Many of us know that multi national corporations evade paying taxes by headquartering themselves in tax havens like Barbados and the Cayman Islands. These same global corporations shuffle their debts around the world, through secondary companies, to tax jurisdictions with higher or lower interest rates to suit whatever profit making agenda they have that week. Effectively, they are not paying taxes to the jurisdictions where their workforces reside, basically using a region for it's labor and giving nothing back to the communities that earn profits for them.
The International Transport workers Federation has been at the forefront of a global campaign to raise awareness of a similar system in the shipping, transport and now aviation sectors. Historically, if a German vessel came to port, it was built by Germans, owned by Germans and crewed by Germans. Anybody that works along the shore can tell you that this is not the case these days. Starting in the 1920's vessel's started being registered in various impoverished nation states around the world. This was done to cut costs and cut corners and is done today for the exact same reasons. Panama, Monrovia & The Marshall Islands are the most common FOC ship registrars. A ship registered under a Flag of Convenience, regardless of who owns it, or where it was built, is now registered with a third world country happy to receive much needed funds. That ship and it's crew, who are mostly from the Philippines or China these days, are now subject to the laws & regulations of the country it is registered in. This includes taxes, safety, environmental laws and things like the well being and payment of the crew in many cases being a gross modern version of indentured servitude.
Last year a vessel named the "Sider Pink" birthed up the river in Sacramento, CA. The crew was emaciated and starving and hadn't been paid for months. The vessel hadn't been re-supplied and the crew told the Coast Guard they had been pulling up seaweed for food. The Greek owner had registered the vessel under a flag of convenience in the West African, Liberian capitol of Monrovia. Luckily, Longshore workers spotted the crew and called in the ITF and Coast Guard who immediately stopped the ship from leaving until the crew was taken care of and legal retribution hashed out . The Greek ship owner amazingly had concealed his whole shipping operation under a series of small bogus, side companies.
Don't worry, here in the United States there is a piece of legislation known as the Jones Act. The Jones Act requires any vessel built in the United States to be registered here and crewed by U.S. citizens. It lays out the laws for the US Merchant Marine Fleet and even goes as far as requiring that 75% of the crew be born on US soil. This is because the United States Merchant Marines are an auxiliary force in time of war to move troops and cargo. Well that sounds good doesn't it? The United States is actually responsible and has our countries interest and our countries workers at heart? Well, right off the bat, the capitalists fucking hate it, because they can't stay competitive with a global fleet of ships whose owners are driving wages to the bottom and paying the bare minimum in taxes and fees to continue their conquest and enslavement of humankind. And all that imported shit we wear, drive and buy for our kids? Every dollar spent in this global economy makes us implicit in an unending list of crimes against humanity.
So anyways, what this rant is really about, is yesterday, the ITF began engaging the International Civil Aviation Organization at their annual conference in regards to the spread of Flags Of Convenience into the aviation sector.
Since we all fly much more frequently, then say, travel the high seas on a freighter, I figured this might be a bit more relevant and of interest to some of you. Cheers and have a nice day.
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