This split between the fortunes of ocean shippers and their barely-hanging-on workers stems from industry-wide deregulation that supersized both container ships and the companies that pilot them.
Rampant outsourcing, financialization, monopolization, deregulation, and just-in-time logistics are the culprits. Our supply chains were designed for maximum profit rather than getting things to people, problems that arose in the pandemic folded in.
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The ILA will not work a container ship without a crew aboard. Already one company developing these automated ships also plans for automated loading and unloading of cargo from these crew-less ships without workers.
Seafarers were in a precarious situation long before the COVID-19 crisis struck early this year. Many workers are now stranded on ships at sea, and others are afraid to return home for fear of losing their jobs in the future.
Newly elected President Marina Secchitano marked the 100th anniversary of the Inlandboatman's Union with a pledge to continue its heritage of solidarity, organizing and resistance to attacks by anti-union companies or politicians.
The systematic and deliberate withholding of wages of seafarers working on the high seas thousands of miles from home effectively amounts to a form of compulsion requiring workers to remain in abusive working and living conditions.
The shipping companies have been transporting goods at a loss. They put too many ships into service and they continued to order increasingly larger ships at. The shipyards competed fiercely for the orders and built the ships at bargain prices, although they are technological jewels. With the increase in freight capacity, freight rates plummeted, volumes grew but the income per unit of freight transported decreased. Then, China slowed exports creating the perfect storm.
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