It’s September. And we’re back blogging after a busy summer helping with training and solidarity work, and assisting seafarers who were injured or hadn’t been paid or were trapped aboard by owners too cheap to fly them home as their contracts ended.
Look for a lively fall offering from the ITF’s Canadian inspectors team.
The three of us travel this month to Montreal for the Maritime Roundtable 2016. That’s where activists and upcoming leaders from the world’s maritime labour family will meet to share ideas on organizing and campaigning and prosecuting our Flag of Convenience campaign on behalf of seafarers. Canadian maritime unions are delighted to be welcoming international delegates with such shining activist backgrounds in solidarity work. Our own inspectors — Karl Risser, Vince Giannopoulos and Peter Lahay — are looking forward to working with them, and delegates should feel free to tap us for anything at all they need during their stay.
We’ll be meeting against the grim backdrop of the Hanjin bankruptcy, something we’ll be addressing in later posts. The situation is likely to take some time to resolve; look for us to weigh in as it does.
We’ll also be introducing our entire team of inspectors soon, now that we’ve all settled into our work. Our time on the gangways has only strengthened our resolve to lean in to the job of assisting the workers who move the world’s economy, often at a considerable personal cost.
And of course we’ll be reporting in on cases across the country as they arise.
It’s nice to be back in touch.
The ITF in Canada 