SEAFARERS MINIMUM WAGE VICTORY

RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: september 2020 :: RMTnews 16 R MT’s long standing campaign to extend the basic protections in the National Minimum Wage Act 1998 to seafarers has finally resulted in a change to the law in favour of seafarers. Following on from the commitments given by the Shipping Minister in the House of Commons in June last year, RMT maintained pressure for legislation in line with the recommendations of the Legal Working Group on Seafarers and the NMW. Despite missing repeated deadlines, the government finally published the draft secondary regulations in May 2020. RMT was satisfied that they were in line with what was agreed in the Legal Working Group and briefed the Labour frontbench in the Commons and the Lords. The regulations were passed at the end of June and will come into law across the UK next month. Applying NMW protections for seafarers on domestic merchant shipping routes, including the offshore energy sector is of course a modest success in the context of the ‘low cost’ crewing model on international routes but it will bring an estimated 13,000 ratings of all nationalities working in the UK shipping industry into scope of UK employment law. RMT is seeking a meeting with the relevant government departments to ensure that enforcement of the amended legislation is applied and seafarers no longer continue to be exploited on the rates of pay highlighted in recent years in all sectors of the shipping industry. In the debate of the regulations in the Commons, the government rejected RMT’s proposal, put forward by Labour’s shadow Shipping Minister Mike Kane MP to reconvene the Legal Working Group to look at applying the National Minimum Wage and wider employment protections for UK ratings working on international routes from UK ports which are not covered by this reform. RMT will now focus its work on increasing UK seafarer employment and training on international routes in the Department for Transport’s ‘Maritime Restart and Recovery Group,’ which has been established in response to the impact of Covid-19 on shipping and maritime as a whole. RMT, Nautilus and Unite are all represented on this Group. RMT assistant general secretary Mick Lynch said that the fight would go on for stronger, comprehensive employment protections for all seafarers working from UK ports. “Despite the restrictions on physical campaigning under the SOS 2020 banner, RMT is maintaining the political and industrial pressure on the government to regulate shipping companies and crewing agencies that profit from seafarer exploitation in our ports and waters and to dramatically increase the number of UK ratings at work and in training,” he said. R MT has called for the UK, French and Channel Island governments to work together to draw up a rescue package for Condor staff after the company announced a jobs cull. RMT senior assistant general secretary Mick Lynch said that the rhetoric around seafarers being key workers needed to mean something. “The new owners, Brittany Ferries and Columbia Threadneedle, must step in and provide certainty for the future here. “These are jobs on lifeline freight and passenger ferries registered on Flags of Convenience that were subject to exploitative pay before the pandemic and cannot be allowed to be permanently lost to UK seafarers. “Condor has consistently refused to access UK government support for their seafarer and docker staff in the UK during the pandemic and have made large scale redundancies – they are now threatening to cut into muscle and bone. “We call on the UK Shipping Minister, Kelly Tolhurst MP to reach out to her counterpart in the French government and work with the Channel Island administrations to draw up a rescue package for Condor Ferries staff and passengers,” he said. The call follows industrial action in St Malo by redundant French stevedores who vowed to stop any ferry from offloading in the port until all 32 employers had their roles reinstated. SEAFARERS MINIMUM WAGE VICTORY JOBS ASSAULT ON KEY CHANNEL ISLAND FERRIES