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Press Room

2003

World Maritime Day - $0.5m in unpaid wages recovered in Ireland last year from rogue ship-owners

Date Released: 24 Sep 2003

Approximately 500,000 US dollars in unpaid wages was recovered through trade union action for the crews of foreign ships docked in Irish ports in 2002, according to SIPTU General President, Jack O'Connor, who described the action as "a concrete example of international worker solidarity in action."

In a statement to mark World Maritime Day (Thursday September 25), the SIPTU leader pledged that the Union would continue to take an active role in "tackling rogue shipping operators whose actions are undermining reputable shipping companies. While the latter endeavour to uphold international maritime law, sign trade union agreements and generally treat their crews well, the rogue ship-owners care little about the law and seafarers' rights and often operate sub-standard ships with sub-standard pay and conditions for crews.

"In a recent report," he continued, "the OECD voiced its concern that '…as long as substandard operators get away with breaking the rules and make money and gain market share by doing so, then other operators will be tempted to follow in their footsteps, with repercussions for the safety of ships, the well-being of crews and on the environment.'

"As an affiliate of the International Transport Workers' Federation (ITF)," he added, "SIPTU is determined to co-operate with our colleague unions around the world in tackling these abuses and to work toward the enforcement of international maritime law and workers' rights in the shipping industry.

"Only last Friday afternoon a crew of a vessel berthed in Belfast who had not been paid for over four months received their wages with the help of the ITF and SIPTU. Many other cases are in hand. This is further proof that Ireland is not unaffected by the activities of rogue ship-owners since some of the seafarers whom we rely upon to transport our exports and imports are the subject of exploitation and mistreatment," he said.





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