Conflict in the US maritime industry: An account of historical cycles

Historically there have been only two groups involved in the conflict that has engulfed the US maritime industry for the past fifty years maritime labour unions and shipping companies. The configuration of these groups at different times in this struggle, has led to distinct periods of conflict in the industry. This paper analyses the basis and continuation of the problem.     

海商法的统一化——现状、问题与对策

海商法是随着航海贸易的发展而产生和完善起来的。它的国际性决定了其发展呈现一个总的趋势和原则——海商法的统一化。以国际公约、国际惯例、示范规则等形式表现的国际统一海商法在具有全方位、多领域、内容前瞻性等特点的同时,也存在大统一、小分散、法律冲突仍旧突出等问题。采用“默示承诺程序”,充分发挥海事国际组织的规范协调作用、利用统一冲突法等对策可以弥补缺陷。     

Employability skills of maritime business graduates: industry perspectives

The maritime industry underpins international business and world trade. As to be expected, business management is critical for the maritime industry, requiring highly trained individuals and teams to lead the development, implementation and control of sound contemporary management practices. Maritime business degrees are developed by universities to meet such demand by providing graduates with sufficient skills for the onshore business-related roles. This empirical study conducted in Australia, USA and Canada, investigates current and future industry employability skills for maritime business graduates through focus groups, individual interviews and an online survey with senior managers in maritime organisations. This study found the important employability skills for maritime business graduates which include communication, problem solving, adaptability, self-management, team work, and digital literacy and technology. Demand for digital literacy and technology knowledge and skills have increased due to the maritime industry having a trend of moving towards digitalisation and automation. However, the survey findings revealed that a skills focus for maritime business graduates will not be the technology itself but the use and management of technology. In relation to future skills/knowledge required from maritime business degree graduates in 10 years’ time, communication and adaptability are recognised as being the most important. Employers expect that maritime business graduates should be able to adopt new technology and be competent in communication, and be more adaptable given the highly dynamic nature of the maritime industry. Moreover, they require graduates to be equipped with a higher level of computer skills, have a strong work ethic and multilingual skills.     

海峡两岸海事监管法律制度的冲突及解决

文中分析了海峡两岸海事监管法律制度发生冲突的原因及其可能产生的问题,以区际法律冲突解决理论为指导,结合海峡两岸实际,提出参加共同的海事条约、制定全国统一海事监管法律、签署两岸专门协议等三种解决两岸海事监管法律冲突的途径。     

海事行业综合门户网站——中国海事服务网

<正>中国海事服务网(英文简称CNSS)成立于2006年,是集行业资讯与用户应用体验于一体的海事行业综合门户网站。经过几年的发展与完善,目前中国海事服务网已实现全方位覆盖整个海事行业,设有船员、船舶、航运、港口、游     

Rethinking maritime privatization in Africa

While recognizing the need for increased participation of the private sector in the maritime industry of developing countries, there is a need to go beyond the call for privatization in terms of mere change of ownership from state to private sector as the only solution to the inefficiency of the maritime industry in developing countries. This limited understanding of the maritime problems of these countries abounds in the literature on maritime privatization. This study departs from this approach and focuses on the political economy of the maritime industry, and suggests that maritime privatization will not necessarily result in increased efficiency of the divested maritime enterprises. Rather, it argues that maritime problems in these countries have less to do with ownership than with the structural constraints in world shipping together with internal management and local ~olitics. The maritime industrv in West and Central Africa is used as a case studv. and recommendations such as selective privatization, 'programme contract', and most importantly, corporatization, are suggested as alternative strategies that could enhance maritime privatization and the development of the maritime industry in developing countries.     

US shipping policy under conditions of a new world economic and political environment

The maritime policy of the US has evolved over more than 100 years from the support of US shipping through mail and fleet auxiliary contracts before the turn of the century, to the present array of direct and indirect Government aids and regulations based on the assumption that a strong maritime industry composed of both US-flag shipping and US-shipbuilding capacity is essential for the economic well-being and defence of the country. Notwithstanding massive direct and indirect aid to the US merchant marine, amounting to well over a billion dollars a year in recent years, US shipping and shipbuilding has declined dramatically and now comprises less than 3% of world shipping. Only 2.8% of US foreign trade by volume and 6% by value is today carried in US flag ships. Government aids constitute well over 33% of total revenues of US-flag shipping.

The traditional argument for US Government support has been the need for cost parity to permit US-flag shipping to compete effectively in international trade against foreign shipping serving the same routes with presumably lower operating costs. This argument is difficult to sustain today, as vessel costs of many other industrialized nations are now about equal to those of US-flag ships.

In 1970 the US enacted a new, vastly more liberal, maritime act for the support of the US maritime industry. Notwithstanding its even more liberal terms and elimination of the strict cost-parity interpretation, the US maritime industry continues its decline. The recent bankruptcy of two old, established subsidized shipping companies has caused tremors in the industry, yet no new ideas, policies, or plans seem to be forthcoming. It is the objective of this paper to study the development and effects of various historic US Government policies relating to the support of the US maritime industry, and evaluate the positions taken by proponents or opponents of the maritime policy leading to the policy development.

The decision processes are studied by evaluating literature on the evolution of Congressional, administration, industry, and labour interest and positions on the issue of Government aid to the maritime industry. The impact and effectiveness of various elements of past and present US maritime policy is evaluated in relation to the stated objectives. The alternatives to these policies are reviewed in the light of the changing US position in international trade, military strategy, and political objectives. In addition the effectiveness of the present and alternative policies is evaluated as it is and will be affected by changing technology in use, composition of ownership, and operations of US-flag shipping and shipbuilding.     

我国海运业在重点领域实施创新突破的问题和对策

目前海运业面临一系列新挑战,针对海运业创新重点领域所面临的问题和原因,从“激活主动性、发挥监督性和消除普遍性”三个方面,提出推动海运业在重点领域实现创新突破的对策。     

对航海类专业学生就业指导的思考

航海类专业是海上艰苦行业,做好航海类专业的就业指导工作,有利于优化航海人才资源配置,促进我国航运事业的持续健康发展。针对航海类专业学生在就业中存在的问题,提出航海类专业学生就业指导的建议。     

Expansionism: new forms of old conflicts for US maritime labour unions

This paper analyses the new round of conflict that has recently emerged among US maritime laour unions. The implications of the 'top to bottom' union, which appears to be the new form of union, are also discussed.     

Career development for women in maritime industry: organisation and socialisation perspectives

For centuries, the maritime industry has been a recognised place in society dominated solely by men, and even though there were women involved, they were mostly on the periphery. This research aims to fill the gap of women’s career development in this field, by investigating the relationships among the degree of organisational socialisation, women’s workplace culture, and the career development of women in the maritime workplace. The analyses are conducted with the structural equation model with 202 valid questionnaires. The results indicated that women’s workplace culture has a significantly negative relationship with the degree of organisational socialisation, and then in turn, it has a significantly positive relationship with women’s career development in the maritime industry. Finally, the results also indicate that the mediating effect of organisational socialisation existed between women’s workplace culture and women’s career development. According to the empirical analysis, this study makes conclusions as well as suggestions for the maritime enterprises as the reference for human resource management.     

Consistency in the development of performance assessment methods in the maritime domain

The maritime industry is considered to be a backbone of the global economy. It is therefore imperative to ensure that maritime operations run safely and efficiently. Assessment of maritime performance is necessary for designers and engineers to be able to pinpoint the weakest links in the system and make impactful system improvements. The current article presents a systematic quantitative literature review of research on performance assessment in the maritime industry with the goal of establishing an understanding of accuracy and consistency in the development of methods used to assess performance. The review focuses on four major segments within the industry—port logistics, ship handling, safety and environmental research—and investigates their uses in developing accurate and consistent performance assessment methods. After the completion of an exclusion process, 62 articles published in a wide range of academic journals were used in the analysis. Two important conclusions were drawn from the analysis. First, performance assessment is generally consistent throughout the maritime industry; most papers used accurate and consistent approaches to develop the methods (n?=?43). A subsequent bivariate analysis revealed a call for increased attention to the development of assessment methods within the maritime segment of ship handling. The current study suggests and discusses certain directions with regard to assessment research in the maritime industry.     

Changing policies in Eastern Europe and their impact on the maritime field: experiences from Eastern Germany

The political changes that occured in Eastern Europe from the late 1980s coincided in the fromer German Democratic Republic (GDR) with the reunification of Germany. The economic result was the existence of a split economy in Germany. Within the maritime field the problem had to be solved by a change over of the former GDR's maritime industry from the centrally-planned command type economy as its failure was evident. Three economic factors were identified as the main causes for the failure which made, together with some other negatives, the collapse inevitable. The transition of the East German maritime industry started immediately after reunification. In the maritime field, two different forms of economic transition have been applied. Using the examples of the main shipping company and the seaports the economic transition process has been analyzed and some basic conclusions regarding the substance and methods of economic transition have been drawn.     

论我国海事赔偿责任限制制度

海事赔偿责任限制是我国《海商法》中的一项重要法律制度。其立法及施行涉及到国内法和外国法的法律适用和法律冲突。如何看待和处理这些问题,将有助于对这一海事领域所特有的制度的理解。此文就我国海事赔偿责任限制制度中存在的一些问题作了探讨。     

Evaluating the knowledge of experts in the maritime regulatory field

Regulations are introduced by the International Maritime Organization (IMO) into the maritime industry as the result of safety accidents and/or pollution incidents. When there is lack of historical data, then the IMO appoints experts in order to collect information regarding the costs and benefits generated to a stakeholder of the maritime industry once implementing a maritime regulation. Therefore, the role of experts in providing qualitative and quantitative information is crucial with respect to the quality of the maritime regulatory process within the IMO or other regulatory authorities. In this article, a methodology is proposed involving common criteria in determining the expertise of an individual in the maritime regulatory field. As essential part of the research methodology, analytic hierarchy process (AHP) is utilized to determine the expertise of an individual based on his/her own judgements. The regulatory authorities and other stakeholders of the maritime industry may use this method when selecting experts for decision-making. In this article, a simulation is carried showing the potentials of the AHP methodology in expertise evaluation followed by a case study.     

无人船在港口水域海事监管中的应用探讨

近年来,随着与船舶自主航行相关的信息技术、人工智能技术水平的提高,无人船舶行业取得了长足的发展,其在海上安保、环境监测等领域应用也越来越成熟。为推动无人船在海事管理方面的应用研究,破解港口水域海事监管手段不足的瓶颈问题,文中在分析港口水域海事监管特点和无人船系统建设条件的基础上,定量研究了无人船在港口水域海事监管应用面临的性能指标确定、船型平台选择、载荷设备搭配、运行管理体系建设等方面的具体问题,提出了一种港口水域海事监管无人船系统的应用解决方案。     

Maritime policy in Scotland

This paper begins by defining the meaning of the term ‘maritime policy’. Since devolution in the UK, the opening of the new Scottish parliament in 1998 and the creation of the Scottish Executive, little effort has been made to establish a distinct maritime policy for Scotland. As was evident prior to devolution, the primary emphasis from any maritime policy perspective has continued to be a focus on lifeline island ferry services. This ignores significant developments in several other key maritime transport sectors, and this paper provides examples of areas that require some form of policy response, including intra-European short sea shipping, UK coastal shipping, urban/river transport and global container shipping. Long-standing institutional bias against maritime transport coupled with subsidy devoted almost entirely to land transport systems has resulted in a quite distorted marketplace. This suggests that a maritime policy is now imperative if maritime transport is to play a more significant role in the overall transport system. Further discussion centres on the need to consider, from a Scottish policy perspective, the role of various state-sponsored maritime service providers and how these bodies might fit better within evolving policy. The conclusion is that formulation of a maritime policy by the Scottish Executive is overdue and that a degree of restructuring of transport responsibilities within the Executive, combined with adequate resource allocation towards the maritime industry, will be necessary in order that market distortions can be overcome, so enabling Scotland to fully exploit the competitive and environmental advantages that maritime transport can provide.     

Maritime policy in Scotland

This paper begins by defining the meaning of the term 'maritime policy'. Since devolution in the UK, the opening of the new Scottish parliament in 1998 and the creation of the Scottish Executive, little effort has been made to establish a distinct maritime policy for Scotland. As was evident prior to devolution, the primary emphasis from any maritime policy perspective has continued to be a focus on lifeline island ferry services. This ignores significant developments in several other key maritime transport sectors, and this paper provides examples of areas that require some form of policy response, including intra-European short sea shipping, UK coastal shipping, urban/river transport and global container shipping. Long-standing institutional bias against maritime transport coupled with subsidy devoted almost entirely to land transport systems has resulted in a quite distorted marketplace. This suggests that a maritime policy is now imperative if maritime transport is to play a more significant role in the overall transport system. Further discussion centres on the need to consider, from a Scottish policy perspective, the role of various state-sponsored maritime service providers and how these bodies might fit better within evolving policy. The conclusion is that formulation of a maritime policy by the Scottish Executive is overdue and that a degree of restructuring of transport responsibilities within the Executive, combined with adequate resource allocation towards the maritime industry, will be necessary in order that market distortions can be overcome, so enabling Scotland to fully exploit the competitive and environmental advantages that maritime transport can provide.     

A method for extracting key performance indicators from maritime safety management norms

The maritime transportation industry currently employs several mandatory and non-mandatory norms of organizational safety management. These safety norms are commonly included in integrated maritime safety management systems, which aim at developing, monitoring, controlling and improving the safety of all related shipping operations. These systems are typically evaluated by following key performance indicators, which enable defined measures for various safety management components. However, the identification of indicators addressing safety management requirements constitutes a complex and generally unsystematic process for safety managers in the maritime industry. This article proposes a new method to assess the guidelines available in maritime safety management norms. The proposed method is applied to assess the content of two maritime safety management norms. The aim of this assessment is to identify a set of maritime safety management indicators that can systematically measure the most relevant components of maritime safety management. The application of this method resulted in the identification of 53 key performance indicators for monitoring and reviewing 23 identified safety management components that are commonly integrated into the functioning of maritime safety management systems. The method proposed provides guidance to accurately capture the actual aim and function of the key performance indicators. Furthermore, the indicators and safety components obtained with this method can be adopted as the basis for a safety management system and/or for the analysis of a safety management system already established in the industry.     

The growth of fleets registered in the newly-emerging maritime countries and maritime crises

This paper suggests the existence of a feedback relationship between the dynamic entrance of less-developed countries in shipping and the prolongation and deepening of maritime crises. The duration and extent of the transitional period of crisis depends also on the specific terms of the 'succession' procedure between fleets with different cost levels. During the last major maritime crisis, nations at a less advanced stage of development entered the maritime industry producing a service that had become—more or less—'standardized', following the Vernon product cycle more than all other cycles. The distribution of world tonnage among the different groups of countries underwent major changes as the effects of the economic crisis after 1973, which coincided with developments in the supply of tonnage, created favourable conditions for the rise of the lower cost fleets of developing countries, in a feedback relationship. The restoration of freight levels during the late 80s and early 90s, which was accompanied by a certain stabilization in the various groups of countries' shares in the world fleet, corroborates from the opposite direction the hypothesis of a close interrelationship between maritime crisis and changes in the international hierarchy in shipping.