The Consolidated Maritime Labour Convention

On 23 February 2006, the Consolidated Maritime Labour Convention was adopted by the International Labour Organisation in Geneva. Delegates at the 94th International Labour Conference (Maritime) voted by 314 to 0 in favour of the new convention. There were four abstentions.

The Convention establishes appropriate regulations to ensure that the following principles are fulfilled:

Every seafarer has the right to a safe and secure workplace that complies with safety standards

Every seafarer has a right to fair terms of employment

Every seafarer has the right to decent working and living conditions onboard ship

Every seafarer has a right to health protection, medical care, welfare measures and other forms of social protection

Article IV

“The Convention applies to all ships whether publicly or privately owned, ordinarily engaged in commercial activities, other than ships engaged in fishing or in similar pursuits and ships of traditional build such as dhows and junks.”

Art II, 4

Click here to read about the struggle for fishers’ rights

According to a statement released by the ILO on the approbation of the Convention:

“The new Convention clearly sets out, in plain language, a seafarers' "bill of rights" while allowing a sufficient degree of national discretion to deliver those rights with transparency and accountability. The Convention also contains provisions allowing it to keep in step with the needs of the industry, and help secure universal application and enforcement.”

The Director-General of the ILO, Mr Juan Somavia, said of the Convention

"We have made maritime labour history today. We have adopted a Convention that spans continents and oceans, providing a comprehensive labour charter for the world's 1.2 million or more seafarers and addressing the evolving realities and needs of a sector that handles 90 per cent of the world's trade."

Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, Apostolic Nuncio to the United Nations and Permanent Observer of the Holy See at the International Labour Conference was among the delegates speaking in favour of the Convention. Archbishop Tomasi called the Convention “an indispensable tool of decent work” which would “provide the appropriate environment for the emergence of a new maritime world order”. He reminded that Conference that

“various international and national organisations and many individuals, inspired by their Christian faith or by a genuine sense of human solidarity, and specifically reaching out to the People of the Sea, are working for a globalisation with a human face, where benefits accrue to everyone without exclusion of any category of people.”

In response to the Convention, Cardinal Hamao, then President of the Pontifical Council for Migrants and Itinerant People, said:

“Our Pontifical Council warmly welcomes this new instrument for the protection of seafarers and their families. This Convention will make a great difference to the life of the 1.2 million seafarers and their families, as it will ensure that the health, safety, working conditions and general welfare of seafarers are given primary importance. To make it become a reality, we must encourage and urge all the member States who have voted this Convention to ensure that it is now ratified and properly implemented worldwide.”

click here to read the full text of Cardinal Hamao’s response