DEEP SEA AND FOREIGN GOING

RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: february 2014 :: RMTnews 26 O nce a major part of our national identity, the seafaring world is now obscure, badly regulated and yet, with more than 100,000 freighters on the seas carrying 90 per cent of world trade, far more influential to our daily lives than at any time in history. In Deep Sea and Foreign Going: Inside Shipping, the Invisible Industry That Brings You 90% of Everything George pursues the dark truths behind the industry that brings us almost everything we eat, wear and work with takes her across the globe, from Felixstowe to Singapore. She follows the vast routes travelled by mercantile and naval fleets, pirate gangs and illegal floating factories, meeting seafarers, dockworkers, tycoons, missionaries, stevedores, ship- spotters, beachcombers, environmentalists and even whales along the way. She reports on those who spend their working lives on ships and investigates the poor regulation endemic in the shipping industry which leaves crews with little protection and allows companies to deny their responsibilities. With stories of pirates, pollution, wreckage, rescue, mapping, navigation and invisibility, this is essential reading for anyone curious about the complex systems behind our convenient modern world. According to Rose George, even the men who work on container ships don't show much interest in the boxes they transport. On board an English train she looks at the headphones, uniforms and trolley food in front of her and explains that almost all of them have been brought here by ship. The reason is economics: shipping has become so cheap, she explains, that it's less costly for Scottish cod to be sent 10,000 miles to China to be filleted and then exported back to restaurants here than it is to pay the (already small) salaries of Scottish filleters. Modern sailors are people from India, Bangladesh, Ukraine and Russia. Most populous of all are Filipinos, who are lured not only by the wages but by aggressive advertising that casts mariners as heroes whose remittances – amounting to many billions of dollars annually – support the nation. Many work more than 85 hours a week and are given meagre provisions. It is not uncommon for them to be abandoned on ships for months without pay. Deep Sea and Foreign Going: Inside Shipping, the Invisible Industry That Brings You 90% of Everything by Rose George, Portobello books £14.99p DEEP SEA AND FOREIGN GOING Author Rosa George exposes the secret world of deep sea shipping