(Page 2 of 17) - Labour Flexiblization at Sea: The ?Mini UN? Crew aboard Cruise Ships authored by Chin, Christine.

The profile of seafarers has changed dramatically since the early 20

century

when transatlantic ocean vessels of traditional maritime countries in the North carried
single nationality crews. Today, anyone who has been on a large cruise ship in North
America, Europe or Southeast Asia can attest to the presence of seafarers from all over
the world. While captains or ‘masters’ of large cruise ships overwhelmingly are men
from Western Europe, junior officers and lower level hotel staff (e.g., deck and cabin
stewards) are men seafarers recruited mostly from Asia, Latin America, and Eastern
Europe.

The nexus of nationality-racial/ethnic-gender-class characterizes cruise ship

employment today. Depending on the cruise line, Western and to a lesser extent, Eastern
European women are placed in front-line positions of receptionists, casino hosts, guest
relations officers, and entertainers. Meanwhile, Southeast Asian men may be found in
restaurants as busboys and waiters while Southeast Asian women are placed
predominantly as cabin stewardesses. Crew stratification of this kind raises an important
question: Why and how have cruise lines come to employ transnational women and men
migrant workers, under what conditions and with what consequences?

This paper asserts that while multinational crew on cruise ships is the result of

labour deregulation that began in the maritime sector during the mid-late 20

century,

their recruitment and shipboard placement are not delimited solely by low wages. Rather,
identity modalities of nationality, race/ethnicity, and gender mediate efforts to keep down
labour costs. In this way, labour flexibilization processes at sea are not neutral or
determined exclusively by the free market formula of labour demand and supply.
Although crew diversity on cruise ships appears to signify a globalized multicultural
workplace at sea, the recruitment and employment of transnational migrant labour
disclose a troubling trend of constructing and affirming hierarchical identities reminiscent
of land-based practices in the past centuries.

The first part of this paper offers a discussion of the manner in which the

maritime “flag of convenience” system underwrites labour flexibilization at sea. This is
followed by an analysis of cruise lines’ employment practices to ascertain their primary
objectives in sourcing and placing transnational migrant workers on their vessels. The
analysis is derived from primary and secondary sources, i.e., from dockside interviews of
seafarers and seafarer mission representatives, and from journal and trade publications.

‘Flags of Convenience”: Oceanic Variant of ‘Parceling Out’ Responsibility

In this post-Fordist era of flexible accumulation, the oft-used phrase “labour

flexibilization” is a euphemism employed to couch the processes of socially
reconstructing labour, i.e., to render labour less demanding in relation to capital.

know today that many states facilitate “internal” (e.g., work hours, wages, tasks) and
“external” (e.g., subcontracting and outsourcing) labour flexibilization on land via
policies and legislation pertaining to the establishment (or not) of minimum wages, the
ability of firms to out-source or subcontract jobs (to labour contractors and employment
agencies, hence shield themselves from accountability and responsibility to workers), the
promotion of contingent employment (direct hiring for part-timers, trainees and so forth
with no job security), the right of workers to collective action, and so forth that attempt to
“naturalize” new meanings and conditions of work.

Particularly for the working classes,

labour flexibilization is experienced as job and income insecurity that accompany
declining opportunities for advancement and for seeking legal recourse in many cases of
work-related disputes.