Nederlands welzijnswerk zeevarenden onder financiƫle druk
On March 29, the board of the Dutch Seafarers' Centre (Nederlandse Zeevarendencentrale Centrum NZC) will hand over the report "Facilities and funding needs for seafarer welfare in Dutch seaports" to the deputy of Minister Harbers of Infrastructure and Water Management. The report was prepared, at the request of the NZC, by researchers from Erasmus University.
There are two main conclusions. The centers for seafarers perform an extremely valuable function. It also appears that the welfare facilities for seafarers in Dutch seaports are under structural pressure and have partially collapsed.
For example, the one million seafarers who call at Dutch seaports are by no means all able to go ashore for a while. They indicate that they would like to. The failure to do so is due to cumbersome safety regulations, time pressure and fatigue. Equally important, in a number of port areas, facilities such as a seaman's house and a bus service are simply lacking or insufficient. This is true, for example, in Rotterdam.
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
The report also notes that things are different in neighboring countries. In the ports of Hamburg and Antwerp, governments and companies are working together. The result is structural financing of welfare facilities.
The impetus for the report is the Postma motion that was passed almost House-wide on Nov. 19, 2020. The motion is based on a petition from the NZC. The NZC has been working in the Netherlands for the welfare of seafarers in a Dutch ports for 130 years. The NZC wants to engage as soon as possible with relevant parties such as port operators and other maritime stakeholders including national and local governments to improve the welfare for seafarers in the Netherlands.
*Researchers: Maurice Jansen MSc and Hannah Mosmans MSc Erasmus University Erasmus Centre for Urban, Port and Transport Economics
Download the report here (Dutch):
