(With video) A new “bill of rights” – the ILO’s Maritime Labour Convention, 2006 (MLC, 2006) – comes into force today 20 August, ensuring protection for the world’s 1.5 million seafarers and fair competition for shipowners.
The MLC, 2006 brings together international minimum standards to ensure decent work for seafarers, while helping to provide a level playing field for quality shipowners operating under the flag of countries that have ratified the MLC, 2006. The goal is to make sure that decent working conditions go hand in hand with fair competition.
45 Member States Have Ratified the MLC
The new convention becomes binding international law as of 20 August. It needed ratification by thirty ILO member States, representing more than 33 per cent of the world’s gross shipping tonnage to enter into force. To date, more than 45 ILO member States representing more than seventy per cent of global gross shipping tonnage have ratified the convention.
EU and Port State Control Adopt Convention
The MLC, 2006 also has the strong support of the International Maritime Organisation (IMO), which oversees the global shipping sector, that moves some ninety per cent of world trade. The European Union has adopted directives to give effect to the convention, while the Paris MOU and the Tokyo MOU, which are port state control regional organisations have adopted MLC, 2006 compliant guidelines to strengthen port state control inspections.
MLC Now Binding for Thirty Countries
On August 20, 2013, the MLC, 2006 becomes binding international law for the first thirty countries with registered ratifications on August 20, 2012. For all other countries that have ratified, it will enter in force twelve months after their ratifications were registered.
Below a video of ILO Director-General Guy Ryder on the coming into force of the convention.
