Seamen must fight flags of convenience
Socialist Organiser1983 1983-01-13Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 2 →
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AS A result of the 'Bulk Trader" incident, the National Union of Seamen and the International Transport Federation, supported by a large number of Labour MPs, have now agreed to raise the issue of flags of convenience with the European Parliament.
Jim Slater, the NUS General Secretary, Bulk recently took the Trader' crew to Downing Street, said that this step was necessary in the fight against unscrupulous ship owners.
Arroncamonto ara haina are being made to meet Euro MPs as this was an international READERS who closely scrutinised the press last month may have noticed problem.
Flags of convenience are a cover tor modern-day piracy which 'justifies' scandalous wage rates and conditions "Bulk Trader' conuitions.
escaped from Leith carrying a cargo of coal, I will be asking the NUM for support in the campaign to black these "cowboy' ships.
The background to the incident is:
SHORTLY before Christmas the ship 'Bulk Trader' set sail from Leith - with a scab crew on board, and its original crew left thousands Council has been forced into backtracking on its original opposition to the ScotSri Lankan) were not being paid the correct rate for the job, and took strike action. The owners brought in thugs who threatened trade union officials and the crew with violence unless they left the vessel.
Then the case went to the courts. The Outer House of the Scottish Court of Session upheld the right of the crew to take action, but the Inner House took the side of the shipowners on the grounds that the 'balance of convenience' lay with them in getting the ship to sea.
The Forth Ports Authority then made itself an accomplice by assisting the vessel to sail with a scab crew.