working illegal hours

[supertramp]

Had a slight problem on my first trip whereby my training officer on board was a bit of a ....

He fully expected me to do 18 hour days and get only 6 hours of rest. After a few days of this I told him my concerns about my hours of rest but he told me to stop moaning and it wasn't breaking the law as I was not a watch keeper. He didn't have too long left till his reliever came so I soldiered on. The next chief was much better.

I got lucky this time as I wasn't working with him for too long, however what do I do if on my next ship a similar thing happens? Do I speak up about my rights or just get on with it?

As I'm aware the law says we need at least 10 hours rest in any 24 hour period, but the training officer disagreed and said "it doesn't matter as you get sundays off you moaning c***"

[alistairuk]

Had a slight problem on my first trip whereby my training officer on board was a bit of a ....

He fully expected me to do 18 hour days and get only 6 hours of rest. After a few days of this I told him my concerns about my hours of rest but he told me to stop moaning and it wasn't breaking the law as I was not a watch keeper. He didn't have too long left till his reliever came so I soldiered on. The next chief was much better.

I got lucky this time as I wasn't working with him for too long, however what do I do if on my next ship a similar thing happens? Do I speak up about my rights or just get on with it?

As I'm aware the law says we need at least 10 hours rest in any 24 hour period, but the training officer disagreed and said "it doesn't matter as you get sundays off you moaning c***"

STCW 95 regulations only apply to watch keepers (i.e.: You must have 10 hours of rest in any 24 hour period with one at least 6 hours in length).

However, all crew onboard (assuming your company/contract complies with the ILO requirements - and most do) are covered by the ILO requirements which are basically the same as above.

Unless you are under 18 and employed on a UK vessel, in which case theres different requirements too. Some training companies also impose different restrictions on cadets (i.e.: a few companies don't allow cadets to do more than 10 hours in any 24 hour period (the idea being 2 -4 hours will be used for studying) - but this isn't a legal requirement.

You should have been completing an "Hours of Rest" form - assuming you didn't falsify this then the company will be a bit pissed off at him, since they were breaking the law.

Also "lunch, dinner, breakfast - watching TV and generally hanging around when not carrying out work tasks" does not count as "working hours"... Drills & safety training are also exempt from the requirements.

[gadget123]

You could try talking to your company, but I doubt you'll get very far.
The problem is really that on some ship types it just isn't possible to regularly get your hours of rest due to the scheduling of the ship.

Alistair i'm pretty sure cadets are not required to fill in hours of rest form, at least I never have. Also from what I've seen most people tend to just lie on the forms.

[mak]

We (the cadets) have to fill in rest hour forms on my current ship. In fact I think my first bollocking was for not doing it.

[GuinnessMan]

You could try talking to your company, but I doubt you'll get very far.
The problem is really that on some ship types it just isn't possible to regularly get your hours of rest due to the scheduling of the ship.

Alistair i'm pretty sure cadets are not required to fill in hours of rest form, at least I never have. Also from what I've seen most people tend to just lie on the forms.

I was just going to leave this one to Alistair....

Right, if you have signed on the ship's articles (which you will have done) then you are required to maintain an HoR form. Whether it be on paper or electronic you are still required to do one regardless of your position on board (may be different on cruise ships with the hotel staff and what not). To say that you can't get it because of ship's scheduling is a load of bollocks when you're a cadet as you are not required to be on board, have no responsibility and as such can be told to feck off to your bed. Also, as your Master is supposed to be implementing all this safety stuff, then he should not allow any of his crew to break this and with proper advanced planning it can be arranged for the crew to meet their HoR requirements. I've dealt with vessels that have had lots of short port calls and they've managed to maintain it.

In regards to the OP's actual HoR complaint, without knowing what actual times you're working, meal breaks, drills and generally doing bugger all we cannot determine whether your are being overworked or not. I find it difficult to believe that you are working 18 hours straight without a single break (even when I've done the 18 hours, i've had breaks and what not within that and I didn't get a day off for studies).

[gadget123]

I was just going to leave this one to Alistair....

Right, if you have signed on the ship's articles (which you will have done) then you are required to maintain an HoR form. Whether it be on paper or electronic you are still required to do one regardless of your position on board (may be different on cruise ships with the hotel staff and what not). To say that you can't get it because of ship's scheduling is a load of bollocks when you're a cadet as you are not required to be on board, have no responsibility and as such can be told to feck off to your bed. Also, as your Master is supposed to be implementing all this safety stuff, then he should not allow any of his crew to break this and with proper advanced planning it can be arranged for the crew to meet their HoR requirements. I've dealt with vessels that have had lots of short port calls and they've managed to maintain it.

In regards to the OP's actual HoR complaint, without knowing what actual times you're working, meal breaks, drills and generally doing bugger all we cannot determine whether your are being overworked or not. I find it difficult to believe that you are working 18 hours straight without a single break (even when I've done the 18 hours, i've had breaks and what not within that and I didn't get a day off for studies).

Well ok But I've never filled them in.

Its all very well saying that as a cadet you don't have to be there and can be sent to bed. But that is up to the captain or the mate, who might not share this few.

Yes ships could be scheduled to make sure everyone meets their hours of rest, but the simple fact is they are not.

The companies know damm well that no one except possibly the cook is getting their hours of rest but they still believe the forms they get saying that everyone had 10 hours rest.

[GuinnessMan]

Well ok But I've never filled them in.

Its all very well saying that as a cadet you don't have to be there and can be sent to bed. But that is up to the captain or the mate, who might not share this few.

Yes ships could be scheduled to make sure everyone meets their hours of rest, but the simple fact is they are not.

The companies know damm well that no one except possibly the cook is getting their hours of rest but they still believe the forms they get saying that everyone had 10 hours rest.

If it's not being done then you have a management issue with your C/O and C/Eng aboard your ship as ours actually meet their HoR requirements through forward planning of who and what they'll need for their port calls.

[ETwhat?]

We use a computer system that has your basic schedule loaded in, which can then be edited to cover random events, like doing day work instead of watches, and also knows the difference between at sea and in port duty rotas. saying that it is possible to have edited ones breaking the rules, and it tells you nice and easily which rule you are breaking. and then asks for you to justify why that happens. this ideally means that once a trend is established management can tackle the problem, (which they do seem to work to rather strictly)
we also stopped using 6on 6 off for motormen etc, as they deemed that 6 off by the time soneone did handover and got changed wasnt really 6 hours rest, they now do 7 and 5 which seems to work even if its more confusing.

[stronglead]

we have to fill in our hours of rest on a system on the pc then it's checked and accepted by the ships captain, we have been told we aren't meant to work more than 8 hours in a day (24hours) as we where told off by the C/Eng as we where doing our 8 hours during the day then we would join them for standby to learn that side of stuff so it was putting us up to around maybe 10 hours, so weve to go up early if we are coming back down later for standby etc. I don't think it helped the other night when we had a wee leak with a heat exchanger and we stayed to help I think we hit 12-13 hours. But as said above we are cadets and not required to be there we are extra so can be told to go, as we did when they decided to wait to shut the engine down to replace the flange but they had to wait until clear of a channel