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).