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There is a significant difference in junior and senior officers’ perceptions of management. Senior officers are the top four ranked officers onboard the ship. They all have the option of directly contacting the shore office if they need to, although the 2nd _{engineer usually goes through the Chief Engineer or the Captain first. However,}

together the senior officers are considered by the company to form the management team onboard the ship. In that sense, they are an extension of the company and intended to carry out its objectives onboard the ship. Therefore, the senior officers

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are in much closer contact with shore management and more closely associated with the organisation’s goals, however, this brings its own pressures with it. Captains carry the responsibility of ensuring that the ship is running to schedule and function with a combination of autonomy and direct control. They are most frequently in touch with shore office and receiving detailed instructions on courses of action, but they are also responsible for everyone else onboard the ship. This duality in their work masks their own vulnerabilities from other seafarers. Although they are perceived as being very powerful, they themselves are aware that they are also on short-term contracts and technically expendable. This Captain explains how the company may react if he has problems with the crew onboard;

If I start mishandling the ship and the crew and I’m making mistakes, the company will tell me where to get off, they can’t lose money because of me. And once that happens, who else will hire me? They’ll tell everyone that I’m a bad risk (MNC – Capt 3).

Note that in the Captain’s understanding, the stress is on the company’s worry over profit margins and the productivity of the crew, not the involvement of ill-treatment. Indeed, it does not seem that ill-treatment registers very strongly on the company’s radar, but that will be examined in more detail in the next chapter.

Lack of autonomy in deciding their career path was a frequently cited issue by Captains, as was their feeling of being over-monitored by shore office. Of all the ranks, they displayed the most awareness of the company’s aims and how this affected their own career trajectory, as this Captain explained;

Employers are out for their own profit, they’ll keep pushing for me to go on car carriers even if I don’t want to, because they know I’m good at it and they want the best for their company, not the best for me [which would be to gain experience on different kinds of vessels]. So I have to understand this, not feel aggravated or frustrated about it, and just work with them while it’s right for me, and then keep making my own path that suits what I need, because obviously no one else is going to be looking out for me and my interests.

This was a view echoed by other Masters, acknowledging that the company will continue to make decisions that are in its best interests even to the detriment of the seafarers’ progress. This disillusionment contrasted with the views put forth by more

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junior officers, who were inclined to look upon the company more generously and allocate better motives to them, as exemplified by these comments from a 2nd _Officer

from the IC;

If we work hard, the company grows up and if the company is doing well, our job continuation will be there. If you don't work then the company is going to lose quite a lot and they won’t need us anymore.

This linking of the company’s well-being to the officer’s own career path is both a logical conclusion by seafarers and also the result of explicit instruction from the managers. They encourage this view as a way of making their employee’s aims identify with their own, through explaining this to them in pre-sea briefings and training seminars. The difference between the views of senior and junior officers is best explained by the difference in their proximity to the shore office. Senior officers maintain greater levels of communication with shore managers on a regular basis and the managers also make them privy to more detailed information about the company’s operations. This conferring of commercial responsibility on to the seafarers is another way to control their work and focus them on achieving the company’s desired outcomes.

Junior officers have little to no contact with shore management when they are onboard, similar to the situation of ratings. They are also wary of the senior officers because they defer to their superior place in the hierarchy. Despite both companies’ assurances of being open to informal complaints, junior officers in both companies understood this to be a facade which they should not take at face value. This is articulated by this 2nd _{Officer from the IC:}

And if the senior officer doesn't like the junior officers, then he makes sure that life is made miserable for the junior officers. Though the organisation here tells us to come and report to them, but a person like me, what happens when I face trouble onboard. I sort it out there only, otherwise I tolerate and keep quiet. But if I start coming and complaining to the office over here, to the company, then it will be like “haan [yes], look, this fellow's complaining over senior officers” and that would be a bad thing against me” (2nd _{O – IC).}

The 2nd _{Officer here indicates a propensity to keep silent if he encounters ill-}

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of these features of ill-treatment will be explored more thoroughly in the following chapters. The key point for the moment is to note the junior officer’s deconstruction of the perceived meaning behind management’s words.

The study shows that seafarers perceive the combination of commercial forces and the personal financial situations of lower-ranked seafarers to create a blanket of silence. They have read and repeatedly heard the news of a manning crisis in the industry, due to which experienced senior personnel are difficult to find and consequently, the company needs to retain their senior officers. Therefore, if another seafarer was to make a complaint against senior personnel, the company would be much more likely to disregard the complaint as biased or untrue because this would provide them with the result that suits them best. The popular perception among junior officers and ratings is that the company would prefer to retain the senior officer and quietly terminate the contract of the junior officer or rating who is perceived to be more easily replaceable. This 4th _{engineer’s comments reinforce the wariness and}

distrust of the 2nd _{Officer above;}

Why should they listen to me when the Captain is there and he is much more important, why will they get rid of him? They will get rid of me and then what will I do with no job? I am just starting out, they say we should tell them our problems but I know, all my seniors said I should just stay quiet and quietly keep listening, and I can take my money and go home at end of contract” (MNC – 4th _E).

This highlights the 4th _{engineer’s underlying fear that the employer will prioritise the}

greater commercial value of the senior officer over their duty to address complaints as they should under the HR policy. The inclination of the seafarer to safeguard his current employment and continue to earn money is also clearly outlined, as is the source of such thinking – his ‘seniors’ being those officers who are ranked higher than him, not just the ‘senior officers’.

As mentioned in the review of the maritime literature in chapter 3, and in the introduction to the companies in previous sections of this chapter, officers have always been considered more valuable to management than ratings because of their skills and higher wages. Greater attention is always paid to their retention because they are the ones who hold the responsibility of piloting and maintaining the ship, and according to managers, there is great risk of skilled senior officers being poached.

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The over-emphasis on the value of officers and the reported surplus of ratings has tipped the balance in a delicate situation. Ratings are considered to be extremely expendable, as seen in this manager’s comment about the existence of grievance procedure in the IC;

Yeah, ratings are there but really the policy is more for officers. The ratings have their union that they go to for help and they don’t need to be trained like the officers. Okay, technically, the policy is there for ratings also but I have never seen it being used for them (Manager 3 IC).

This manager initially did not even mention the applicability of the policy to ratings because he did not think it was relevant. He cited unions as the obvious support structure for ratings, but it has already been shown that unions are not considered to be viable sources of support for ratings who have experienced ill-treatment.