Latvian ship held in dispute over wages

A LATVIAN ship with nine crew was detained yesterday in Cork harbour after it was alleged the crew had not been paid since January. Those who had been paid were believed to have been given as little as €1 per hour.

Customs officials are also investigating the discovery of 6,000 cartons of eastern European-branded cigarettes, valued at €45,000, which are thought to have been for the Irish market. The Defender is owned by Forrestry Shipping based in Riga, Latvia, but registered in Cambodia. Its official cargo was timber.

Ken Fleming of the International Transport Federation (ITF) said he had been tracking the vessel for the past two weeks after his colleagues in the Russian ITF had tipped him off. The previous captain had put in a wages claim for $15,000 (€9,500).

He believes the nine crew are owed $92,500 (€58,000). All the crew are supposed to be signed up for the agreed ITF minimum rates, but Mr Fleming said those contracts had been abandoned and new ones forced on the crew. Mr Fleming said two of the crew had been paid in advance of sailing in January and one had received just $100 for 100 hours’ work. Mr Fleming said half of the crew had signed power of attorney over to the ITF but the others were too scared.

“The living accommodation is not good. They are not being paid and they are overworked. This vessel will not leave here until the crew have been given what they are owed,” he said.

Port State Control carried out an detailed examination of the 31-year-old vessel yesterday afternoon.

SIPTU, which represents dockers in the port, said their workers had refused to offload the material in solidarity with the crew.

The union met with Port of Cork authorities, as well as the company expecting the timber. They gave assurances they would do everything in their power to stop a vessel with such issues from entering the port ever again.

SIPTU regional secretary Gene Mealy intervened after SIPTU dockers, shocked at conditions, halted the unloading of the 1,600-tonne freighter. Battling for sailors’ rights

IN THE past 18 months, Ken Fleming’s searches of vessels coming into Irish waters has resulted in the reclamation of €628,000 in owed wages for seamen.

He has searched 200 boats and of those 25 have had crew members owed money.

The smallest payment was €37.72, the largest was €160,000 owed to crew members on the Russian-crewed ship, Merchant Brilliant.

He has faced difficult moments, not least on the MV Brilliant when he and a British counterpart had to blockade themselves into a section of the vessel fearing they were about to be attacked by crew members loyal to the owners.

He says there are shipping companies which would happily wish him harm given the amounts of money he has recovered from them. However, while Mr Fleming has had notable successes, he is demanding that others “step up to the plate” to tackle the abuses which are commonplace on foreign vessels.