PRESIDENT’S COLUMN

NO TO SOCIAL DUMPING Channel 4’s ‘Undercover Boss’ on August 6 showed Stena Line CEO Gunnar Blomdahl, disguised as Norwegian hotel worker ‘Per Hansen’ on board ‘Stena Mersey’ from Birkenhead to Belfast, ‘Stena Britanica’ from Harwich to Hook of Holland and ‘Stena Nordica’ on the Holyhead-Dun Laoghaire crossing. To make sure viewers ‘got the point’ of this TV ritual humiliation show (where bosses gain workers’ confidence by ‘going undercover’ pretending to be a fellow wage slave to spy on their workforce), Per/Gunnar wore a Ken Dodd wig. ‘You look homeless’, trilled his daughter as he modelled his ‘working class look’ in her swanky London flat. The programme showed Philippino cleaners working for Stena 11 hours a day, seven days a week, six months on, two months off for three to four dollars - approximately £2.56/hour. In 2010 unions exposed Stena profiting from extreme pay discrimination. Historically, the UK’s 1968 Race Relations Act excluded seafarers. It was entirely legal for shipping companies operating in UK waters, from UK ports to discriminate on grounds of national origin when it came to pay. This deliberate practice of differential pay based on nationality, although clearly discriminatory, was even retained for UK ships when the Race Relations Act was amended in 1976. Whilst separate sleeping, eating or sanitary accommodation on grounds of race for passengers and crew was finally banned, pay discrimination continued to be lawful. The result, a vicious downward spiral of pay apartheid, illegal in any other occupation, that acts as an incentive to shipowners to export seafarers’ jobs to the lowest-wage economies in the world and which should cause revulsion in any society based on equality, dignity and human rights. Stena’s response? This is ‘normal practice’ in international waters where the British minimum wage does not apply. Did Gunnar feel Stena treats Philippino crew equally? He told Channel 4: “We use Philippino crew to stay competitive because our competitors are working the same way. “They don’t earn as much as others, but back in the Philippines they have much, much lower costs,” he said. Even the public relations propaganda of ‘Undercover Boss’ can’t disguise the fundamental injustice and damage to our jobs caused by pay apartheid. The effect of workers doing the same job alongside each other for different rates of pay drags down wages remorselessly and is known as social dumping. Social dumping in the maritime sector has been aided and abetted by EU liberalisation of ferry services since 2004. Irish Ferries quickly replaced 543 Irish seafarers with predominantly eastern European agency crew and reflagged its vessels to Cyprus cutting wages by half. In December 2007 the European Court ruled the Finnish Seafarers’ Union and the International Transport Workers’ Federation acted unlawfully to prevent Finnish ferry company, Viking Line employing Estonian crew on lower wages. In 2010, German-owned shipping company ‘Merizon’ using Estonian- flagged vessels, started a low-wage ferry operation between Liverpool and Douglas, Isle of Man, only halted by RMT’s campaigning action. The Daily Mirror has now revealed that cross-channel ferry operator Condor Ferries was paying Ukrainian crew less than £30 for a 12-hour day - that's £2.35/hour "including overtime". Condor vessels are flagged in the Bahamas, thus avoiding the 2010 Equality Act - which now bans different pay rates for different nationalities on UK-registered ships. According to one estimate the combined potential wage savings of UK shipowners is around £260 million. Yet RMT’s sister union the Maritime Union of Australia has recently won an agreement with statutory force that requires all ships using Australian ports to pay union-negotiated rates of pay to all workers regardless of nationality. The MUA also campaigns to ensure that employers and contractors employ Australians (especially Indigenous Australians) and provide much-needed training to young people. RMT’’ Docks and Shipping Biennial General Meeting this year called on our union to fight the race to the bottom spreading from deep-sea and cruise sectors to ferries. So in August I joined activists, officers and executive members from RMT shipping branches outside Southampton Dock gates where P&O ‘Carnival Cruises’ pay Indian waiters on board its luxury liners £0.70 per hour (plus tips) and if they protest they are ‘not required back’. Trades Councils, the National Shop Stewards’ Network and even Southampton mayor Derek Burke and councillors joined us to give a clear message: “No to Social Dumping”. RMT is working with all unions nationally and internationally to stamp out the scourge of social dumping. Alex Gordon RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: september 2012 :: RMTnews 23 PROTEST: Southampton mayor Derek Burke and councillors joined the RMT demonstration to say “No to Social Dumping” President’s column