RMT CALL FOR JUSTICE FOR ALL SEAFARERS

RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: september 2020 :: RMTnews 25 accommodation for them along their route. Despite not meeting all the march’s demands, the Blind Persons Act did deliver significant progress. The NLB remained concerned that local councils would implement the Act by contracting-out their services to the very charities that the marchers were protesting against, and had little confidence in the government’s commitment to better their welfare. It continued to organise blind workers to fight for their rights. The issues that the marchers tackled are still with us today. Only a third of registered blind and partially- sighted working-aged people are in paid work, and nearly half describe their financial situation as ‘just getting by’ or worse – and that was before recent economic hard times. Disabled workers are paid on average fifteen per cent less than non-disabled people and only around half of working-age disabled people are in work. [TUC, 2019] We have many workers in our industries who have visual or other impairments. Employers’ actions and workplace barriers keep them in lower-paid jobs or threaten their job security. The Covid- 19 pandemic will not only create more disabled people, it will also threaten the jobs and livelihoods of people who already face more than enough obstacles – unless we fight back effectively. The 1920 Blind March gives us some ideas of how to do this. It teaches us to think of disabled people not just as victims of oppression but as fighters against it. It also shows that we win progress through mobilisation rather than pleading and that disabled people’s struggles and workers’ struggles march powerfully together. RMT stated support for Merchant Navy Day 2020 organised by the UK’s biggest seafarer charity Seafarers UK in the midst of the ongoing crewing crisis caused by the Coronavirus pandemic and affecting over 300,000 merchant seafarers worldwide. Since 2000, Merchant Navy Day has taken place on September 3 to honour the brave men and women who helped our country stay afloat during both World Wars. The day also celebrates dependence on modern day merchant seafarers who are responsible for over 90 per cent of the UK’s imports, including almost half the food we eat, plenty of the fuel we rely on and virtually all the products and goods we tend to take for granted. Since the start of the Covid- 19 pandemic in March, hundreds of thousands of merchant seafarers across the world have been left stranded on ships and kept working beyond the end of their contracts. In many cases, this continues to result in seafarers working beyond the 11 month maximum stipulated in the ILO Maritime Labour Convention. RMT senior assistant general secretary Mick Lynch said that it was a time to remember the sacrifice of merchant navy seafarers of the past as part of the annual Merchant Navy Day celebrations. “But this year, those celebrations are muted by the Coronavirus’ devastating impact on merchant seafarers from Southampton to Singapore who continue to slog their guts out to keep medical supplies, food, passengers and trade flowing. “The pandemic has shredded the health and rights of hundreds of thousands of seafarers and we must reform the global shipping industry to outlaw employers’ callous disregard for seafarers, starting with all those sailing under the Red Ensign,” he said. RMT organises over 4,000 merchant seafarer Ratings and is a trustee of Seafarers UK and fully supports Merchant Navy Day every year. The union has also called on the government through the SOS 2020 campaign to step up the fight for the future of our seafarers. The year 2020 was selected as this is 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. 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. However today UK ratings are in decline and this does not account for the job losses and social dumping on Offshore Supply Vessels in the North Sea since then. According to the UK government’s seafarer statistics published in December 2019 (Table SFR0303), 9,140 UK ratings were employed in the UK shipping industry – under 20 per cent of the total number of ratings in the industry. Union calls on the government to stem the decline of UK ratings in the shipping industry - e Union calls on the government to stem t RMT CALL FOR JUSTICE FOR ALL SEAFARERS ON MERCHANT NAVY DAY