THE GRIM REALITY

Most college kids (studying maritime a.k.a "seaman") don't really know this info and few people spoke openly about this system , those who speak and question this working practices are either hunted down and ostracized or worse totally black listed and forever banned to be a seafarer.  .

This is just a repost on the article i had read on a maritime news site , its up to the reader on how he / she will interpret this

https://marine-cafe.com/filipino-maritime-cadets-as-modern-day-slaves/

This illustration is actually half true, In reality its not exactly lasting for months in servitude. In the grim reality its actually years , as in two long years or maybe even longer .

Filipino maritime cadets as modern-day slaves

by Barista Uno | Jul 2, 2019 | Manning and Training, Seafarers' Rights and Welfare | 0 comments

Filipino maritime cadets as modern-day slaves
Most people will find it hard to imagine a maritime cadet being tied to a rope as in the circa-1848 watercolour drawing (pictured above) attributed to Afro-Peruviain painter Francisco (Pancho) Fierro. The indigenous slave depicted is balancing a plate on his head as he follows a Peruvian soldier on horseback. The truth is that the things Filipino cadets do as unpaid office help for the manning agencies and seafarers’ unions in Manila are no less egregious.

What could be more demeaning for a would-be ship officer than to be ordered by a secretary to go out and buy pizza for the company staff? Or to be made to wash dishes and clean the office toilet? Yet, many go through such indignities for the chance to go to sea and complete the 12-month shipboard apprenticeship required for graduation. It could be many months before they finally get the big break.

Anyone with an ounce of moral discernment will see that making cadets work without pay is not only exploitation. It is a form of slavery. Surprisingly, manning agents and even some seafarers find nothing wrong with this shameful practice. They say working for free in a crewing company or a seafarers’ union is voluntary on the part of the cadet. Moreover, the cadet can learn certain office skills he or she can later put to good use as a ship officer. Those who make such stupid arguments overlook or ignore two important points.

First, the cadets who serve as unpaid flunkeys are forced by circumstances to do so. They have very little choice. The International Convention on Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping for Seafarers (STCW) requires aspiring officers to complete one year of apprenticeship at sea. Alternatively, they can join a vessel as able seaman, wiper or oiler. However, they will have to serve in these capacities for three years versus 12 months for an apprentice officer. That is assuming they can be hired in the first place.

Second, there is a huge difference between servitude and internship. The latter is a legitimate practice accepted around the world and in many professions. It enables the intern, who may or may not get paid, to gain some work experience or satisfy certain requirements for a qualification. Buying pizza for the office staff (some cadets to it whilst wearing their white cadet uniforms) can hardly be called internship.

Interestingly, cadets who are taken in as slave labour by manning companies are referred to as “utility”. The use of the term even by certain academics is very telling. Like the infamous buzzword the human element, it shows how language is used to objectify seafarers and rob them of their humanity. But what else can one expect in maritime Manila with its crass commercialism and decadent culture?

~ Barista Uno

RELIEF FOR A MOMENT

January 22, 2019 Tuesday

Finally have finished the loading ops work in UAE and the ship is now headed back to Australia , Perth. It is my estimate that work load will be slightly a bit lighter now compared when this ship was going to UAE. Probably in a day or two now piracy watch will resume till this ship gets at least to sri langka.

Once piracy watch resumes , there won't be any day work at that time on the deck and most my work will be just revolving around the bridge area doing "Guard" duty and looking out for any suspected "pirate boats". Basically all I do in the bridge is just stand and move around for about 8 hours each day (4 in the morning and 4 at night) and look on the horizon - kind of like a "star gazing" work but a bit on the lower view rather than the sky.

By the time this ship will reaches on Australia., it will be February and that time is already close to finishing my contract in OSM - TCC (six months out of 8 months). And as a routine prep, I've have started to re arrange my stuff back to my luggage in case of a hurried kind of disembarkation. I will be travelling a bit lighter now and that some of my stuff will be discharded here.

If this ship will continue on its UAE to Australia voyage route, Its estimate that one of this countries will be my disembarkation point. Personally I prefer disembarking in Australia for a number of reason than in UAE., but of course I would never know and it wouldn't hurt if I'd be prepared in case it was UAE and was a hurried disembarkation. 

GAMING UPGRADES

January 19, 2019 Saturday

Anchor at UAE

As expected the superintendent disembarked when this ship have reached Fujairah UAE., So now the working environment is a bit lax , compared a couple of days ago were we had to check every detail of work every now and then to avoid any complication that the superintendent does in howling everybody's job routine to find faults.

Now that this ship is in UAE for "provisioning"., we are all busy hauling off the supplies delivered by the supply boat and putting them to their storage places. It is unfortunate that the "private orders list" was cancelled and that the items I was ordering was scrapped as well. Anyway it's no big deal for me if my order for a gaming laptop and extra storage data was cancelled (Lenovo Intel I7 8Gb RAM , and 8TB external Disk Drive and 400 GB MicroSD card). I could always get those items on other sources or when this ship goes back to australia, aside from that if those item didn’t materialize , I could also (for the very first time) buy an apple computer.

I think it's about time that I upgrade my hardware., after all the last upgrade I had for my computers goes way back in 2014 and basically there is no changes at all on computers for about 4 years now - I had been still using those old stuff, It’s the right time now for me to retire my old gadgets and bring in the new updated one's .

After the busy day on the work in the provisions , this ship stayed again on this port for another day and the work we did was basically putting back again the razor wire around the ship. Later on the afternoon as small merchant boat named "Flying angel" came to visit this ship and went alongside for the crew to check and buy on their selling merchandize. I didn’t waste any time and immediately went to their boat to see what they were selling. It was by luck that I saw that they are selling laptop gaming computers , I bought one (dell brand)  which cost at about 750 U.S. Dollars and since I still I still have money left I bought a Samsung tablet for myself as a bonus. Both of the devices I bought is high end for my personal gaming and computing needs. Some of my crewmates are probably jealous that they saw me buy those high end gadgets for myself ., they mostly envy me because I have the spare money to upgrade and buy expensive equipment , while they themselves can't  because their occupied of other expenses and don’t have the capacity for "personal maintenance" .

Anyway its none of my business if they're jealous or not , I have my own life (and capacity for this luxuries) and they have theirs. I mind my own business.

In other news ….

Working schedules have been very erratic lately and  honestly I'm not exactly sure if the rest hours will be compliant on the regulations, all I can say is that working schedules are suddenly changed on the last minute. We will be doing the normal "day" work (8am till 5 pm) until late in the afternoon and then suddenly it goes announced on the last minute that O.S. will be shifted to bridge watch keeping duties.(night work) - Which ended up having fewer rest hours for us ,and working hours gets extended without notice.  We kept shifting from piracy watch to deck watch keeping and normal day work - to and from on this past few days , everything is all jumbled up on the schedules.

Hope I don’t get over fatigued with this hassle their putting up.

I dislike this kind of method on the unannounced extending working hours , and personally I suspect that our Chinese captain has anxiety problems when it comes to ship navigation and resulted to us being pestered with rest hours reduction and extended work. He comes up with the excuse of for the sake of  "safety navigation" but I knew better that the problem here is not a "safety issue" but his anxiety problem.

Now I know why the previous O.S. (chris) avoids signing up another contract on TCC  despite having a much higher salary offer . This principal is too much of a hassle for an O.S. to stay. 

EGOISTIC T.C.C.

January 12, 2019 Saturday

Enroute to UAE

As expected the "VIP" came here onboard at around noon time . His name is apparently Mr. Gallantes , he's about 67 years old and from first look he's just a typical old man who will wreak havoc for a couple of days here . Not exactly literal havoc but will definite disrupt normal routine work when this superintendent is around.

A few hours after he went onboard , the superintendent immediately conducted  his inspections and was seen on the deck roaming along with 2nd officer. I was washing the deck area at that time when I saw him . 

Now two days after he arrived , he's checking and interviewing crew at random  and asking questions about company related info. Obviously I don’t know much about info about OSM - TCC (tai cheon chen) and I don’t care about it nor even bothered to know because I'm not planning to staying for the long term in TCC. Besides what good does it make if I even bothered to know about this info ? Even if I do there is nothing to be gained about this ., My salary rate will still be the same as it was and employment standards and condition will still be the same and seafaring job is still a maintenance / construction manual kind of work, IT"S NOT AN INTELLECTUAL JOB AND NEVER A KIND OF JOB THAT WILL BENEFIT MANKIND 

I simply do not understand why people here (and i) have to put up so much effort on something that’s not even worth half of it - It's too much of a hassle and  a lot more trouble than its actual worth, besides this is a ship. Our main purpose here is to work and NOT TO STUDY, they're making this ship look more like a training center than a merchant vessel.

For me it's totally unnecessary at all about the crew being randomly asked ., and from my point of view this is just simply a publicity stunt meant to brag to the company that their crew are so called "well trained, upstanding , blindly loyal booth licking employee's" . To be frank , I never liked companies who have an ego perfectionist kind of theme and this is what likely will happen to TCC company probably later on ( and much to my horror as well this company even idolizes the dreaded "SHELL"  company and copies some of its policies, although on a lesser extent). Fortunately for me , this companies' egoistic perfectionist mentally is not as severe as my former employer but nevertheless its policies are still repulsive for me.

Reality check here is that OSM - TCC is nothing more than a second rate wannabe shell clone, with a goatee and superiority complex 

INJURY REPORT

January 10, 2019 Thursday

Enroute to U.A.E.

There was a meeting held immediately after "Coffee break" ., The meeting was about the A.B. who was accidentally burned on the steam pipe on the other ships chimney (not CSK Vanguard).

Seriously they went all that trouble just to tell us this , about an unfortunate accident - When I was in another company on European ships , nobody doesn’t even bother about this , and yet here on this principal , it looks like a very big deal for them - as if like some major accident has happened and needs the attention of the whole fleet about it. Seriously I find it troublesome to be bothered on my daily routine work by just this minor accident , Imagine they had to suspend work here just to inform us and took almost more than 2 hours straight lecturing and preaching which is practically pointless.

On my opinion , the angle here is that this company (and most manning / shipping company out there) is not exactly concerned about the well-being of the seafarer, They're lecturing because the whole fleet is afraid of paying the medical insurance for the A.B. and BECAUSE THE WANTED TO SAVE MONEY. Just like Upl - Shell who are more concerned about the money rather than the unfortunate (filipino) seafarers.

Aside from that , another thing that was discussed was the arrival of some top brass superintendent of this principal which will be joining ship by tomorrow and will stay on this ship until this reaches fujirah UAE were he will disembark. From what I heard its NOTHING GOOD, as he's apparently Filipino and will be conduction some sort of "audit / inspections " . From what the crew describes he's bad news. 

WATER RESUMPTION

January 08, 2019 Tuesday

Enroute to Fujirah, UAE

After weeks of having a so called "Scheduled" and restrictive running water access. It’s a big surprise that the laundry is now open 24/7, and I couldn't think of any better reason that this might be related because of the arrival of the Chinese captain. It's too obvious to consider it just a coincidence , and too arranged.

Probably I suspect that since the Indian Captain disembark, the Indian chief engineer thought that he's tricks and modus will not exactly work well with the incoming Chinese captain. So he had to retract he's quasi "Condenser" problem on the water generator.

In any case and whatever the reason maybe , I'm relieved that regular access to running water for the laundry is now open 24 / 7 . Hopefully this will remain until I disembark on this ship sometime in April.

As for the news regarding day to day work ….

Since this ship is already near the HRA (high risk area) in the Indian ocean , We were told on the job order to put some razor wires at whole side of the ship. Putting up razor wires was no big deal and I would get an extra money out of it , however the problem is not the work itself but on the environment , apparently this area has a temperature "spike" problem and is known to have very high temperature climate even if it's already winter time and I'm not wrong about it.

During the job being carried out. Temperature was burning hot climate in the deck area and my coveralls was as usual drenched in sweat for the whole day. Basically I was suffering from heat related stress for the whole day and if were not for the medicines I brought along for this work., I would have surely had more serious problems on this . Honestly I think I'm suffering more of a sun stroke symptoms rather that "heat related stress" here

"Oresol 75" and "gatorade" really helped a lot in keeping me rehydrated plus combination of Vitamins C and Vitamin E tablets help reduce the heat fatigue

THE COCONUT WORSHIPPER

January 07, 2019 Monday

Anchor at kwinana, Perth West australia

"Roman Catholic Christians are always ridiculed for worshipping things made of stone, wood or even personal belongings - If they think its bad enough, then they should try being trapped in a ship with a sun or coconut worshipper captain around"

Its still very early for it , but I have already started making plans for my next ship assignment and have already started making arrangement on what kind of equipment I should bring. So far my "scouting" of equipment at Lazada Online store is promising and hopefully these toys will still be around by april or may for me to be ordered. For now I can't order these items because of the main problem that OSM-TCC payrol doesn’t wire transfer my salary to my bank account until I get back to the Philippines first , so in the end I'd just save it on my "item list"

As for work ., things have been relatively peaceful , now that this ship has a new captain. (Capt "Dong",  Chinese nationality) or so I yet to believe. The previous Indian captain wasn't very pleasant although he doesn’t meddle much on day to day affairs or private matters of the crew. Problem with the previous Indian captain is that he's not Christian and doesn’t celebrate Christmas eve nor Christmas day, and as a result the x-mas eve celebration is nowhere to be seen .

Hope this captain get included on the "naughty list" of Santa because of this.

I'm going to remind myself that next time , I'd choose a ship that has NO INDIAN CAPTAIN that worships a coconut as a god. My previous Indian Captain during the time when I was at Eagle Boston was ok because he's Christian despite being an indian,. But this most recent one is totally messed up for now being christian  , I'd definitely think twice before joining an OSM TCC ship because of this.

To be honest I'd rather prefer having a Russian captain or eastern European., They may have issues on work but at least their Christian (orthodox) and recognize Christmas eve and Christmas holiday.      

I'm not exactly sure on how things will turn out here , now that a new Captain has arrived. Fortunately this Chinese Captain recognizes new year holiday (and Chinese people have their very own "new year" holiday as well in February) and has a celebration on new year's day complete with "horse racing" event and "bingo" .

By the way , I was praised for my outfit on new year's day

HIGH EXPENSES

December 13, 2018 Thursday

Anchor at kwinana, Perth West australia

Past couple of days that went by was relatively peaceful , not boring but peaceful. And I was doing the traditional and routine work of Chipping the rusted areas with a jet chisel and later brushing it with an air brush then finally painting it with an epoxy primer paint. From the looks of this on the situation , I will be doing this work for a couple more days till this reach Australia.

Water situation here has not improved or changed at all., and still the laundry is being scheduled and washing clothes on an everyday basis is still impossible. Good thing for me , they haven't shut down the water on the toilet area inside cabins and I could still use the water there. For now its no big deal as of the moment and I could still "wash" my working clothes and regular clothes although its inside the cabin and not the laundry room. Although washing it by hand every day is troublesome and a hassle

In other matters…

The Bond store deduction slip came out and no surprise for me that the tab I got was quite high as in totals of about 158 U.S. Dollars. I had no qualms about this and I knew I had it coming because of the hot weather climate in during the voyage to UAE and back to Australia which made me eat and drink a lot of stuff. Specifically "Kitkat" chocolate bars and "Gatorade" energy drink. Using those items is totally unavoidable with my situation.

In any case the cost of it will not affect me at all - good thing I earned an extra money for all the work in putting / removing razor wires. \

SEAMANLOLOKO AND SEAMAN GAGANTYO ???

Inspite the annoyance of some pinoy seafarers being branded "seaman-loloko and seaman gagantyo" . I ask myself the moral question , why us are being branded like that ? we never answered that question, why ? Why are we as a people worth saving? Because we knew better than them about the grim reality of it and refuse to accept the responsibility for anything that we’ve done. We still commit those sins  because of greed, spite, jealousy and cheat on our wives

we comforted ourselves in the knowledge that it really wasn’t our fault, not really. To be honest we cannot play God then wash our hands of the things that we’ve done . Sooner or later, the day comes when we can’t hide from the things that we’ve done anymore.

AS SOON AS THE WIND BLOWS

December 04, 2018 Tuesday

Jubail Dana , UAE

The new chief mate seems to be harmless enough , but yet I have to be on my guard - after all he has only been here for almost a week and chances are you don’t get to know a person very well until the 2nd month. For now I'm relieved that the previous chief mate of this ship will no longer be a problem since he disembarked a week ago in fujirah, UAE during the "provisioning" operations

The ship headed north for the loading port, apparently earlier information I thought that it should load cargo in Saudi arabia., but now it looks like that it will load its cargo here in UAE ., just in the far edge area of this country. It headed north within just a day of travel and this ship lowered its anchor and awaited for any further instructions from the charterer.

Laundry was opened on Sundays for The crew to wash those dirty clothes and coveralls. Honestly I can't really think any good reason on why the use of the laundry room here is still on schedule - the condenser is already fix during Fujairah and now there is no more excuse on why it should not be opened for everyday use.  I guess this is usually the problems if "Uwaks" are in charge of the ship., Can't really think of any other reasonable reasons why this is still happening.

It was already almost noon when I finished on my laundry due to having a very long queue in the washing machine., when suddenly I heard from O.S. "Romy" passing by that within a few hours., a pilot will be coming for the ship . Specifically at 2pm. Immediately on the first minute when I heard it, I was in disbelief and that it was really a bad timing for the notice., Both my clothes and working coveralls was still wet and just fresh out from the washing machine - I  have no dress to wear for work if the pilot immediately comes. I came to my senses that I still have two hours left and hurriedly jammed all my clothes in the dryer machine. It never mattered to me if this was a working coveralls or my regular clothes - I just needed it to be dried ASAP.

After 20 minutes my clothes was almost dry and had to take it out of the drier hurriedly.

Pilot came by at around 2pm as what they said, along with the mooring master for the SBM kind of mooring.

From all the mooring operation that came and went all this time, "SBM" kind of mooring is the most easiest kind. Basically the ship will be just tied up to a buoy sitting in the middle of the ocean and from that, the buoy there has some huge rubber hose attach to it (as in HUGE , larger than a human ) and from there they're going to connect that on the ship's cargo pipes to load cargo - voila "SBM" operation finished ! Plus there's less effort made because it doesn’t require a lot of folks on mooring.

The following day , the loading of cargo was immediately finished and this ship soon set sail bound back to go to kwinana, Australia  . Took us a whole day after that in securing all the equipment that was used for the cargo operation and mooring operations.