Nusrat Ghani and Guy Platten
Fri 27 Nov 2020 08.23 EST
Last modified on Fri 27 Nov 2020 08.29 EST
This weekend is one of the planet’s busiest shopping sprees, with an estimated £66bn to be spent in the UK alone over Black Friday and Cyber Monday, much of it online. Yet as shoppers click and wait to collect, there is a crisis at sea among the people whose work brings us these goods.
It is no exaggeration to say that without shipping the global marketplace would collapse. It is responsible for the movement of 90% of all global trade. Even in normal circumstances, more than a million seafarers labour daily on the vessels that make up the world cargo fleet, their work barely noticed by consumers. As Covid-19 has ravaged the world, they have helped keep the global economy functioning, unseen.
As Guardian Seascape has repeatedly reported, however, nearly 400,000 of these seafarers are trapped by the crew change crisis. Most have not been designated key workers during the pandemic, and have remained effectively imprisoned on board their vessels – unable to change crews at ports, and therefore unable to return to their homes and loved ones.
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As things stand, a few major retailers are poised to profit immensely
from the work of seafearers in the rush for goods on Black Friday and
Cyber Monday. The International Chamber of Shipping has written an open letter to Jeff Bezos,
CEO of Amazon, asking him to use his influence to exert pressure on
governments to recognise seafarers as key workers, so that they can
change crews, go home and be reunited with their families.
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