Maritime workers recover crews’ wages in New Zealand ITF week of action

Tens of thou­sands of dol­lars of out­stand­ing pay for sea­farers is in the pro­cess of recov­ery after action last week by the Inter­na­tion­al Trans­port Work­ers’ Fed­er­a­tion (ITF) in New Zea­l­and ports.

Del­eg­a­tions of dock­work­ers and sea­farers rep­res­ent­ing the ITF vis­ited five ves­sels in New Zea­l­and ports as part of a week long Flag of Con­veni­ence / Port of Con­veni­ence Cam­paigns Work­shop (note to edit­ors: links to down­load­able pho­tos below).

Approx­im­ately US$110,000 has been recovered in back wages, and issues of crew well­being have been invest­ig­ated.

The exer­cise was led by New Zea­l­and ITF inspect­or Gra­ham McLar­en, and Aus­trali­an Assist­ant ITF Coordin­at­or, Matt Pur­cell, who were joined by mari­time work­ers who are rank and file mem­bers of ITF affil­i­ated uni­ons, the Mari­time Uni­on of New Zea­l­and and the Mari­time Uni­on of Aus­tralia.

ITF New Zea­l­and inspect­or Gra­hame McLar­en says the joint exer­cise was about get­ting res­ults for sea­farers and was aimed at strength­en­ing the New Zea­l­and net­work of ITF approved con­tacts, who are mari­time work­ers accred­ited by the ITF to vis­it ves­sels on a vol­un­tary basis to check on the well­being of crew.

“The exer­cise has built on the already strong rela­tion­ship with their fel­low Aus­trali­an ITF Rep­res­ent­at­ives and respect­ive affil­i­ates through­out the two coun­tries.”

An eight strong ITF del­eg­a­tion vis­ited the MV Lilly Oldendorff on 3 July 2014 in Bluff, says Mr McLar­en.

The del­eg­a­tion delivered a mes­sage through the Ukrain­i­an Mas­ter that the ves­sel own­er­’s refus­al to cov­er his ves­sels with ITF approved employ­ment agree­ments was no longer accept­able in this region, and their ves­sels will now become a tar­get for affil­i­ated uni­ons.

In Lyt­telton on 1 July 2014, sev­er­al issues were invest­ig­ated on board the Liberi­an flagged bulk car­ri­er, Sea Suc­cess.

Crew were owed pay of over US$53,000, and sev­er­al crew mem­bers had been on board for over 12 months, con­tra­ven­ing the Mari­time Labour Con­ven­tion 2006, which New Zea­l­and is cur­rently con­sid­er­ing rat­i­fy­ing.

The Panamani­an flagged ves­sel, SW Spin­naker, was detec­ted as owing US$55,000 of wages to crew.

In the Port of Taur­anga, ITF rep­res­ent­at­ives vis­ited the ship Cap Pas­ado on 4 July 2014 to talk to crew and invest­ig­ate issues around the death of a Filipino sea­farer aboard the ves­sel last month in the Port of Los Angeles.

Around 700 uni­ons rep­res­ent­ing over 4.5 mil­lion trans­port work­ers from some 150 coun­tries are mem­bers of the ITF.

It is one of sev­er­al Glob­al Uni­on Fed­er­a­tions allied with the Inter­na­tion­al Trade Uni­on Con­fed­er­a­tion (ITUC).