There are very few international collective bargaining arrangements that cover working conditions. One exception concerns flags of convenience (international system of merchant ship registration whereby a shipowner in a country with a Western economy registers ships in a Third World country to avoid paying high taxes and wages and providing good working conditions).
It resulted in two significant global collective agreements, signed in January 2001 with the International Maritime Employers' Committee (IMEC) and the International Transport Workers' Federation (ITF), covering basic pay and conditions on 1,200 ships.
