marine transport workers

By staff - Nautilus International, April 28, 2023

Nautilus has warned offshore wind employers against seeking to continue to exploit migrant labour following the expected end of the Offshore Wind Workers Concession (OWWC) on 30 April.

Nautilus has consistently campaigned against the OWWC for disincentivising employers from hiring and training UK maritime professionals to work in the rapidly growing industrial sector of offshore wind in UK territorial waters.

Nautilus International general secretary Mark Dickinson said: ‘The end of the OWWC is a welcome move from government. Employers have had almost six years to develop UK maritime professionals in the skills needed for the growth of offshore wind. Instead, they have used this concession to utilise workers from abroad, often on much less pay and weaker conditions, undermining job opportunities and secure employment for UK resident seafarers.

‘Government must commit to a fair visa system ensuring that any seafarer recruited from abroad to work in the UK offshore wind sector is needed and that they receive wages and conditions reflective of UK standards.

‘If government are serious about their commitment to investing in the UK maritime workforce as highlighted in Maritime 2050, they must ensure a level playing field for seafarers across the offshore wind sector.’

The Home Office have said: ‘The OWWC is time limited and leave to enter under the terms of the concession will not be granted beyond 30 April 2023. The concession will not be renewed beyond this date.’

The concession was introduced as a temporary measure in 2017 and has been extended six times.
Nautilus has raised concerns that while this concession may end, employers may seek to find alternative ways to import and exploit workers from abroad, such as using the Migration Advisory Committee shortage occupation list.

By staff - International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), April 24, 2023

On International Workers’ Memorial Day, 28 April, trade unions are promoting the role that organising plays in making workplaces safer and healthier as we remember all working people who have lost their lives to workplace accidents and disease.

Workers’ unions are planning to use the new ILO fundamental right to a safe and healthy working environment to tackle the shocking death toll of three million workers who die each year because of their work, with tens of millions more suffering life-changing injuries and ill health.

Trade unions will use organising to ensure that the new fundamental right is put into practice and makes a positive difference to the daily lives of working people. The two ILO Conventions (155 and 187) provide backing for union organising, through the creation of workplace safety committees with worker representation, and worker safety representatives in workplaces.

This organising can improve the working environment through the right to refuse dangerous work and consultation rights over risk assessments, occupational health services and the provision of personal protective equipment. Convention 187 also requires the creation of national tripartite health and safety bodies with representation for government, workers and employers.

Combatting toxic workplaces

Around the world, unions will use 28 April to fight risks like asbestos and toxic chemicals, and hazards like long hours and stress in the workplace, as well as demanding an increase in the number of countries ratifying and implementing all ILO health and safety Conventions.

ITUC Deputy General Secretary Owen Tudor said: “Every working person has the right to expect to return home at the end their day’s work. No one should die just to make a living.”

Trade unions make work safer, and they have already saved lives in these areas:

Silicosis

Companies are continuing to expose millions of workers to excessive levels of silica dust, which can cause deadly cancers and lung diseases. Australian unions won new restrictions on products containing silica and cut in half the exposure limit to silica for workers, which could see cases of deadly silicosis drop to one-sixth of the current level.

Seafarers

In 2022, a Dutch court handed an important victory to the ITF, FNV Havens and Nautilus NL who had brought a legal case against Marlow Cyprus, Marlow Netherlands and Expert Shipping. The court ruled that ship managers, ship owners and charterers must honour the non-seafarer’s work clause that only professional dockers do demanding, skilful lashing work when they are available, rather than seafarers. The decision means greater safety for seafarers and secures jobs for dockers.

Nursing homes

In 2020/21, 75,000 nursing home residents in the USA died from the SARS-CoV-2 virus with more than one million nursing home workers testing positive. Unionised nursing homes reported Covid-19 mortality rates of residents 10.8% lower and an infection rate of workers 6.8% lower.

By staff - International Transport Workers’ Federation, February 13, 2023

The full automation of port terminals does not bring improvements neither in the productivity of the concessionary companies nor in the ports that host them. This is the main conclusion drawn from an exhaustive and comprehensive independent report produced by the Centre for Innovation in Transport (CENIT) on behalf of the International Dockers' Council (IDC) and the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF).

According to the authors of this study, fully automated terminals do not represent better productivity rates than traditional terminals. In addition, CENIT experts point out the high vulnerability to cyber-attacks, greater exposure to hackers and, consequently and a higher rate of insecurity for goods and ports.

Sergi Saurí, Director of CENIT, said that “in the port sector it has always been assumed that full automation would bring better productivity rates, but based on the current real experiences, there is no evidence to support that.”

CENIT also point out the high level of upfront capital costs and additional maintenance costs for automated terminals. In addition, the research points out inherent dangers such as the power concentration on the part of the concessionary companies, which implies a price control, and consequently, a loss of sovereignty and control by the public administrations and national governments.

Likewise, automation negatively impacts economic and tax sustainability, entails practices that affect free competition in that they grant more power to shipping companies, improve revenues only for their shareholders, and raise the danger of monopolistic practices. This also leads to a decrease in rates, and therefore a reduction in port revenues leading to a significant loss of resources.

Regarding the social sustainability of the workforce, the study points to negative impacts for port automation including the loss of thousands of jobs for both terminal workers and the supply and auxiliary companies, and the lack of adaptability to rapidly respond to unexpected situations. These types of terminals, located in more socially advanced countries are guilty of social dumping and practices where remote maintenance tasks are outsourced to countries with fewer freedoms and rights for workers and with much lower salaries. In this sense, automation has a direct impact on tax revenue for the state, as it will mean lower tax collection and higher social security costs due to job losses, not just at the port but also in the surrounding community.

By various - International Transport Workers Federation, November 8, 2022

By Jeremy Brecher - Labor Network for Sustainability, July 2022

People are acting at the local and state level to create jobs, reduce greenhouse gas pollution, and equalize transportation by expanding and electrifying public transit, electrifying cars and trucks, and making it safe to walk and bike. It’s a crucial part of building the Green New Deal from Below.

More than a quarter of greenhouse gases [GHGs) emitted in the US come from transportation – more than from electricity or any other source.[1] Pollution from vehicles causes a significant excess in disease and death in poor communities. Lack of transportation helps keep people in poor communities poor.

Proposals for a Green New Deal include many ways to reduce the climate, health, and inequality effects of a GHG-intensive transportation system. “Transit Oriented Development” (TOD), “smart growth,” and other forms of metropolitan planning reduce climate-and-health threatening emissions while providing more equal access to transportation. Switching from private vehicles to public transit reduces GHG emissions by more than half and substantially reduces the pollution that causes asthma and other devastating health effects in poor communities. Changing from fossil fuel to electric vehicles also greatly reduces emissions. Expanded public transit fights poverty and inequality by providing improved access to good jobs. And expansion of transit itself almost always creates a substantial number of good, often union jobs. Every $1 billion invested in public transit creates more than 50,000 jobs.[2]

Plans for a Green New Deal generally include substantial federal resources to help transform our transportation system.[3] The 2021 “bipartisan” Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act provided $20 billion over the next five years for transit projects. But meanwhile, efforts at the community, local, and state level have already started creating jobs reducing transportation pollution – models of what we have called a Green New Deal from Below.[4]

These Green New Deal from Below programs are often characterized by multiple objectives – for example, protecting the global climate, improving local health, providing jobs, and countering inequality. And they often pursue concrete ways to realize multiple goals, such as “transit-oriented development” that builds housing near transit to simultaneously shift travel from cars to public transit and to expand access to jobs and urban amenities for people in low-income communities.

By various - AFL-CIO's Labor Energy Partnership, June 14, 2022

By Will Foster and Riley Ohlson - Labor Energy Partnership, June 2022

This paper assesses the opportunities and challenges for developing a fleet of Jones Act-compliant vessels for installation, maintenance and service of offshore wind infrastructure in the U.S., in consultation with shipbuilding unions.

Stimulating commercial shipbuilding activity is critical to facilitating OSW deployment while demonstrating the potential for this deployment to support and grow good manufacturing jobs.

Arguably, the greatest challenge facing sustained OSW development is neither technical nor financial but political. Many American workers, particularly those in industries tied to fossil fuels, are deeply skeptical of the prospects of a just transition and the fundamental ability for renewable energy production to support middle-class jobs.

By collective - Earth Strike UK, April 10, 2022

Recently, P&O Ferries laid off 800 members of staff without a moment’s notice over a video call. While this has been widely condemned as both immoral and illegal, P&O have continued to refuse to reinstate the sacked workers. This is the latest in a string of brutal mass sackings and fire and rehire schemes, which will become increasingly common unless organised labour are able to resist it here and now.

For a company that saw its revenue reach more than $10 billion in 2021, there is no reason why 800 members of staff should be cast aside only to be replaced by contract workers who will be paid next to nothing. Capitalists don’t see ferries as an essential public service but as a means to accumulate profit. They don’t see workers as people who deserve dignity, respect and the means to live a good life, but as parts in a profit making machine. It is this same philosophy that is driving the destruction of the environment. Companies like DP World (P&O’s parent company) are among the richest in the world, incorporating ever-larger supply chains and workforces, while at the same time causing more and more damage to the environment (while shareholders receive greater and greater profits).

The way forward is for workers to utilise our power through collective action. Corporations will try relentlessly to divide us, to undermine our unions, to cut our pay and worsen our working conditions, all in the pursuit of power and profit. But workers are the ones with real power. We keep the wheels of industry turning and we can pull the brakes. This is especially the case for seafarers and dockworkers who can shut down world trade, hitting the capitalists where it really hurts.

We have already seen powerful acts of solidarity in support of the P&O seafarers: dockworkers in the UK and the Netherlands refusing to handle P&O ships stopping them from sailing, agency workers refusing to replace their fellow workers, and thousands of supporters protesting at the ports and corporate offices. We have also seen brave acts of defiance from the seafarers themselves – who initially refused to leave their ships when instructed by handcuff equipped security. Some were forcefully removed.

Earth Strike UK extends our solidarity to the P&O workers. We support the P&O boycott and call on all workers to continue to support the struggle however they can. Join the pickets, join the protests, join the boycott. Justice for the P&O seafarers!

By Bernadette King Fitzsimons and Rebecca Lurie - Labor Notes, February 7, 2022

When you think of workers hamstrung by the “independent contractor” label, you probably don’t think of Maine lobstermen.

But it turns out that lobstermen—a title claimed by women as well as men who catch and sell lobster for a living—have something in common with warehouse temps and Uber drivers. As independent contractors they’re denied the collective bargaining rights and various other workplace protections and benefits afforded (to some) by U.S. labor law.

And the strategy they used to confront low wages is one that similarly exploited workers might want to try too: they teamed up with a union to set up a worker-owned co-op.

The lobstermen partnered with the Machinists to create both an affiliate union local and a marketing cooperative. Their success demonstrates how union membership coupled with worker ownership can strengthen worker power.

By staff - International Transport Workers Federation Seafarer's Section, October 29, 2021

Bush and forest fires, floods, heatwaves, extreme storms and rising sea levels – the life-threatening events which herald dangerous climate change are already taking place around us with increasing frequency. Scientists are clear that humans’ impact on the Earth’s climate is reaching a tipping point beyond which a safe climate is in doubt.

At the heart of the problem is our reliance on greenhouse gas-producing fossil fuels to power industries like shipping, a reliance with a long history. On a global level, international cargo shipping is responsible for about three percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. From the early 1800s, coal was used to fire steam boilers for paddle steamers, which was switched to oil variants when technology improved. Fast forward to today and billions of litres of fossil fuels are used every year to power over 50,000 vessels that keep the world’s supply chain moving.

A Panamax container ship, an averaged sized cargo vessel, consumes about 63,000 gallons (286,403 litres) of marine fuel per day travelling at between 20 and 25 knots.

The global shipping industry must break its dependency on fossil fuels. The rapid expansion of international shipping over the past 50 years has been enabled by the reliance on cheap heavy fuel oil, known as bunker fuel. Key players in the industry have lobbied against restrictions on its use, despite it being one of the most polluting of all fossil fuels.

While it is true that international shipping has low carbon intensity – that is emissions per unit of moved cargo – the total emissions of the industry is very high due to the sheer volume of global maritime shipping. Until now, the focus on carbon intensity as opposed to total carbon emissions has led to false confidence about the carbon footprint of the industry compared to other sectors.

Now that more people are understanding the impact shipping is having on our climate, our industry’s reputation is being damaged. Seafarers want to be able to tell their friends and family that they’re part of a sector taking real and equitable action to curb dangerous climate change. It’s time to act.

Read the text (PDF).