Work on Costa Cruises ships. Award to the investigation by Stefano Vergine
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"14-hour daily shifts, 7 out of 7, with no rest days. For 9 months in a row and a salary of 710 euros per month. Then at home, without pay, until the new contract. This is how the life of Carlos Chavarri, a Peruvian from Lima went on for three years, until a box full of fruit slipped from his hands and shattered his left knee. He was a chef aboard the ships of Costa Cruises, the world giant of holidays on the sea. 'I still suffer from knee osteoarthritis even now, despite several operations, and this prevents me from working', says he, who is now 43 years old and unemployed.
Silvia Benavides, also from Lima, cleaned the cabins on the ships of the Costa. 'I worked 11-12 hours on normal days, 15-16 hours on passenger boarding and disembarking days. All without ever a day off, for a net salary of 1.400-1.500 euros per month ', she says. She lasted 18 years, until pain in her leg forced her to disembark. She is now 54 years old and unemployed.
It went even worse for Wilfredo Zevallos: 'I was a porter with shifts of 10-12 hours, no day off and an average salary of € 1.000 per month'. In 2014, a lumbar hernia knocked him down. Today he is back in his Cerro de Pascos: he is 46 years old and makes a living selling Amazon fruit".
Thus began the investigation by Stefano Vergine published in August 2021 on Fq Millenium, the monthly magazine of Fatto Quotidiano, has just been awarded a special mention in the context of the Swiss journalism award Carla Agustoni. "This insight - explained the jury of the award organized by AMCA, the Association for Medical Aid to Central America - it helps to open our eyes to a submerged reality such as that of work on cruise ships. The article associates content rigor, questioning all the parties involved, with an element of social denunciation".
Costa Cruises rejects the accusations
Working conditions on cruise ships you hardly ever hear about it. The former employees of Costa Cruises cited in this article investigation chose to do so, with name and surname, because they complain to Costa of having abandoned them to their fate after the injuries, of having used them as old irons.
Allegations that the company rejects, as well as denies cases of exploitation of workers: "The ships are equipped with an electronic system for detecting the hours worked for each crew member, precisely to monitor and ensure compliance with the rules. The legislation and trade union agreements require each seafarer to have a minimum of 10 hours of rest in a 24-hour period, and 77 hours of rest in a 7-day period. Moreover, Costa ships apply better conditions than those established by legislation, and in the case of overruns of rest hours, admissible only in the event of emergencies related to ship safety and reported by the computer system for detecting working hours, the hours of rest are compensated within the following 7 days".
The voice of the workers
Costa's version however, it does not match that of the workers interviewed. "Actual working hours", Said for example Silvia Benvaides,"they were not communicated via email, it was the head of our department who marked them on a sheet, but that was not what we really respected: we had to work many more hours than those marked". This version was confirmed by several other former Costa Cruises employees. Some who still work there today, and for this reason have asked for anonymity, others who have changed their lives in the meantime.
The conditions are not the same for everyone the employees, who in total are about 19 thousand. Europeans, who are usually assigned duties as naval officers and relations with clients, fare better than South Americans and Asians, who are entrusted with the heavier tasks, from cleaning to cooking, from table service to the dining room. cars.
The employment contract
Costa Cruises is the largest Italian tour operator. Part of the Carnival Corporation & plc Group, listed on the London and New York stock exchanges, is leader world sector with a fleet of 103 ships, on which the Italian employment contract is in force.
In theory, the only difference with Europeans is that non-EU citizens refer to section 13 of the contract, which provides for 8 hours of work from Monday to Friday, plus 4 hours on Saturdays. Obviously, if an employee works more, he is entitled to increases in his paycheck, but in any case it is not possible to exceed 191 hours of work per month, a ceiling that for Europeans is 180 hours.
From theory to practice
But this is the theory, because in practice things are different. Working at least 12 hours a day seven out of seven, as Silvia and Wilfredo say they have done for almost twenty years, means reaching 372 hours per month. Cooking for 14 hours a day without ever stopping, as Carlos says, means doing 434 hours a month. More than double those allowed. Divided by a salary of 710 euros per month, they lead to a wage of 1,6 euros per hour.
It happens today, in Italy. And the trade unionists, questioned in the public article by Fq Millenium, say they know nothing.
# SDG8, Decent work and economic growth
