Union to probe ‘slave-like’ ship conditions

GALLEY slave-like conditions on board a ferry that serves Dublin Port will be highlighted today in talks between SIPTU and the company chartering the vessel.

One crewman has not received a single cent in wages for more than four months and the conditions of the other 21 members of the crew were not much better, Ken Fleming, of SIPTU and the Irish Transport Federation (ITF) said.

Mr Fleming, who is on secondment from SIPTU, said he believed the Norfolk Line, which charters the Merchant Bravery, was unaware of the appalling working conditions on board the ship.

He had visited the ship on Friday to investigate complaints that the crew members, from Poland, Russia and the Ukraine, were being paid €2 an hour, well below ITF rates.

The ship left Dublin on Friday before he had completed his inspection.

When the Merchant Bravery returned on Saturday morning Mr Fleming was prevented from entering the port by four security men.

They claimed to be acting under instructions from the Dublin Port Company.

“It was only after representations were made to senior port company management by Labour TD Ruairi Quinn and the ITF threatened to invoke sanctions that I was permitted to enter the port,” he said.

On boarding the vessel Mr Fleming found that the crew members who made the original complaint had been told they would be flown back to Russia and permanently blacklisted.

They were told that any money secured by the ITF would also be confiscated.

“We are very familiar with the blacklist system in the Philippines and it now seems to extend to Russia and the Baltic states. I will be insisting that the crew are properly paid and that the ITF will be given the money for the flights home to ensure the men can make their own travel arrangements free from intimidation,” he said.

He said he would raise the question of why he was denied access to the vessel by the port company.

An authorised ITF inspector under the International Labour Organisation Convention on Seafarers Rights, to which Ireland is a signatory, has every right to enter the port, he stressed.

The ship is crewed by SIA Aquarius Ship Management, a Latvian agency based in Riga which says it is not responsible for paying the crew.

Aquarius said this was a matter for the owners, Bravery Shipping in Nassau, The Bahamas.