Every once in a while,
shipping latches on to a statistic, phrase or a quote from somewhere or the
other and repeats it endlessly. The phrase it chooses to repeat, usually to the
point of tedium, often glorifies seamen or seeks to elicit wide-eyed awe at
what they do for a living.
A big reason shipping does
this is because it thinks that its seamen will buy the platitudes and ignore
the reality of how the industry treats them. A second reason is that by
glorifying seamen, shipping wants the rest of the world to look at the industry
favourably, and therefore give it a commercial break or three.
Along with the evergreen and
trite ’shipping carries 90 percent of everything’ and the ‘seafarers are our
best assets’ kind of stuff regularly dished out, I have noticed another worn quote
gaining momentum in industry circles in recent weeks, which says that seafaring
is the second most dangerous occupation in the world.
Let me get one thing out of
the way first: I disagree with that statement, because I can think of many
occupations that are riskier. Shipping is dangerous enough; let us leave it at
that. It is more important to me that, like with the other banalities trotted
out, that quote is dishonest.
To the best of my knowledge,
the statement can be traced back to a 2002 or so Oxford study that looked at
statistics of mortalities in UK based professions over twenty years. It said,
based on these numbers, that deep sea fishing was the most hazardous profession
with commercial seafaring coming in as the second most dangerous. Seafarers
were 26·2 times more likely to die at work compared with other British workers,
and deep-sea fishermen were 52·4 times more likely to do so.
Around the rest of the world,
a lazy- and, as far as seafarer issues are concerned, regressive- industry that
does not even bother to keep statistics of the people who die (or are missing injured,
held by pirates or kill themselves) simply took the British quote and
rebroadcast it out of context. It is doing so again.
That this
quote has resurfaced has partly to do with Rose George, her recent book and
articles. The book “Deep Sea and
Foreign Going: Inside shipping, the invisible industry That Brings You 90% of everything”
was written after a short five-week journey on board a container
ship. Her recent articles have pointed out, amongst other things, that 2000
seamen die every year at sea. The industry has been quick to pick these up and
regurgitate them to anybody who will listen in a bid, not to increase awareness
of seamen’s issues or improve safety, but to glean some sympathy for itself.
Other stats
are also used for this purpose, such as one that says that seafarers have a one
in 11 chance of being injured during their tour of duty – much higher than in other
occupations. Also rebroadcast is a Seacare Australia finding from 2012; the
national safety regulator said seafarers were working in the most dangerous
industry, where injury risks remained “significantly greater than in other high
risk industries”.
It is too
much to expect the vast majority of shipmanagers to look beyond the statistics
and quotes that they select for their self-serving ends. I will only point out,
though, that these numbers and phrases have come from studies in countries and
from ships belonging to owners that have a much better track record on human
rights issues and safety than the vast majority out there, and that the
conditions that most seamen endure are usually worse.
I leave you with just one
statistic that shipping will definitely not promulgate, and that is that this
is a high-risk occupation for suicide. Dr Stephen Roberts, a specialist in
maritime and public health from Swansea University, said so in a 2013 study. He
found that, during 1979/80 and 1982/83, merchant seafarers had the
second-highest suicide rate after (surprisingly) veterinarians; and in 2001–05
the second-highest rate after coal miners. Seafarers, he said, had a higher
than 620 per 100,000 people suicide rate, which brought the profession into the
“highest-risk occupation for suicide” category.
Regurgitate that.
.
.
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