Unions demand new deal for maritime workers

The RMT, Nautilus and TUC unions are holding a rally at Old Palace Yard opposite the Houses of Parliament in London at 1pm.

RMT General Secretary Mick Lynch who will be speaking at the event, said: “In the two years since P&O Ferries’ shocking attack on 786 seafarers’ jobs, the Conservative government has completely failed to punish the perpetrators or even close the legal loopholes that were exploited and priced up by P&O’s wealthy owners in Dubai.”

P&O owners, DP World, made 800 workers redundant two years ago after the company reported huge losses.

Now it has emerged that some workers at the company were allegedly paid less than half the living wage thanks to a legal loophole that means workers on foreign-registered ships in international waters employed by an overseas agency are exempt from minimum wage laws.

DP World says it does ‘not recognise’ these low pay rates and asserts it “always pay at least the minimum wage required by national and international law.”

The UK government says it is pushing ahead with changes to the law to close the loophole. “We have worked at pace to bring forward our Seafarers’ Wages Act, consulting extensively with industry and unions to ensure we have ironclad legislation in place to help prevent this from happening again, while working to strengthen seafarer rights around the world,” said a Department for Transport spokesperson.

“We expect to bring this into force in the summer, around the same time as French legislation, forming an international minimum wage corridor across the Dover strait.”