Condor Ferries.

[Jim Brady]

RMT union leader Bob Crow's locked in a Portsmouth sea battle which holds the key to immigration issues.Condor Ferries pays Ukrainians just £2.35 an hour on ferries between the port and Channel Islands,way below the £6.19 minimum wage.The company exploits a legal loophole by recruiting them from outside the EU and keeeping the crews aboard for 12 weeks.Decent job rights and a rigourously enforced £7.45 living wage would sink employers who are using migrants to undercut Britains.

No we dont need unions do we!!!
Regards.
Jim.B.

[Captain Kong]

We do need Unions Jim, but not bent and corrupt Union Bosses as we have had in the past who line their own pockets at the expense of the Members.
The shore based Unions whose members handle Condor Ferries could do something by refusing to service Condor.
Condor could easily be stopped from trading if the Unions stuck together.

Cheers
Brian

[robpage]

Back in 1984 the ferry Officers on Sealink predicted a lot of this at the time of the Sealink take Overs and no one took any interest , Commodore Shipping is Jersey based , and It is not part of the United Kingdom,^] and has an international identity separate from that of the UK but the United Kingdom is constitutionally responsible for the defence of Jersey.. Jersey is not a part of the European Union but has a special relationship with it, being treated as part of the European Community for the purposes of free trade in goods. So I don't see Mr Crow having any luck , Why does he not tackle the cruise ships out of Southampton , operating their staff under similar conditions , but with many more people affected . We had strikes , and there was never any result . When the Sealink officers went out on strike the NUS would not support us , why ? because it was not anything to do with them . Still I had a good few years in shore employment , and got home most nights , and my liver is not subject to attention at the QA Hospital , despite Captain Kong promoting the excellent service there . I am afraid Jim Bob Crow will be yet again Too Little Too Late , he is playing politics , not Trade Unionism ,

[Jim Brady]

I had in mind exactly what you said Brian and if Bob Crow is worth his salt I hope that he does organise some sort of boycott and black the ships from being worked by the shore crowd.What do you think of the wages being paid???
Regards.
Jim.B.

[robpage]

We do ned Unions Jim, but not bent and corrupt Union Bosses as we have had in the past who line their own pockets at the expense of the Members.
The shore based Unions whose members handle Condor Ferries could do something by refusing to service Condor.
Condor could easily be stopped from trading if the Unions stuck together.

Cheers
Brian

Commodore will move to Poole and Portsmouth knows it , so you have a better chance of sleeping with Cherie Blair than getting Portsmouth to back Bob Crow . Portsmouth's operators went bust a couple of years ago and are council owned in a rescue bid to save the port , these guys are not stupid , action now to save a few Ukrainians living cheap , will put them on the dole for life , and you will never get the jobs for the RMT men on the Jersey based ferries

[cappy]

jimlocked in a sea battle don't know how u do that from behind a desk but id rather starve than work for that moneyperhaps theyl just go home regards cappy

[Jim Brady]

Rob,it's a sad state of affairs when people live in fear of loosing their jobs and ending up on the scrap heap for the rest of their lives.Unfortunately thats the way things are today and the employers know this.
Regards.
Jim.B.

[Captain Kong]

Maybe £2.35p an hour is a very good wage in Ukraine and those employees are very happy with it, they send their money home to their families. I guess it is all pro rata.It is similar to all the Filipinos, they get far more money than they would if they stayed at home in the Phlipines so they are happy with it.
Years ago the Filpinos were employed on P&O Ferries in the North Sea from the Humber to Rotterdam Service, I flew from Manila to London with a crowd of them in 1995 and they told me they were on good money, [ For Them]
No Bob Crow around then protesting that P&O were exploiting Filipinos at the expense of British Seamens jobs.
So for many years , no change in the system, British Ship Owners still employ overseas seafarers at below British rates of pay.
On Cunards Queen Elizabeth last year the Lido Dining Room had all Eastern European Staff. They were useless, ignorant and no idea of hygene standards. I hated them. I dont know what the wage scale was, but they certainly were not worth it, not even the £2.35p an hour. They have turned me off sailing on that ship.
Looking back to the 50s , many shipping companies employed 3rd world seamen at greatly reduced rates of pay.
Blue Funnel, Glen Line, etc . P&O liners to India and Australia, Brocklebanks, Ellermans City line, Clan Line and many many other British ship owners employed China men, Indians , Goans, Lascars of all kinds, EDs, Harrisons also employed West Africans and West Indians at reduced rates of pay, it has always been accepted. Holland America employ Javanese in catering and on deck.
British Seamen always earned less than American Seamen and Australian Seamen. but we still worked on those coasts.
So I guess that Condor is no different.
Cheers
Brian.

[robpage]

I would make one point about the employment of Bangladeshi and Indian seamen in Clan Line , that is on a twin screw turbine ship , the Engine Room " Gang " was three donkeyman , three oilers , one store man , one leading hand , one assistant leading hand , four day workers , one day-work cleaner , one engine room staff cook , so it was a 16 man job , whilst a similar ship with a crew sourced from the UK pool would have been a maximum of 9 men . You needed double the crew , I believe , and I say that not to be prejudiced , but the UK guys had a work output equivalent to two Bangladeshi's , the wages were in the early 1960,s £60 a month for a British Greaser basic , I believe , but will stand correction , the Bangladeshi was on £16 , a Junior Engineer was on £88.00 a month .

I say again Bob Crow is playing politics , the road to power was trod by many before him , that is one reason I don't trust Milliband , he was put there not by Labour party members , but by the Union Block Vote . It only needs one good man to stay silent and the lunatics move in . The foreign , cheap labour in the ferries was started by P&O almost thirty years ago , the introduction of shore based cleaning crews was even before that , so why has Bob Crow stood silent for three decades .

Commodore as Jersey based are the life blood of the Islands , they provide breakfast , lunch and tea , the hops to brew the beer and the bottles of Scotch , Screw them down , and the service will go elsewhere , the islanders have to be fed , and Beans in Cherbourg are the same as beans in Portsmouth ,Hands up who thinks the French will turn the trade away , !

What does Crow have to gain , besides political clout , ?

[Tony Geeves]

From Yates to Scargill to Prescott and Crow, rotten to the core. Having said that, we would have had a much shorter life at sea (in employment terms) without the closed shop and union protection. Remember Phil Ballard, he was redder than red lead (not you Ted!), I could not stand him, but in hindsight, without such characters, we would have gone down the pan a lot earlier than we did. Regards Tony.