FAIR DEAL FOR BREXIT FERRY CONTRACTS

RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: february 2019 :: RMTnews 14 R MT took demands for a fair deal for British workers on government Brexit ferry contracts direct to the Department for Transport and the port of Ramsgate earlier this month. The union has set out three core demands on the government contracts: • All ferries to be fully crewed up with UK ratings. • Recognition of UK trade unions. • UK employment laws to be fully complied with. The RMT protests come after a slew of publicity around the Seaborne Freight contract awarded at public expense by Chris Grayling and the on- going dredging of Ramsgate Harbour. Chris Grayling has defended his decision to award a £13.8 million contract to charter extra ferries to a “start-up” company that has no ships, as part of no- deal Brexit preparations. The contract is one of three agreements worth a total of £107.7 million signed by the government to help ease congestion at Dover by securing extra lorry capacity. Seaborne hopes to operate freight ferries from Ramsgate from late March, beginning with two ships and increasing to four by the end of the summer. However Shipping Minister Nusrat Ghani has refused to agree that UK employment legislation such as the national minimum wage or Equality Act which prevents pay discrimination, will apply in relation to the UK government’s Brexit Ferry Contracts, in an astonishing statement to MPs. The Minister also refused to say whether even a single UK seafarer will be employed as a result of the contracts. RMT general secretary Mick Cash said that the government would be quite within their rights to insist that these contracts are protected by UK employment law and crewed with UK seafarers. “Yet in answer to a simple yes or no question in Parliament the Shipping Minister ducked the issue and was unable even to say if UK employment legislation such as the national minimum wage or Equality Act which prevents pay discrimination will apply or if a single UK job will be created. “That is an absolute scandal and it is clear that the government is only interested in a bosses’ Brexit. Companies will trouser millions of pounds of taxpayers’ cash while they crew their ships with exploited seafarers from other countries. “We will not allow the scandal of the Ships of Shame in British waters, where poverty pay below the minimum wage and shocking working conditions are endemic, to roll over to these contracts. “Under RMT’s SOS2020 campaign banner we have been fighting for a fair deal and increased employment opportunities across the UK maritime sector. “We will be taking that message direct to Chris Grayling and we expect him, and the companies he has contracted, to meet our demands in full as a matter of urgency,” he said. R MT poured scorn over P&O’s claim that Brexit was behind their decision to switch the entire Dover-Calais fleet from the UK to the Cypriot flag as the company finally confirmed publicly what RMT has been warning of for weeks. RMT general secretary Mick Cash said that it was pure opportunism from P&O, whose long term aim has always been to switch the UK fleet to a tax haven register, as they have already done with most of the Irish Sea and North Sea fleet. “We demand immediate assurance from P&O that the pay and terms and conditions of over 730 RMT members in Dover are not under threat from this move. We would also expect the Shipping Minister to see this move for what it is – rank opportunism from a company owned in Dubai. “If P&O think they can use Brexit as a smokescreen for introducing the low cost crewing model on the vital Dover-Calais route then they have got another think coming,” he said. P&O ‘FLAGS OUT’ DOVER-CALAIS FLEET TO CYPRUS FAIR DEAL FOR BREXIT FERRY CONTRACTS