SAVE OUR SEAFARERS 2020

RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: july/august 2016 :: RMTnews 6 2020 is the year when thousands of the UK ratings working today will retire and the government cannot let the industry get away with engineering the extinction of UK ratings, from which they would stand to profit. Seafarers are central to the national economy, with shipping accounting for 95 per cent by volume and 75 per cent by value of the UK's international trade every year. 21 million passengers were carried in 2015 on international short sea ferry journeys from or to UK ports, more than the number of passengers that used the Channel Tunnel last year and not much below the total number of passengers carried each year by the entire international cruise industry which has grown 21 per cent in the last five years. Unregulated competition and the growth of Flags of Convenience over the last 30 years have seen UK seafarers in the merchant navy steadily replaced by non-UK seafarers, on lower rates of pay. In the early 1980s there were 30,000 UK ratings in the Merchant Navy. This was down to 8,830 by June 2015 and this does not account for the job losses and social dumping on offshore supply vessels in the North Sea since then. The union has not been idle in the face of this decline. As well as fighting for improved equality and employment protections that would block employers from discriminating against foreign crews through lower pay, the union constantly impresses upon industry and government the need to increase jobs and training for UK ratings. This has secured reform of the Tonnage Tax to include ratings and the government continues to provide funding through the SMarT scheme to train UK ratings. But industry is resisting these opportunities to train UK ratings, whilst benefiting from the Tonnage Tax to the tune of millions every year and by over £1.6 billion in total to date. We have been clear in our demand from government – get a better deal from Tonnage Tax shipowners for UK seafarers and the national economy. International maritime trade is expected to double over the next 20 years, absorbing a lot of the current global surplus of 119,000 ratings. The government must tell the shipping industry to dramatically increase the number of trainee ratings. The SOS2020 campaign unifies all the union’s areas of political activity in the shipping industry, from the fight to apply the protections of the National Minimum Wage to the demand for seafarer health and safety reps to be afforded the same statutory rights as their onshore colleagues. RMT will step up the fight against employers that exploit foreign seafarers and discriminate against UK seafarers. Companies like Seatruck, profiting from public contracts whilst paying seafarers under £5 per hour, undermining collectively bargained rates of pay and excluding local seafarers. Companies like Irish Ferries, paying out £16m dividends to private shareholders off the backs of seafarers paid below the UK and Irish minimum wages. And companies like Stena, DFDS and P&O, claiming to be committed to UK and Irish seafarers whilst practising social dumping. Government policy is to double the number of ships on the UK Register by 2020 and it has a strategy for maritime growth in place which emphasises seafarer training, this must result in more jobs and training on those vessels for UK seafarers. There must also be a full take up by industry of the annual allocation of £100,000 for ratings training and an increase in that allocation. The successful campaign to defend CalMac ferries from privatisation is a beacon of light in the shipping industry and through the SOS2020 campaign the union is determined to replicate that success, in the form of more jobs and training for UK seafarers in a safer and better regulated maritime industry. SAVE OUR SEAFARERS 2020 Union launches SOS2020 campaign to fight for the future of UK seafarers