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Tuesday, March 02, 2004
Chinese now moving into turf of RP seamen
By Jessica B. Natad
CHINA is threatening not only the foreign investment and manufacturers of the Philippines, but also the prospects for the country’s seafarers, who comprise 75 percent of the total number of seamen all over the world.
The gradual invasion of Chinese seafarers into the market is one of the issues being discussed by the leaders of labor unions in Asia in the two-day 21st Asian Seafarers’ Summit held at Shangri-La’s Mactan Island Resort.
“The number of Chinese working in international ships is slowly increasing, and this has threatened other seafarers in Asia, especially Filipino seafarers,” summit chairman and All Japan Seamen’s Union president Sakae Idemoto said.
He said the lower labor cost of Chinese employees compared to other employees in Asia makes them attractive to companies.
Filipino seafarers who have been working for three years earn an average of $1,400 a month.
Some 250,000 Filipinos are working for international ships abroad, Department of Labor and Employment (Dole) Undersecretary Manuel Imson said.
Idemoto, however, said Filipinos could remain attractive to the shipping market if they maintained their good standards of education, skills and good working attitude.
Imson said the government has been constantly reminding Filipino seafarers not to be complacent about their position in the seafaring industry because of the advent of globalization.
“Filipino seafarers dominate the seafaring market now. They are very competitive. But with globalization, we should always be on the watch by providing continuous education and training to our seafarers,” he said in a separate interview.
Idemoto said the labor union representatives from 14 countries in Asia, including Japan, China, Pakistan and the Philippines, have agreed on the possibility of setting a standard pay for all seafarers in Asia to level the competition among seafarers in the region.
“The pay should be equal and fair to prevent this problem from happening in the future,” he said.
Another issue discussed during the summit is the safety of the seafarers on board the ships, especially from terrorist attacks, Idemoto said.
The summit, which was organized to become the venue for labor union leaders to discuss issues and concerns of seafarers in Asia, has nothing to do with the International Transport Workers Federation.
“The ITF only discusses the concerns of seafarers in Europe, so we decided to create our own summit to discuss our (Asia’s) concerns,” he said.
This is the second time the summit was held in the country. The first time was in Manila, 10 years ago.
“We are holding it in Cebu now because Cebu has the largest participation in the Philippines’ marine and coastal industry,” he said.
(March 2, 2004 issue)
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