Designating seafarers as keyworkers and prioritising vaccinations to keep trade moving

International organisations are calling on governments to put seafarers and frontline maritime shore workers at the head of the vaccine queue. We unpack what this means in terms of making the vaccination mandatory and the implications in terms of the labour law. 

Guy Platten, Secretary General of the ICS, commented: ‘The benefits of vaccinating those responsible for transporting the vaccine and PPE around the world should be obvious. Governments must class seafarers as “key workers” and give them priority access to the vaccine, as the inability to rotate crews from their ships risks the passage of the critical medical materials needed for the global vaccination effort. If we want to maintain global trade, seafarers must not be put to the back of the vaccine queue. Governments will not be able to inject their citizens without the shipping industry or, most importantly, our seafarers.’
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