The crew change crisis continues. Some very strong remarks by Hugo De Stoop, CEO of Belgian tanker giant Euronav, at the International Chamber of Shipping webinar indicated that ship owners’ desire to hide out from problems like crew welfare means they have no power to force governments to let their nationals back in. Their flag states have little influence on the world stage.
It’s the worst crisis in 200 years. And it’s a humanitarian crisis, as so many of the COVID-19-induced crises are. Who will step up and take action?
Teamsters for a Democratic Union warns of driver harassment issues. The Teamsters Union itself has not expressed opposition. The problem has to do with visual devices that watch the road to tell the driver if she is drifting to the side or if there is a hazard there; and a device that monitors driving habits facing inward and monitors the driver.
It seems to me that current technology for lane monitoring would be better and is highly refined for passenger cars. For the UPS fleet it would be extremely costly to retrofit, so they are looking at a cheaper solution than buying new trucks. If they record the data, they could use it to discipline drivers that ‘wander too far around on the road’. would this be ethical? I don’t think we would like it if the driver’s license departments in your state could monitor your car system and decide to lift your license or retest you as a result. At some level we have to trust drivers to self-police and do the right thing.
We already have a lot of in-cab warning devices. We have lights, bells, and buzzers depending on the vehicle and the warning. Too many warning devices runs the risk that there are too many annoyances for the driver. I think the devil is in the details; what is actually in the cab for warning the driver now, and what are we adding?
Modern slavery is not like the kind we know from the colonial era. Instead, people have no permanent jobs or benefits, and there are no rules controlling their employment relations; or perhaps there are not even jobs to be found. Society for most becomes anarchy, nations of refugees with nowhere to be, nothing to do.
According to this report, quite a few countries, mostly in the far east, are moving into a high risk category because of layoffs and dislocations due to the virus. In a sense, though it is happening everywhere, even in the US. People can’t find jobs, and it’s likely to continue long after the virus passes out of daily consciousness, as companies figure out how to do more with less. We will be converted to nations of gig workers with fewer and fewer gigs.
