RFA SNARE DRUGS RUNNERS

RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: january 2014 :: RMTnews 21 R oyal Fleet Auxiliary tanker Wave Knight has intercepted drug runners’ with a cargo £9 million of cannabis. The smugglers from Guyana were sailing a known trafficking route in the Caribbean in the fishing vessel. There were found guilty of two counts of violating the US Maritime Drug Law Enforcement Act. The RFA tanker – on a 16- month deployment to the region – came across the small boat when smugglers began tossing bales over the side. Some 55 of those bales were recovered by sailors in one of Wave Knight’s sea boats and brought aboard the auxiliary. A US Coast Guard Law Enforcement detachment used the tanker’s other boat to board the boat and detained the crew. RFA Wave Knight has been away from the UK since last January on the Atlantic Patrol North mission and will return to port in the Spring. R MT is balloting Royal Fleet Auxiliary members in a referendum with a recommendation to reject a pay offer which includes an unfair distribution of bonuses between ratings and officers. A rejection of the offer by January 15 will trigger a ballot for industrial action to ensure that any money available within the government’s public sector pay policy is distributed equally between all grades. National secretary Steve Todd slammed the way the company had seen fit to once again ignore members and the union in the way that they deal with bonus payments. “Not only have we once again been restricted by the government restraints on pay increases for a third year, but they have again made performance awards which see higher grade ranks receive substantially more in terms of money than the lower grades. “If a bonus is paid on the basis of the performance of RFA surely that performance is achieved as a result of the efforts of all concerned, not the favoured few,” he said. RMT RFA convenor Ian Boyle said that the only way fairness and equity could be achieved was by making the bonus payments a cash value and paying everyone the same amount. “There is already there is a massive gulf in pay between the higher ranks and the lower ranks and that gulf will only get wider. “This is a classic divide and conquer tactic by the management, raising some bonuses for CPO PO and Leading Hands whilst the Ratings do not receive an increase at all and that is something we cannot accept,” he said. RFA PAY BALLOT RFA SNARE DRUGS RUNNERS