the global financial crisis poured cold water on an overheating situation.Now, it seems, the ice age for wages is over as the sun of recovery, albeit still shining weakly, begins to melt the frozen landscape of pay negotiations. The first breakthrough came, Spring-like, late in April when the Joint Maritime Commission (JMC) at the International Labour Organisation (ILO) met and, despite many differences of opinion, agreed on an increase in the ILO minimum wage for an able-bodied seaman (AB).The new three-year deal will see the AB basic pay, currently USD 545 a month, rise by 7.3% from January next year to stand at USD 585 in December 2014. It is the first increase in the minimum since the last three-year agreement, reached in February 2006, took it from USD 500 to its present level.The significance is that ship owners, represented by the International Shipping Federation (ISF), have for the last two years been telling their JMC counterparts, the International Transport Workers Federation (ITF), that ...
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