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WHAT’S NEW
- Currents Newsletter Fall 2007
- The Seamen's Church Institute continues to oppose efforts in the
United States Congress to amend the Penalty Wage Statute, a 1790
statute that penalizes owners who delay payment of wages without good
cause. SCI believes this statue is necessary to deter unscrupulous
owners from wrongfully withholding wages and that it does not adversely
effect conscientious shipowners.
- The Seamen's Church Institute submitted two comments to the
proposed rulemaking to implement the Transportation Worker Identity
Credential (TWIC). The first addressed the TWIC's potential impact on
port chaplains, and urged rule makers to reinforce the importance of
chaplain access to terminals and vessels, to exempt chaplains from the
fees associated with the TWIC, and to encourage ratification of
ILO-185, a comparable identification document for foreign seafarers.
The second submission focused on the potential impact of the TWIC on
the inland waterways mariners and businesses. Specific concerns include
the effectiveness of the TWIC as applied to the infrastructure of the
inland waterways, ensuring that the cost, time and inconvenience of
applying for the TWIC do not serve as a deterrent for industry
recruitment, and the potential burden of requiring handheld card
readers on individual operators and vessels.
- At the request of the United States Coast Guard, SCI attorney
Douglas Stevenson will travel to Paris, France in October to
participate as an advisor to the United States Delegation to the
Ninety-Second Session of the Legal Committee of the International
Maritime Organization. The Committee intends to convene an Ad Hoc
Working Group to review and propose revisions to the Joint IMO/ILO
Guidelines for the Fair Treatment of Seafarers in the Event of a
Maritime Accident. SCI has worked to promote standards of fair
treatment of seafarers held as material witnesses in cases of alleged
environmental dumping as a result of its interactions with numerous
seafarers detained for months at a time.
- Seamen's Church Institute lawyers recently won an extended campaign
to recover outstanding wages of a group of Ukrainian seafarers who had
signed off their vessel in January. They also assisted an injured
seafarer with medical treatment and securing nine months of back wages,
and they worked with a local seafarers' center in South Carolina to
provide counsel and support to the detained crew of an arrested vessel,
trapped on board for months.
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