the double punishment of cruise employees

“Cruise to Nowhere”, or “cruise to nowhere”. It is with this format of stay at sea, which boils down to sailing aimlessly several days and nights, before returning to the point of departure, that the cruise industry is trying to revive itself, for lack of ports willing to welcome these passengers. Sixteen cruise ships around the world currently operate, or around 5% of usual traffic. The activity is notably blocked by the ban on navigation still in force in the United States, the union of cruise lines, the Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA), hoping for an authorization in July.

At the end of 2020, the cumulative debt of the three main operators (Carnival, Royal Caribbean and Norwegian Cruise Line) reached 60 billion dollars (approximately 50.5 billion euros). For them, the recovery in 2021 is vital. However, it is the social figures that the CLIA waves in front of political decision-makers to push for a restart: before the crisis linked to Covid-19, the sector represented 1.16 million direct and indirect jobs. “Every day without cruises, 2,500 jobs are lost”, ensures the organization.

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“Cruise to Nowhere”, it has also been the life for a year of the employees of the giants of the seas, of which two-thirds (according to the latest study to date, which dates back to 2005) come from developing countries in South-East Asia and ‘Latin America. Waiters, cooks, entertainers, housekeepers, crew members… Cruise staff live on fixed-term contracts, from three to nine months, and under labor law that is very favorable to the employer. All found themselves without a safety net when the cruises ended in March 2020.

Lasting psychological consequences

It was first necessary to survive the many months of isolation on board, the transshipment from one boat to another, the lack of information on the circulation of the virus on board. Few countries have been in a hurry to organize the repatriation of their fellow citizens stranded on boats then considered to be hotbeds of SARS-Cov-2 infection. From one company to another, the attitude varied: some facilitated repatriation and continued to pay their stranded employees; others have stopped all payments and slowed down the departure of their workforce. In August 2020, five months after the end of travel, the International Federation of Transport Employees announced the end of the repatriation of some 250,000 cruise employees.

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