South Africa studying PHL model in globalizing maritime labor force

SOUTH AFRICA is looking at Philippine maritime industry practices to globalize its own maritime workforce, according to a South African academic.

“The state is often an active agent of globalization, it can influence the trajectories and the directions in which globalization takes,” said Shaun Ruggunan, professor in the School of Management, IT, and Governance, College of Law and Management at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa.

“We see with the Filipino state, that it has successfully managed to make Filipino seafarers dominant in the seafaring labor market, thereby shaping some of the trajectory of globalization,” he said during a University of the Philippines Diliman School of Labor and Industrial Relations event late Wednesday.

He said South Africa is “really” interested in the Philippine model, specifically the labor-for-export approach.

He noted South African unemployment is close to 50%. In his province of KwaZulu-Nata, one out of three are unemployed.

Mr. Ruggunan said this problem is what drove the South African government to follow the Philippines’ lead in maritime labor.

There are around 7,000 South African seafarers, which he said “is not a lot” compared to the 400,000 to 600,000 Filipino seafarers. His reaching the Filipino level of employment in the industry is the “vision” of the South African government.

South African shipping companies are often the “losers” in terms of international shipping labor markets, he added.

“We simply haven’t been able to engage with globalization or emulate the policies as the Philippines has,” he said.

He said the need for racial equity has shaped South African policy since the end of apartheid.

“The state was more interested in ‘we need racial equity in the seafarers that we produce,’” he said.

“Historically, you can only be an officer if you were a white South African,” he added. “The state was very interested in trying to get black South Africans to be seafarers and more women to train as seafarers.”

However, he said, the global labor market does not care about South Africa’s issues. It is more interested in a trained and equipped labor force.

“In South Africa, we take more pride in having a diverse seafaring market,” he said.

Mr. Ruggunan noted that technology “may require fewer people to work and there may be certain jobs that are not needed because they are now automated.”

“The shipping industry shows how quickly work and labor markets can be restructured, even for highly skilled people.” — Chloe Mari A. Hufana