Right away Rex learned the crew
hadn’t been paid since their last visit to Philadelphia. After reassuring the seafarers, he began taking action. Rex phoned Mesfin Ghebrewoldi, senior shipboard visitor for the Sea- men’s Church Institute of Philadel- phia and South Jersey, to alert him about the predicament. SCI, an ecu- menical ministry founded in 1843 to extend hospitality to seafarers, and SIH partner to support Rex’s work. Ghebrewoldi, who was once
After a back wages issue was resolved in March, ELCA chaplain William Rex (right), Capt. Renier Fabello Fabon (second from right) and crew members cel- ebrate with delicacies donated by Filipino grocers Hyen and Rowena David of Bridgeport, Pa. Due to their responsibilities and port security, most of the crew didn’t have shore leave.
Getting seafarers paid I
How a 48-hour partnership resolved families’ suffering Text and photo by Mark Staples
magine working on a job for four months without getting paid. You hear lots of promises but receive no money.
Meet the crew of Lady Anthula, a Malta-flagged cargo ship that tied up March 21 at Pier 84 South in Phila- delphia. The ship’s four holds were brimming with cocoa beans after a 14-day trip from the Ivory Coast. Cocoa beans are a common cargo
because of the port’s proximity to chocolatiers in places like Hershey, Pa. While forklifts and cranes per- formed a complicated dance off- loading the beans, the busy crew was preoccupied with worry that their
Staples, who is retired, writes for the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia and enjoys volunteering for SCI and a ministry with the homeless and chronically unemployed in Norristown, Pa. He is a member of Trinity Lutheran Church in Lansdale, Pa.
28 The Lutheran •
www.thelutheran.org
families in the Philippines lacked money to buy food. That day, William Rex climbed
Lady Anthula’s gangway for what could be a routine visit, like hun- dreds he’s made the past three years. The pastor of St. Luke Lutheran Church, Ferndale, Pa., is also called by Seafarers & International House (SIH) in New York City to be a chaplain to seafarers at the Port of Philadelphia.
On a previous visit, Rex found
that the Lady Anthula’s crew hadn’t been paid for several months. So in December 2011 he set in motion an advocacy plan to help the crew get back wages and appropriate pay. Now history was repeating itself.
“You can usually tell if something is amiss,” he said. “The mood will be a little tense or crew members will say something to us.”
a seafarer from Eritrea, speaks seven languages and has dealt with hundreds of challenges impacting seafarers over a 32-year career. The two agreed that Rex would enlist the help of Arthur Petitpas, a Baltimore- based inspector for the International Transport Workers’ Federation, which represents more than 4.5 mil- lion workers in 153 countries. Rex and Petitpas—an expert at intervening in matters of this kind— agreed on a course of action. If Derna Carriers, operator of the Lady Anthula, didn’t pay the crew by 2 p.m. March 23, the ship would be “arrested” and detained in port until the matter was resolved. Perhaps you are jaded. Maybe you think labor unions are passé or that the church is irrelevant and powerless to resolve injustice in any context. Maybe you just aren’t sure if people can work together in this day and age. Fair enough, but read on and take heart. Rex soon met Renier Fabello Fabon, captain of the Lady Anthula. Fabon, 52, a father of four daugh- ters back in the Philippines, was three weeks into his first tour of duty with Derna Carriers. He took command of the ship in the Ivory Coast. Almost immediately he was disheartened to learn of the payroll predicament. He met with the crew, invited them to air their grievances and pledged to work to resolve
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