Direct Request (CEACR) - adopted 2010, published 100th ILC session (2011)

Placing of Seamen Convention, 1920 (No. 9) - Uruguay (Ratification: 1933)

Articles 2–5 of the Convention. Recruitment agencies for seafarers. The Committee has been requesting the Government for several years to clarify the state of law and practice concerning the operation of public employment offices for seafarers. In successive reports, the Government has failed to provide clear information on the organization and functioning of the Office for the recruitment of seafarers which appears to have replaced the Register of Personnel of the Merchant Marine which was established by Decree No. 463/968 of 23 July 1968. In addition, the Government has not been in a position to indicate whether the bipartite advisory committee, established by Decree No. 600/77, has been set up in practice and whether it is currently in operation. The Committee is therefore obliged once again to request the Government to provide full particulars on the existing system of public employment offices for seafarers, including copies of any relevant legislative or regulatory texts not previously communicated to the Office.

Article 10. Employment information. The Committee requests the Government to provide up-to-date information on seafarers’ unemployment and the work of the Office for the recruitment of seafarers, including for instance the number of job applications received and vacancies notified and the number of persons placed in employment.

Finally, the Committee takes this opportunity to recall that at the proposal of the Working Party on Policy regarding the Revision of Standards, the ILO Governing Body considered that Convention No. 9 is an outdated instrument and invited the States parties to this Convention to consider ratifying the Recruitment and Placement of Seafarers Convention, 1996 (No. 179), (GB.283/LILS/WP/PRS/1/2, paragraph 12). However, most of the provisions of Convention No. 179 have since been incorporated and further expanded in Regulation 1.4, Standard A1.4 and Guideline B1.4 of the Maritime Labour Convention, 2006 (MLC, 2006), which revises Conventions Nos 9 and 179, as well as 66 other international maritime labour instruments. The Committee therefore hopes that the Government will ratify the MLC, 2006, in the very near future and requests the Government to keep the Office informed of any decisions taken in this respect.