Función preventiva de la Procuraduría General de la Nación

One immediate outcome of the financial constraints on a shipowner was their focus on the ship’s crew wage bill. This focus resulted in a number of actions that occurred concurrently. The first was the reduction of crew numbers by outsourcing selected routine work to lower cost organisations. These tasks were usually maintenance tasks performed by a Rating while the ship was at sea or was in a non-critical phase of its voyage. The tasks included, for example, the overhaul of machinery, the washing of the crew’s linen or the de-rusting of the ship’s structural plates. The described lower cost organisations performed these tasks when the ship was in port. As a result of these outsourcing activities shipowners reduced the number of seafarers on board by a number they perceived was commensurate with the overall reduction in the workload of the ship. Cahill (1997) observed that shipowners often overestimated this reduction and as a result took off more crewmembers than the workload reduction justified. This

overestimation may have resulted in an increased workload for seafarers on board. In addition, in some cases these outsourcing of tasks increased a seafarer’s workload (Cahill, 1997). For example, where the overhaul of machinery had been transferred to a shore organisation, in many cases after the ship had sailed out parts of the overhaul had to be redone, as they had not been done to the ship staff’s satisfaction (Beetham, 1983). The effect of this could be two-fold, the first would be to increase the level of stress experienced by the affected seafarer and the second may be to lower that person’s motivation to work, both factors are not conducive to the improvement of the ship’s safety culture.

Another consequence of this reduction in crewing levels was that it compelled crewmembers to change their style of work to cope with the increased workload (Cahill, 1997). Such a situation could be harmful in a number of ways, if an emergency occurred. In the first instance there may

be insufficient people on the ship to respond to the emergency, especially if a ship is in port and some crewmembers had gone ashore. This situation would be exacerbated if the emergency destroyed the installed automated technology that monitored the functioning of the ship’s machinery, such as utilities like the fire pumps. When this happened the monitored machinery would automatically shut down and would have to be

restarted manually. A person would then have to be deployed to monitor this machinery. As many seafarers already perform multiple tasks this reduction of resources would place an additional load on the remaining seafarers aboard. If the emergency such as a fire is not brought under control in a short period of time, typically ten to twenty minutes, it becomes a major event and the damage that a ship sustains as a result is much higher (Tavistock Institute of Human Relations, 1988)

Another result of a shipowners’ focus on the crew’s wage bill was the replacement of traditional crews with Third World crews (Beetham, 1983; Goss,1991; Cahill, 1997). The rise in a traditional seafarer’s wages occurred at the same time as the rise in the cost of living in many of the traditional maritime nations. Shipowners paid these increased wages until they became aware of the cost savings available by hiring Third World crews. The disparity in wages between Ratings of the traditional maritime nations such as Europe and the developing Third World nations is large. This disparity offered the shipowner considerable savings on the wage bill of a ship and proved a popular alternative to using Ratings from the ship’s original homeport. The inevitable movement toward the hiring of cheaper crews was made possible by crewing agencies. The advent of modern communication media allows a crewing agency from one country to provide this service to a shipping company in another country very efficiently. This trend also has manifested itself in the hiring of Officers and Engineers from other countries. The laws of many countries require shipping companies to hire crews of the same nationality as the ship’s Port of Registry. To circumvent these laws a shipowner often transfers the

A shipping company coordinates all the above activities through its crewing department. The head of the crewing department generally is either a Marine Superintendent or Marine Manager. The Marine Superintendent/Manager tends to have the most interaction with the Officers and Engineers of a ship. The management of a shipping company also channels most of their communications to ships through the Marine Manager/Superintendent. When seafarers think of the management of a company it is often on this person that they focus their attention.

An important consequence of hiring Third World seafarers is the physical separation that occurs between the Marine Manager of a shipping

company and the seafarers. In this system seafarers are flown directly to the ship when they join and directly home at the end of the contract period. They are thus unlikely to personally meet the Marine Manager or any other person involved in the crewing of the ship. This lack of

interaction may result in perceptual differences between the crew and the management especially in areas of operational procedures and safety norms. Management will expect the Ratings and Officers to perform in the same manner as did ship’s crews in the past. This however tends not to occur as the crew is from a different country and may have been trained differently and, therefore, may have different work practices and norms. This divergence of operating practices can cause misunderstandings between the ship’s management and the crew, with the crew bearing the brunt of any consequences that such a misunderstanding may bring about. As a result the Goss (1991) stated that the ship’s crew reported that they had no confidence in the management’s understanding of ships or their problems. These seafarers, however, did not complain even when safety is at stake, for fear of being dismissed. The stress levels on ships operated by such companies are high and staff-morale is low (Goss, 1991). Conditions such as these are not conducive to safety nor do they promote a culture focussed on safety.

The above trends of cost cutting, crew reduction and crew transplantation have had a negative impact not only on the seafarers involved, but also on

the seafarer community in general. A seafarer’s traditional loyalty towards a shipowner has been one of the first casualties, as they no longer view a shipping company as a long-term employment prospect. Such a change in perception may have an indirect negative effect on the rate of occurrence of accidents.

1.1.1.6 Weaknesses of the current system of operations in the