Concepto del modelo Neoliberal

Workplace accidents at sea, including marine casualties, piracy attacks and traumatic workplace accidents on board, can result in the death or

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disappearance of seafarers. The first stages of communication between companies and victims after workplace accidents happen, are crucial because they may fundamentally influence victims’ emotions, psychological conditions and their attitudes towards the company during the negotiation process. In this section, communication between victims of workplace accidents and companies will be examined in cases of death and of disappearance.

6.2.1 Fatal Accidents

Families’ requests to attend the site of accidents

Shipowners usually give notice of fatal accidents to seafarers’ families through their manning companies/crew agents. Family members described how they usually found it difficult to believe the news that their loved one was dead. Naturally, they wished that they could attend the accident site to “say” a farewell to their loved one and they expected shipowners and crewing agencies would respect their requests and provide support for their journey. However, in many cases, shipowners and crewing agencies are unwilling to provide such support, leaving the families dissatisfied. One bereaved interviewee SF_TJ_Z gave the following account:

I requested the (manning) company to let me go abroad to take my husband’s remains back. The company showed me a policy of the 1980s, and it said that families should not to go abroad to take the worker’s body in principle. The company told me that if I wanted to go abroad yourself, they needed to be approved by a higher level manager. I trusted them. The company agreed at the beginning, but later told me I was not permitted to go abroad to take my husband’s remains back. (SF_TJ_Z, a widow of a Chief Engineer who served on a Marshall ship)

Without the company’s support, some families still want to go abroad to attend the accident sites at their cost. However, the families cannot obtain visas and travel on by themselves without supporting documentation from the company. The interviewee SF_TJ_Z explained this problem like this:

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I determined to go to Poland even on my own. The Exit and Entry Administration staff was very kind and issue my passport just in two days. However, I had no clue how to obtain the visa. I called the Chinese embassy, and they told me that an invitation letter issued by the company was necessary to apply for the Polish Schengen visa. I was very disappointed then.

In the Chinese traditional culture, there is an important saying that ‘fallen leaves should return to the root’. This represents an important belief, which is that deceased people must be returned to their origins and buried with their ancestors. If a seafarer is killed overseas, in order to guide their souls to their journey home, close relatives must accompany the body. Bearing this traditional value in mind, to travel abroad and accompany their beloved home has significant meaning in Chinese culture. Therefore, grieving families were often left upset in situations where companies refuse to cooperate. SF_TJ_Z said,

I thought the company is a state-owned enterprise and would keep their promise, but they just broke their promise and never helped me to travel abroad. I was so disappointed with them.’

Preservation and transport of bodies

In China, proper preservation of a deceased seafarer’s body is important to the dignity of both the deceased and surviving relatives. A failure to preserve the body is considered disrespectful and humiliating. In this context, the interviewee SF_TJ_Z described how improper treatment of her husband’s body created psychological trauma for her:

My husband died in Poland in March, but at the end of September, the remains were returned. When I opened the coffin, my heart was like to be cut into pieces – the company failed to do any antiseptic treatment at all, and my husband was as black as the coal! […] The rotten body of my husband made me extremely irritated and upset. I could not calm down at that time. What the company had done to my husband and me is cruel and unacceptable! I was so irritated that I

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even determined to perish together with the manning company. I tried a lot of psychological self-counselling according to the book, but it did not help at all.

6.2.2 Disappearance of seafarers

Unlike many fatal shore-based accidents, the disappearance of seafarers is complicated by the fact that their bodies may be lost at sea. The facts of death are explicit if remains can be found, and families are entitled to death compensation. However, the facts of disappearance only indicate that whether the seafarer may be dead or alive. The “missing” status of the seafarer is difficult to accept for many families. Regarding the families’ requests to conduct an investigation with other seafarers alive on board, shipowners are unlikely to cooperate. An interviewee described his experience when his cousin disappeared at sea:

The company (manning company) said my cousin disappeared on board. We could not accept it at all. We requested to go on board to ask my cousin’s colleagues what had happened. The company did not agree and only told us there was no way to investigate at all. If we wanted to negotiate compensation, it would be okay, but never think about the investigation. We tried to seek help from the government, such as the Department of Foreign Affairs, Maritime Safety Administration, but they all ignored us. Finally, we gave up and ‘calmed down’ as expected by the company. (SF_NJ_C, the cousin of a third officer disappearing on a vessel of Panama)

If the seafarer disappeared in a marine casualty, due to the concerns of costs, shipowners are usually unwilling to conduct salvage works. The different attitudes towards salvage causes tension between shipowners and surviving families. One man explained how frustrated he was in this situation:

The ship sank in Taiwan Strait, and my brother’s body was missing. The manning company said it was not their business to salvage, and then referred us to staff from shipowner’s insurance company (a P&I Club’s correspondent). We requested that all the bodies should be

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found, but he said it was expensive to do so, and it was almost impossible to find the body in the high sea. If we insisted that the bodies should be found, all the cost must be deducted from the final death compensation. As you already know, the death compensation is 800,000 at most, so we had to give up our requests. (SF_FJ_Z, a brother of an able seaman)

Under the threat to reduce the death compensation amount, the bereaved families had to give up their requests to search for remains. However, giving up these requests does not always mean that they can have access to death compensation. A much more complicated procedure of death declaration is the next problem for the families. The compensation entitlements cannot be established on the facts of a disappearance. Only after a judicial examination with no evidence of survival having emerged in the three months following the accident, will the court declare the presumed death of the seafares. After this, families are entitled to claim death compensation. In this process, bereaved families reported confronting barriers from Chinese public institutions. The interviewee SF_NT_C explained how he overcame one such barrier:

The maritime court asked us to submit the statement of disappearance sealed by the police station, but the police station refused to give me this seal because they would not like to take any responsibilities. However, without this seal, the court would not make the declaration of death and the insurance company would not pay compensation. I had no other options, so I bought a fake seal. I understand it was illegal to do so, but both the court and the police station were shirking responsibilities so there was no other choice for us.’

It is a common problem in China that different public institutions shift responsibilities onto each other and request various proof letters that citizens have no way to obtain. In 2015 April, the Prime Minister Li Keqiang quoted a story that a citizen was asked to prove that ‘his mother is his mother’ at the Exit and Entry Authority. The Prime Minister used this story to criticise the

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current administrative institutions as highly bureaucratic and placing a heavy burden on the citizenry (Song, 2015). In the case of seafarers’ disappearance, the proof that there is no probability of survival is a crucial step for establishing declared death and ultimately enabling the dependants to claim compensation. However, the irresponsible attitudes of the police and maritime court can place a seafarer’s family in a helpless situation.

6.3 Negotiating compensation