PARLIAMENTARY COLUMN

Parliamentary Column FAIR PAY FOR RFA RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: june 2019 :: RMTnews 9 As an MP for Plymouth, a city with deep historic links to the Royal Navy, the importance of the Royal Fleet Auxiliary to the strategic, security and humanitarian interests of the UK could not be clearer. When UK Ratings sign up for service in the RFA, they know better than anyone the importance of the role that they play in protecting our national interests. Wherever the Royal Navy is deployed, so too is the Royal Fleet Auxiliary. From re-fuelling and re-arming Royal Navy warships taking on drug traffickers in the Caribbean to delivering the RFA Argus’ hospital and supply capabilities to natural disaster zones, RMT’s members in RFA put their lives on the line for this country. This is why I am proud to support the RMT’s Fair Pay for RFA campaign and I pay tribute to the work of the RMT General Secretary and the National Secretary and all RMT members for their effective campaigning. It is not only a campaign that seeks pay justice for RFA seafarers but also has major implications for the future of our maritime skills base, including the crewing of the new RFA Fleet Solid Support vessels on order for delivery in 2024. Labour MPs have been calling for these ships to be built in British shipyards keeping work, taxes and skills in Britain. The current Government’s attitude to the RMT’s claims on behalf of RFA members is completely unacceptable. The Chief Secretary to the Treasury and Boris Johnson fan Liz Truss again demonstrated this at Treasury Questions in the Commons recently. When I pressed her on the £400,000 it would take to equalise the RFA’s 2018-19 pay settlement with the 2.9 per cent received by the Royal Navy, I was told by the Minister that the RFA staff were civil servants so their campaign for fair pay had nothing to do with the Treasury! With the 40th anniversary of the Falklands conflict in the South Atlantic approaching we should never let this Government forget the sacrifice that merchant seafarers have made to this country’s security. RFA seafarers of today and tomorrow will always remember the heavy price paid by their predecessors in the Falklands War, with seventeen lives lost in the attacks on the RFA vessels Sir Galahad and Sir Tristram and the Cunard containership Atlantic Conveyor. As the RMT have also been telling MPs across the country, this repeated attack on pay and conditions cannot go on. RFA seafarers have had to endure a decade of pay cuts, freezes and below inflation settlements, alongside attacks on pension and redundancy rights and the introduction of the unpopular Tailored Schemes of Compliment. As a result, RFA pay has fallen behind inflation by over 27 per cent since 2008-09. Frankly, with this record, it should be no surprise to the government that nearly 88 per cent of RMT members’ votes in the recent ballot were for industrial action in the RFA. In May I tabled Early Day Motion 2365 to put on record the demands of the RMT’s Fair Pay for RFA campaign. The cross-party support that the EDM has received is encouraging and puts the union in a good position after the overwhelming ballot result. MPs in the RMT Parliamentary Group, like me, stand ready to support the next stage in the campaign to secure the fair pay settlement that the work and importance of RFA seafarers so clearly deserves. Luke Pollard MP, Plymouth Sutton & Devonport requirements are also hampering oil and gas workers’ attempts to switch to work in the offshore wind sector. The lack of UK government regulation of this issue has allowed the major companies, part of the Global Wind Organisation to set their own training standards which are a barrier to Just Transition for offshore oil and gas workers. RMT is targetting ports where there is intensive and growing activity supporting offshore wind including Aberdeen, Barrow, Blyth, Mostyn (North Wales), Grimsby, Lowestoft and Newhaven. Port owners like Peel Ports are also investing in offshore wind facilities and port infrastructure, at Great Yarmouth for instance. A number of operators in the offshore oil and gas industry, accommodation vessel operator ProSafe for example, is moving into the wind sector of the North Sea with the ‘low-cost’ crewing model intact, at this stage. Some operators, like MPI Teeside, use local labour but there is a trend on offshore wind projects for contractors to use ports in Netherlands, Norway and Denmark for offshore wind operations on the UKCS, in order to avoid UK regulations. RMT general secretary Mick Cash said that it was vital that the union builds its knowledge of the offshore wind industry to establish the potential number of workers we can organise. “We also need to work with our parliamentary groups to raise employment and safety abuses, as well as focusing on the ‘Just Transition’ policies of the UK and Scottish governments,” he said. The union is now mapping existing and licensed wind farms and key ports in the offshore wind industry and the list the jobs, employers, agencies and vessels associated with construction and maintenance stages.