Foreigners working in British waters

[supertramp]

So I have no problems with foreigners in the merchant navy, but surely ships such as PSVs in the north sea should have all british crews? A cadet friend of mine says most people on his ship are filipino, but they don't ever leave the north sea!


What about cross channel ferries? I know my company employs filipinos on their hull to rotterdam route; surely there should only be dutch and british on board?

With unemployment at an all time high, should more be done to protect British jobs?

Even the Norwegians protect their jobs in the North sea.

[alistairuk]

So I have no problems with foreigners in the merchant navy, but surely ships such as PSVs in the north sea should have all british crews? A cadet friend of mine says most people on his ship are filipino, but they don't ever leave the north sea!


What about cross channel ferries? I know my company employs filipinos on their hull to rotterdam route; surely there should only be dutch and british on board?

With unemployment at an all time high, should more be done to protect British jobs?

Even the Norwegians protect their jobs in the North sea.

The area the vessel operates within makes no difference to who can work onboard. It is all to do with the "flag" of the vessel.

On a side note; there are no restrictions on who can work onboard UK vessels - or vessels of most flags, as long as they have a UK CeC (The UK equivalent of what most countries call "endorsement").

[Clanky]

Ships trading regularly to between France and another EU country or Ireland and another EU country can only have EU nationals onboard and the French unions insist on there being a certain number of people from either France or the country of origin, so ships trading between UK and France must have a certain percentage of French or UK crew onboard.

[gadget123]

As nice as it would be to have all British ships crewed by brits, it just isn't feasible it would cost too much and even if cost wasn't an issue there simply arn't enough british seafarers to crew the ships.

America has the Jones act and in many ways it really isn't good for their shipping industry.

[Laser]

This has really annoyed me. You're sounding like some kind of common chav. You migh as well of said "Our seas, our jobs". You need to seriously reconsider what you saying, its disgusting.
Filipino are some of the some of the hardest working people i know. How many British people do you know that would work the same hours they work for the same amount of pay?

[billwillis]

Dey' took our jobs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[GuinnessMan]

Are you just trolling? This is the second thread you've started along these lines...

[ETwhat?]

This has really annoyed me. You're sounding like some kind of common chav. You migh as well of said "Our seas, our jobs". You need to seriously reconsider what you saying, its disgusting.
Filipino are some of the some of the hardest working people i know. How many British people do you know that would work the same hours they work for the same amount of pay?

And you need to consider the relative value of money. a crew man here was signing of in the last port, he was telling how he wanted to get back home as on the last leave he had built a new house, it had cost him about $5000 which give a bit is ?3500
Now if i wanted to build a nice family house excluding land i really wont get much back from ?100,000 and thats not going to be anything worth of grand designs.

Now i dont know or care the excat figures, but say he earnt all that over a 10 month contract, that would be the same as me doing a ten month contract and geting ?10,000 a month which i would seriously consider. Now obviously that wont hold true for everything, an ipad is till going to cost each of us $1000 but its the general standard of what money will buy in different places.

[billwillis]

How hard nationalities work is all relative, and newspapers need to all just F.O.D.

[lazygenius]

A fair point, but unfortunately commercial competition dictate who crews vessels.

Protecting jobs for British seafarers is a valid arguement. There are plenty of countries which look after their nationals such as the States, Australia, India, Singapore.

[YoungMariner]

The very very best deckhands & bosuns I've worked with were British/Australia/Kiwi/South Africans onboard superyachts, starting salary of around 2500 euro a month, and they worked incredibly hard (very long hours) with a very very high level of skill which you'd never get in the commercial world. The point is, that if you pay the right salaries you'll get the quality of people you want. $400 a month isn't going to get you a good British sailor, but could probably afford you a mediocre and inexperienced South East Asian crewmember if your lucky.

My real problem is to do with the CEC, its far too easy. We should go for a system like AMSA, where regardless of who issued your certificate, you still have to take an Oral to get the CEC. Then at least we all start on a fair playing field.

[alistairuk]

A fair point, but unfortunately commercial competition dictate who crews vessels.

Protecting jobs for British seafarers is a valid arguement. There are plenty of countries which look after their nationals such as the States, Australia, India, Singapore.

How many US flagged vessels have you come across out with the locality of the United States? I'm not saying theres none but lets face it - if I bumped into one I would think they're lost! The US have the "Jones Act" which, amongst other things, prevents foreign flagged vessels from embarking passengers at a US port and disembarking them at another US port without calling at a foreign port (hence why every cruise out of the USA calls at at least one non US port) - with the exception of that NCL America ship that only plies around Hawaii but it's US flagged and I believe pretty much entirely US crew.

The British Merchant Navy doesn't exist as it did in the past - for instance do you actually work on a UK flagged vessel? If you don't then under this argument you are "stealing jobs" from whichever country the vessel is flagged under - it's a load of crap basically. (If you do however work on a UK flagged vessel then yes, your free to argue this point).

I am all for protecting our salaries and industry but saying that non UK seamen shouldn't be employed on UK flagged vessels is just a waste of time - there's so few that it would be pointless and if it ever was introduced you can bet those that remain would promptly be flagged elsewhere.

I do agree however with AM's point about the CeC - given the standards of some people who I have come across who have been automatically granted a masters licence for being at sea for 5 years - who then automatically get a CeC without questioning - I'm all for forcing applicants for CeCs to conduct an Oral examination to prove their competence! But in reality it will never happen as the cost would be tremendous and most likely it would result in owners simply moving their ships to other flags.

With regards to the whole salaries argument / nationality one;

Every person receives a contract before joining a ship - you know what you have agreed to before going - people who sit and complain about their salary get no sympathy from me - you agreed to it, live with it, walk away or next time negotiate better!

Like everything in life, you need experience - so yes your first job will most likely not be the one you want or paid what you want, but it gives you that experience and most importantly it gives you a chance to prove that you are worth re-employing and paying a higher salary!

Yes, differences in salary's exist between nationalities, but if you ask anyone working at sea what they do with their salary, you'll find that it pretty much works out the same given cost of living in a particular country - in fact in most cases they are far far better off with (a considerably lower salary than europeans) than what we are with our comparatively higher salary.

In an ideal world it would all be equal - but lets face it, this is our career and if it was all equal it certainly wouldn't benefit me (or "us") as what shipping company is going to pay the higher scale to everyone - there all going to go to the lower scale which in most cases means I would be better off working in Tesco.

[Clanky]

There are strategic reasons for Britain to maintain a pool of merchant seafarers, you only have to look back to the Falklands conflict to see that without the support of ships taken up from trade with volunteer crews onboard a similar campaign could not be fought. With Argentina rattling their sabres again it may be worth the UK protecting jobs for British seafarers.

[lazygenius]

I have worked on a UK flagged vessel crewed with all forgien engineers, which made even breaking the language barrier difficult never mind learning anything. I belive there should at least be a quota of British nationals on British flagged vessels. Sending cadets on vessels with all forgien crews is a terrible idea. It shows pretty much a disregard for the level of training these cadets will receive, and reinforces the cynical opinion that UK cadets are simply a tax break.

[Steve]

It shows pretty much a disregard for the level of training these cadets will receive, and reinforces the cynical opinion that UK cadets are simply a tax break.

That's the reality. The majority of cadetships exist solely because of the tonnage tax. Perhaps without that motivation companies employing British officers would offer cadetships, or maybe they would just employ officers trained elsewhere.

There are strategic reasons for Britain to maintain a pool of merchant seafarers, you only have to look back to the Falklands conflict to see that without the support of ships taken up from trade with volunteer crews onboard a similar campaign could not be fought. With Argentina rattling their sabres again it may be worth the UK protecting jobs for British seafarers.

There are plenty of British officers around, and the Merchant Shipping (Officer Nationality) Regulations 1995 even make reference to 'strategic ships' and limit the nationality of the master on such ships to range of broadly friendly nations, but that's it. What would really bite, IMO, would be the shortage of British ratings to man STUFT.