The general maritime law, courts, and national legislatures have given special
attention to seafarers’ employment contracts. An employment contract is the
most important document relating to a seafarer’s life and work. Seafarers’ employment
contracts are also called articles. The general maritime law has for centuries
required all seafarers’ employment contracts to be in writing. As early as 1729,
English statutes have required seafarers’ employment contracts to be in writing.
Seafarers are among the most regulated of all workers. Almost every aspect of lives
aboard ship is regulated: their hiring, their dismissal, their working conditions,
their sleep, their food, their health, their sickness, their recreation, and even their
deaths. Seafarers face particular perils, endure substantial physical hardships, put
up with strict discipline, and suffer lonesome separations from home. They have
special lives and work, and they need special laws to protect them.