NATIONALISE WIGHTLINK

RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: october 2013 :: RMTnews 15 T he European Union has dealt a body blow to jobs in the shipping industry by allowing companies to continue to exploit the tonnage tax for their own purposes while putting little or nothing back. The European Commission is reviewing the operation of the State Aid Guidelines (SAGS) in the maritime sector in 2009 with a specific focus on the status of Tonnage Tax schemes operated by member states. A number of EU member state, including The Netherlands, UK, Denmark, Greece and Cyprus operate Tonnage Tax schemes in order to attract ship owners to their flag registers. The Commission has now produced their conclusions which fail to call to account the corporate beneficiaries of this state aid on the crucial issue of jobs and training. The UK Tonnage Tax is unique in that it contains a mandatory link to provide training for UK seafarers but this only applies to officers. There is a voluntary link to provide training for UK ratings but this is ignored. Whilst this has led to a doubling in the number of trainee UK officer cadets, it has bypassed UK ratings, whose numbers continue to decline and fell below 10,000 in 2012. After four years the verdict from the unelected EU Commissioner for Competition is that Tonnage Tax schemes should be left alone, exactly what the UK and European shipping industry consistently demanded. In fact, the then President of the UK Chamber of Shipping, Helen Drabble recently expressed confidence well before the final decision was reached by declaring that” the positive dialogue the UK Chamber has had with European officials on this issue so far this year makes us optimistic”. RMT general secretary Bob Crow said that the Tonnage Tax was a form of state aid, designed to use tax breaks to attract ship owners to a flag register. “Not only does the current, cut price sale of the Red Ensign bring the UK flag into direct competition with flags of convenience, it demonstrates a total ignorance of the needs of the maritime skills base in the UK,” he said. National secretary Steve Todd said that the EU had slammed the door on enforcing a link between ratings training and state aid and that it a massive kick in the teeth for RMT members in the shipping industry.” “The union supports the ETF’s efforts to highlight the narrow, employer-led conclusions that the unelected Commissioner Almunia has reached in this tawdry episode of neo-liberal collusion between the European Commission and the European shipping industry,” he said. R MT has called on Tory MP Andrew Turner to back up his call for the public ownership of key UK ferry services to the Isle of Wight, made in the House of Commons, with real action. The Isle of Wight Tory MP called for the ‘public service’ option to prevent the wholesale destruction of the Island’s ferry service through a combination of greed, incompetence, asset- stripping and political and corporate in-fighting. Earlier this year at a meeting of the Isle of Wight trades council, RMT officials challenged Andrew Turner to set aside Conservative privatisation dogma as the latest cuts to the island’s ferry services were the deepest known to islanders in living memory. Under ownership of British Rail Sealink the services were heavily invested in during the early 80s bringing vastly improved timetables and ferries before being sold by Margaret Thatcher’s Government as part of Sealink UK for a meagre £66m to Sea Containers even though, an offer in excess of £75m was available from a management/employee bid to take control of the company. Since then there has been a break up of Sealink, the IOW services now known as Wightlink changed ownership on two further occasions for £107m in 1995 and again for £227m in 2005 to Maqurie European Investment Fund (MEIF) part of the Australian Maqurie banking group. The company has been re- mortgaged, re-financed, exploited and asset stripped with at least 4 other foreign banks now extracting payments from their stakes in Wightlink. RMT General Secretary Bob Crow said that as the Tories gather in Manchester this weekend at least one of their number, the Member for the Isle of Wight, has tumbled that their core ethos of privatisation and exploitation is fundamentally at odds with the provision of lifeline transport services. RMT now wants to see that dramatic conversion translated into concrete action that can stop the systematic and willful destruction in the name of private greed of the Isle of Wight Ferries before it is too late. “RMT is mobilising a campaign for the public ownership of the Wight ferry services to draw a line under decades of exploitation and under-investment which has left the link as nothing more than a cash-cow for foreign banks and greedy shareholders. RMT is calling for support for that campaign from right across the spectrum.” Isle of Wight Ferries – the hard facts: • Year to 31 Mar 2012 for Wightlink Ltd: post-tax profit of £8.6m; received a £465,000 tax rebate but paid no corporation tax; eight per cent rise in turnover to just under £60m; highest paid director got £355,000. • September 2013 - Isle of Wight Tory MP asking for Public Service Obligations to be introduced on Wightlink ferries. • PSOs (Public Sector Obligations) set minimum service levels and exist on Scottish ferries to ensure that lifeline ferry services are not cut by incoming private operators. • Public sector ferry service Sealink UK privatised in 1984. The £66m sale to Sea Containers was preceded by heavy public sector investment in a classic case of fattening up in advance of private asset stripping. • Ferry services and jobs have steadily reduced since privatisation and more cuts announced earlier this year, including a halving of the number of daily sailings from Yarmouth. • Wightlink currently owned by Macquarie, an Australian private equity fund that also owns Condor Ferries where RMT has been campaigning against exploitation, social dumping and poverty pay rates. NATIONALISE WIGHTLINK! EU SLAMS DOOR ON SHIPPING JOBS