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RMTnews :: june 2006 :: www.rmt.org.uk
12
SHIPPING
Delegates demanded that
shipowners be forced to observe
minimum employment standards
before the chronic decline of the
UK’s seafaring skills became
irreversible.
Employers were taking
advantage of legal loopholes to
replace UK crews with super-
exploited overseas labour,
paying them at rates below the
minimum wage, even when in
UK waters, for dangerously long
hours.
Linking tonnage-tax relief to
jobs and training, ending the
industry’s exemption from the
Race Relations Act and applying
the minimum wage and other
minimum employment standards
to UK vessels in UK territorial
waters were three simple steps
that would help stop the rot.
“Shipowners have had £140
million in taxpayers’ money just
for signing up to the UK fleet,
and it is high time they were
required to give something in
return,” general secretary Bob
Crow said.
The shipping minister, David
Ladyman, had claimed that the
tonnage tax had created jobs,
but, said Bob, “the cold hard
fact is that there has been a year
on year decline in UK ratings’
jobs and there are now fewer
than 9,000 UK ratings left in the
industry”.
The union would continue
pressing the government to stick
to promises made by Labour in
opposition but, said national
secretary Steve Todd, “it’s
beginning to feel like banging
your head against a brick wall”.
Steve noted that Scotland’s
publicly-owned ferry operator,
Caledonian MacBrayne, looked
set to emerge as the preferred
bidder to retain its lifeline
services, but the tendering
process imposed by the Scottish
Executive had been “a shameful
waste of money and entirely
unnecessary”.
RMT, alongside the Scottish
TUC, the Scottish trade union
movement and allies inside and
outside the Scottish parliament,
had won the argument to scrap
tendering, but the Scottish
Executive had “hidden behind
the skirt-tails of Brussels and
imposed it anyway”.
It had taken a “magnificent”
vote for industrial action by
RMT members to extract
promises to maintain CalMac
jobs, pay, conditions and
pensions, whoever was to get
the contract, but the union
should be ready to act to ensure
that those promises were kept,
Steve said.
A decade after discussions
Anger at the
continued decline in
UK ratings’ jobs
dominated the docks
and shipping
conference in Hull
last month
SAVE OUR SHIP