Maritime professionals trade union Nautilus International has warned of the plight of seafarers working on foreign flagged ships in British waters, who are receiving minimal or no pay and suffering poor conditions.
The warnings follow figures from the National Crime Agency which found there is an estimated 10,000-13,000 victims of modern slavery in the UK, with some 300 current policing operations.
Recently, Nautilus International worked to raise awareness of the deplorable conditions seafarers had to suffer onboard a Turkish ship detained in the UK port of Runcorn. The crew, who were being paid wages as low as US$0.85 an hour, had to endure a cockroach infestation onboard with no fresh food and were found to be owed almost US$74,000 in back pay following checks by Nautilus/ITF inspector Tommy Molloy.
To counter the profiteering at the expense of seafarers, Nautilus International is raising awareness to politicians and the general public with regards to the prevalence of modern slavery in the shipping industry.
The Modern Slavery Act, which came into law in 2015, was introduced to protect those held in slavery or servitude and saw the maximum jail term for traffickers rise from 14 years to life. Despite new powers enabling the Police, the Border Force and the National Crime Agency to board and search vessels, Nautilus has identified the exploitation of individuals, mainly of South and South East Asian origin, and profiteering by certain ship-owners continues.
Nautilus general secretary, Mark Dickinson, commented: “We’re calling on the Government to affirm its commitments in tackling modern slavery in the shipping industry…Despite the Modern Slavery Act and international legislation, we’re finding that some shipowners are continuing to profiteer at the expense of crew.”
Nautilus launched its Charter for Jobs at the Union’s UK branch conference in October 2016, a ten point charter calling on the government to level the playing field for seafarers in delivering decent work and training opportunities. Point eight of the charter provides a commitment to lobby the government and industry to apply the National Minimum Wage, the National Living Wage and the Equality Act to all vessels engaged in UK waters.
In the first win for Nautilus’ charter earlier this year, Scotland’s Transport Minister Humza Yousaf instigated plans to ensure foreign seafarers on Seatruck ferries running to Orkney and Shetland were paid at least the UK minimum wage after the Union found some crew were earning as little as £3.66 an hour.
