| Summary: | This thesis explores the health, safety and well-being experiences of seafarers in relation to the organisation of work and employment at sea. Work at sea entails many features – such as long working hours, scheduling uncertainty and social isolation – which have been shown in other industries to be associated with a deterioration in workers’ health, safety and well-being. Moreover, the structure of the seafaring industry has changed beyond recognition in recent decades with the vast majority of today’s seafarers employed by third-party agencies on a temporary basis, and in shore-based industries the organisation of employment in this manner has also been associated with poorer occupational health, safety and well-being outcomes. This study used a mixed-methods approach, including both semi-structured interviews with seafarers onboard four ships and the secondary analysis of three shipping companies’ safety data. Seafarers’ health, safety and well-being experiences were related to the structure and organisation of their work and employment and fluctuated in relation to specific time periods within a tour of duty. In particular, the most substantial adverse well-being outcomes were apparent at both an early and late stage of a tour of duty, whilst safety outcomes were seen to significantly improve during the last week of a tour of duty for seafarers onboard offshore vessels. Further qualitative analysis revealed some strong associations between poor occupational health, safety and well-being experiences and the ways in which employment is organised at sea, and indicated a failure to address such associations in the arrangements in place to manage the health, safety and well-being of seafarers during their periods of employment. In particular, it indicated that there were substantial mismatches between the experiences of seafarers and the requirements of them determined by their shore-side management, and found that the reporting mechanisms that might demonstrate this were inadequate.
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