Seafarers – Scum of the 🌍 Earth
June 2, 2021 Former Wallem boss Frank Coles writes for Splash today. Exasperated at the treatment of seafarers, he suggests a two-week global strike might be the only way to improve life at sea. “When you chose going to sea as a career did you know you were becoming the scum of the earth?” This is the question a senior executive of a large shipmanagement company asked me as I was having a drink with him in Hong Kong. My reply was, “No, but in fact in my day we were not as badly treated as seafarers are today.” The further east in the world we have gone to look for cheap labour the worse has become the plight of the seafarer. We have failed the youth who seek a career at sea, we have failed at human rights and have systematically abused the basic rights of the normal everyday employment of seafarers. This is not a rant, just a direct, plain statement of the facts as I see them. Sailors cannot go ashore on shore leave, they are not able to go home at the end of contracts, they have poor