Direct Request (CEACR) - adopted 1994, published 81st ILC session (1994)

Article 8 of the Convention. The Committee draws the Government's attention to the need to guarantee that seafarers can obtain more specific information on board as to their conditions of employment and satisfy themselves as to the nature and extent of their rights and obligations. The Committee hopes that the relevant legislation will be amended in order to introduce the necessary provisions to this effect in accordance with this Article of the Convention.

Article 9, paragraph 1. The Committee notes the prohibition of terminating an agreement of a seafarer while the vessel is at sea or in a foreign port, except when the seafarer has been taken on in that country (section 353 of the Organic Labour Act of 1990), which provides protection which is more favourable to the seafarer than the protection contained in the Convention. With reference to section 98 of the above Act, which includes resignation among the forms of terminating the employment relationship, the Committee notes nevertheless that in accordance with section 5 of the Regulations of 1992 respecting employment on board vessels at sea and in lakes, the contract of employment cannot be terminated when the vessel is in foreign waters or unpopulated places, which in practice, when a vessel undertakes long voyages without returning to a Venezuelan port, can result in an important limitation on the right of seafarers to terminate their employment agreement. The Committee hopes that the above provision will be amended in order to permit the termination by seafarers of contracts without limit of time in any port where the vessel loads or unloads, provided that the notice specified in the agreement has been given, even when the vessel is in ports in foreign waters.

Article 13, paragraph 1. The Committee notes the Government's reply to its previous comments on this point and, in particular, the reference which it makes to sections 100 and 107 of the Organic Labour Act, which deal with resignation and the notice to be given for the voluntary resignation which brings to an end, without legally justifying grounds, an employment relationship for an indefinite period. Nevertheless, the Committee notes that, contrary to the Convention, the possibility that a seafarer might obtain command of a vessel or an appointment as mate or engineer or to any other post of a higher grade than he actually holds, or that any other circumstance has arisen since the engagement which renders it essential to his interests that he should be permitted to take his discharge, is not explicitly considered as a ground for resignation or included in the clauses set out in the above Act (section 103). Moreover, the Committee notes that in the event of the seafarer without legal grounds terminates an employment contract for a definite period before the end of the period, the seafarer is obliged to pay the employer compensation for damages (section 110). The Committee therefore reiterates its previous comments to the effect that the above legislation should be amended in order to bring it into conformity with this provision of the Convention.

Article 14, paragraph 2. The Committee notes the provisions of section 111 of the Organic Labour Act, to which the Government refers in its report, and finds that the above provision not only does not provide for the possibility at all times of seafarers obtaining from the master a separate certificate as to the quality of their work or, failing that, a certificate indicating whether they have fully discharged their obligations under the agreement, but that it prohibits any other reference being made in the record of work than those for which specific provision is made (duration of the employment relationship, the last wage paid and the position held). The Committee is bound to hope once again that the above legislation will be amended to conform to this provision of the Convention.

Furthermore, the Committee notes that section 335 of the Organic Labour Act provides that employment contracts are to be concluded in the absence of a collective agreement. The Committee draws the Government's attention to the obligation which derives from the ratification of the Convention to take the necessary measures to ensure that seafarers are employed under articles of agreement signed by the shipowner or his representative (Article 3 of the Convention), even in the case that the employment relationship is covered by a collective agreement. In this respect, the Committee recalls that the information mentioned in Article 6, paragraph 3, and which is generally provided for under section 2 of the above Regulations, must in all cases be included in the above articles of agreement and cannot, by its very nature, be set out in collective agreements.