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SIU active in meetings concerning mariner documentation (10/29)

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The SIU continues to participate in domestic and international meetings concerning mariner documentation under the auspices of the International Labor Organization. This initiative is designed to provide a substantially improved international mandate for seafarers identification standards, in response to 9/11. SIU Secretary-Treasurer David Heindel, vice chairman of the International Transport Workers’ Seafarers’ Section, represented the SIU earlier this month at meetings in Washington, D.C. and Geneva. Essentially, the United States and other nations are attempting to modify ILO guidelines in order to create new and improved mariner documents. Part of that improvement lies in making the mariner documents more consistent worldwide and provide for a biometric template that will assure authorities that the individual seafarer is who he claims to be. Nations are responding to an ILO questionnaire that is due by the end of this year. The ILO will include adoption of a revised Convention in the agenda for the 91st Session of the International Labor Conference, June, 2003. The December issue of the Seafarers Log will contain additional coverage on this subject.