The action week is a part of an ongoing campaign to highlight the dangers posed by FOC vessels to the crews that sail on them and the oceans they sail through. The action week will also seek to focus attention on attacks on port workers in a number of countries whose jobs and working conditions are being threatened due to deregulation and privatisation.

ITF expects widespread support for the agitation in all the countries of the region including India, Australia and the Philippines.

In India, ITF persons would be inspecting FOC vessels and their working conditions. In case of sub-standard conditions, ITF along with dock workers would boycott the vessel. ITF claims to enjoy the support of 1.3 lakh dockers and port workers in all the 11 major ports.

The observance of action week is an annual exercise. According to ITF, last year more than a quarter million workers in 74 ports in 19 countries across the region participated in the campaign and netted more than $1 million in back pay owed to seafarers.

In India, ITF affiliated seafarers and dockers unions in major ports inspected over 100 ships and thousands of dollars in back wages were collected for underpaid seafarers.

ITF unions have been fighting the FOC system for five decades now after the campaign was first launched in 1948 in the United Kingdom. The organisation claims to create a link between the nationality of a ship and its owner and setting minimum standards on wages and conditions of employment on flagged out ships.

According to Mahendra Sharma, assistant regional secretary, Asia Pacific region, ITF, cheap registration fees, tax avoidance and avoidance of ship safety and labour standards are the driving forces behind the spread of the FOC phenomenon. On an average, one in every five ships still fly flags of convenience.