VICTORY IN FIGHT TO SAVE ISLE OF MAN STEAM PACKET

RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: february 2011 :: RMTnews 7 R MT welcomed a significant victory in the battle to save the Isle of Man Steam Packet ferry service to the mainland as rival operator Mezeron, paying poverty wages and offering appalling working conditions, pulled out of its attempt to take over the container route from Liverpool to Douglas. The defeat of Mezeron’s attempts to undermine the Steam Packet should secure the future of nearly 300 jobs and sends out a clear message that those who seek to engage in a race to the bottom on pay and conditions can be defeated. RMT general secretary Bob Crow said that the Mezeron operation was an opportunist move and that its plans had been torn apart by a union and community campaign that has forced the company to back off. Mezeron introduced two Estonian-flagged ships into service operated with Eastern European seafarers on rates of pay are as low as £2.92 per hour for a Bosun. The captain of the ship was on £7.48, which is half of the Bosons’ rate on the Isle of Steam Packet. The company had already secured a number of key container accounts, including retail giants Shoprite and Tesco, freight business that Steam Packet services rely on to subsidise passenger ferry services, particularly in winter. “RMT, our sister unions and the local community have sent out the clearest message that we will defend proper rates of pay and the highest quality of service in the UK ferry industry and that warning should be heeded by others thinking of undermining our members’ jobs, their rates of pay and their working conditions. “I want to pay tribute to our members at the Isle of Man Steam Packet who, along with their colleagues, have led this campaign from the front. “They are a credit to the trade union movement,” he said. R MT general secretary Bob Crow will be addressing a public meeting on February 28 in Barra, the southernmost island of the Outer Hebrides, against the privatisation and cuts in Scotland’s ferry services. The meeting at 19.30 hours will be held at Castlebay Community School and will be chaired by Jessie MacNeil of Voluntary Action. The Scottish Executive is conducting a review that will influence the next round of tendering as demanded by European Union competition rules as well as the ownership and operation of assets. The Scottish TUC has placed on record its disappointment over the decision to commission the Transport Research Institute, which has a bias against the publicly owned company that runs the services Caledonian MacBrayne, to look into the operation and organisation of ferry routes. The review is examining how services are organised, including whether the Clyde and Hebrides, or the Northern Isles services, should continue to be one network. Separating certain routes to be tendered on an individual basis will mean fragmentation and privatisation for seafaring crews. RMT has already sent a detailed submission to the Scottish government outlining its opposition to the break up of the Clyde and Hebrides network. Bob Crow said that the threat of cuts and privatisation to Scotland’s lifeline ferry services was very real and the current climate of austerity measures should alarm the communities that will be affected. “The Scottish ferries are at severe risk of being broken up with some routes closed, others handed over for private profit and whatever remains left at the mercy of exploitation as cross subsidies are removed and fares are jacked up. “Now is the time for the communities and the workforce to stand shoulder to shoulder to resist any attack on the ferry services which are such a vital component of the infrastructure of Scotland,” he said. VICTORY IN FIGHT TO SAVE ISLE OF MAN STEAM PACKET SCOTTISH FERRIES PUBLIC MEETING