The coronavirus pandemic has placed extraordinary demands on maritime union leaders whose priority is to look after seafarers’ welfare.

In the face of the unprecedented crisis, unions like SMOU have “performed magnificently”, said Stephen Cotton, the General Secretary of the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF).

“Whether they be looking after the seafarers on board or assuring the families, the bottom-line is seafarers unions have really responded to their membership challenge.”

In an interview with SeaVoices held onsite at the Wavelink Building, Stephen Cotton underscored the fact that seafarers have kept the world going. In spite of the pandemic, seafarers played the critical role of ensuring that essential food, fuel, medicines and medical equipment can get to where they are needed.

As frontline workers, seafarers face a “massive sense of insecurity” due to extended employment agreements, extended working hours, and the uncertainty over when they will be able to return home to their loved ones.

SMOU has to deal with the massive responsibility of understanding the plight of the seafarers; servicing their members “at the highest order”; and engaging in a tripartite “collaborative way to deal with a collective crisis”, Stephen Cotton commented.

Describing Singapore as a critical maritime leadership country, he pointed out the nation’s tripartite model provides an opportunity to have a conversation in a different way. And such a conversation led to ITF, International Maritime Employers’ Council (IMEC) and International Chamber of Shipping (ICS) contributing to the Singapore Shipping Tripartite Alliance Resilience (SG-STAR) Fund, making the effort the first global tripartite initiative to facilitate safe crew changes.

The SG-STAR Fund is set up by the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA), Singapore Shipping Association (SSA), Singapore Maritime Officers’ Union (SMOU), and Singapore Organisation of Seamen (SOS) to upstream the movement of seafarers.

“We saw Singapore as one of the more progressive maritime countries who wanted to take responsibility in a moment of a very challenging global leadership. My most frustrating part is, despite many meetings with governments, despite the common sense position that none of our societies can survive without the global supply chain and the seafarer, truck driver, warehouse worker, the rules were still being made to make it nearly impossible to move people around. For us, the STAR Fund is a massive learning curve that took incredible hard work.”

Stephen Cotton is quick to add that though “one size doesn’t fit all”, the message sent out to the world is—if a country like Singapore is taking responsibility, then you should all be moving too.