Internet Access for Seafarer Welfare or Managerial Control? The Experience of Chinese Seafarers

This paper examines the impact of internet access on ships on the lives of seafarers. Although the intention behind providing internet access for seafarers is to enrich life at sea and improve welfare, the findings show that, in practice, managers exploit seafarers' internet access as a means to further their own interests, encroaching upon seafarers' rest time in order to get more work done. The ability of management to appropriate internet access to extract more work from seafarers is underpinned by the structural weakness of seafarers.