|
THOUSANDS of Filipino seafarers —from ratings to
officers—employed by the members of the International
Maritime Employers Committee Ltd. (Imec) are expected to
receive increases in their salary starting January next
year after the group of ship employers and the local
union agreed to revise the terms of their collective
bargaining agreement (CBA).
The
agreement, signed late Friday, capped months of a
rigorous negotiation process that involved international
seafarers’ unions and the employers themselves. The
agreement covers January 1, 2008 through end of 2009.
Both
Imec and the Associated Marine Officers and Seamen’s
Union of the Philippines (Amosup), the local group that
negotiated in behalf of the seafarers, declined to give
the details of how much the increases would be since
they still have to inform their principals about the
changes.
Capt.
Gregorio S. Oca, president of Amosup, said the increase
would be “good and substantial,” but also declined to
give further details.
Those
who signed on the agreement were Oca; Ian C. Sherwood,
president of Imec; Michael Estaniel, member of Imec’s
executive board; and Stephen Cotton of the International
Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF).
Sherwood
said they have increased the total crew-cost benchmark
to about $4,063 per month based on a “model ship” with
23 crew members. The benchmark was $2,173 per month.
Despite
the agreement, “there is still a lot of work to be done.
This [CBA] is just a thorny issue that we need to
address,” Sherwood said.
Imec has
116 member-companies operating more than 6,380 ships in
over 40 different countries. Its member- companies
employ a total 51,829 Filipino seafarers, or about 35
percent of its total work force, the single biggest
block by nationality.
Filipino
officers, on the other hand, comprised 17 percent of
Imec’s total work force or about 10,323, followed by the
Russians at 16 percent or 9,448, and other European
nations at 12 percent or 6,994.
Sherwood
said some 13,000 Filipino seafarers are under the CBA.
With the
agreement, Imec is creating two major programs that will
have an initial seed fund of $1 million. The said
programs should focus on how to support the career
development of the seafarers, and the other is the
cadet- training enhancement.
“To
develop the operating rules of the two new programs, it
was agreed that a joint meeting would be arranged in the
first quarter of 2008 in Manila,” the agreement said.
The said
negotiations have followed the system of the
International Bargaining Forum (IBF), which involves
central negotiation at the international level and the
local negotiation at major labor-supply countries.
Imec’s
local agreements currently cover India, Sri Lanka,
Singapore, the Philippines, Russia, Poland, Romania,
Germany and Greece.
The same
negotiation process is being done by the labor unions,
which was handled by the ITF.
An IBF
agreement was already reached in September, which
covered increases in wage levels and changes in
contractual clauses to reflect the provisions of the
International Labor Organization’s Maritime Labor
Convention, among other systemic and structural changes. |
