ICS and ITF mutually accuse for the failure of the negotiations near the ILO for the adaptation of the minimum wage of the marine ones



The shipowners announce today dumbfound the failure of the negotiations in order to adapt to the minimum wage of the marine conducts near the International Labour Organization (ILO) that - getting ready to today celebrate the "world-wide Day for safety and the health on the job" - he had remembered that the first minimal salary of the marine ones had been fixed 75 years ago and that of the shipping is the single field that anticipates an international minimum wage that regularly is updated by Joint Maritime Commission (JMC) of the ILO, organism composed from representatives of the shipowners and the marine ones that it is instituted in 1920 and whose last reunion negative is concluded yesterday exactly with outcome.

Other that astonishment, controbatte the international union that represents the marine ones, than denunciation as instead the shipowners they have been introduced to the negotiation with "a vixen under the planned armpit" having, rather than the bandied around increase, a cut of the real wages of the marine ones, arranging - the International Transport Workers' Federation (ITF has denounced) - a real "slap in the face in face to the heroes of the pandemic".

Discord total, therefore, between the two parts. Natalie Shaw, director for the trade-union issues of the International Chamber of Shipping (ICS), the organization that carried out for the shipowning part the negotiations with union ITF near the ILO, has complained that "unfortunately, in this moment unprecedented, the representatives of the marine ones have refused a generous offer of the shipowners. We have gone - Shaw has allegated - more in the future than we had previewed, but the offer however is refused. However - it has specified - our door always is opened".

The astonishment of the ICS for the refusal of the offer has had to the fact that - it has explained the shipowning organization - in spite of the impact of the pandemic of Covid-19 on world-wide the shipowning industry, constituted from the crocieristico field and that of the transport of the goods, by datoriale part is introduced a triennial agreement in order to increase to the minimum wage of the marine ones, with an increase of +3% "in a moment in which - it has evidenced the ICS - many workers to earth they are enduring wage freezing and forgiveness their job".

The ITF has rejected to the sender the accusation to have refused a apparently generous offer: "in the long history of this it negotiate - Mark Dickinson, spokesman of the Seafarers Group near the ILO and vice-president of the Seafarers section of the ITF has remembered - this is only the second time in which marine shipowners and they are not successful to agree an adaptation of the minimal salary of the marine ones, and is - it has emphasized - all guilt of the shipowners that have behaved with an incredible lack of autoconsapevolezza and respect for the sacrifices of the marine ones, in particular in last the 14 months. At first - it has accused Dickinson - making useless any hypothesis of salary increase, also of a dollar. With their plan to blow up the formula of the ILO the shipowners reveal their strategy in the long term time to undermine the social dialogue that for years has been so decisive in order to assure the success and the stability of this field, and so making prejudice the cooperation that we have found in the course of the total pandemic".

The ITF denunciation in fact the attempt of the ICS to freeze the salaries and, above all, to abandon "objective, decennial and consolidated the practical one of adaptation of the carried out minimal salary near the ILO". "Unfortunately - Dickinson has explained - the result of the freezing of the salaries by the shipowners is a cut of the salaries in real terms, that it pushes to the deficiency of labor in the field". Remembering that a recent search of the ITF has evidenced that already a quarter of the marine ones was considering to leave the field because of the crisis of the changes of the crews of the ships and that another 23% of the marine ones complained the uncertainty of own future, the representative of the union has observed that the freezing of the salaries proposed from the shipowners represents an acceleration to the tendency of the marine ones to abandon the field and constitutes "a real own-goal" for the shipowners. "For these companies - it has found Dickinson - it is already enough difficult to recruit marine because of the issue of the changes of the crews and I would have thought that now it would have been the moment to invest in own staff and to return this field more, and not less, attractive for which they want to enter to you".

"We have repeatedly felt from the shipowners and their representatives - it has continued Dickinson - than are worried for the marine ones, than the marine ones they are "vital" and "essential things" for our field and the supply chain total. But when draft to recognize the contribution of the marine ones and to value them indeed, manifesting respect for the institutions that are more important for the well-being of the marine ones and offering modest a real increase of the wages, the shipowners show the their true nature. The shipowners - it has accused Dickinson - shed a tear of crocodile. They make alone feint that the amounts".

The representative of the International Transport Workers' Federation has asserted that the reasonings of the shipowners second which the field has suffered financially because of the pandemic does not find reply in reality as - has specified - the marine hires are gone up to the historical maximums and the majority of the shipowners has exited from the pandemic in spite of the precedence forecasts of the reduction of the revenues and the profits well.

Dickinson has newly rejected the accusation of the ICS to have made to fail the negotiations: "- it has specified - we have supported with force it negotiate in center ILO, as the final relationship will demonstrate. The marine ones - it has added - are the heroes of the pandemic. They have sacrificed more and many times over. They have literally risked the life so that these companies could survive to the Covid-19 and its economic effects. And now the thanks that they receive is a slap in the face in face by the shipowners who essentially are making they to choose now between salary cuts or cuts of salary in future. It is shameful".

"The lacked agreement - it has continued Dickinson - means that now the ITF must determine unilaterally wage minimums ILO, but, with the exception of the shipowners, we will respect and maintain faith to the formula of the ILO that is fair and objective. The formula - it has remembered - simply consists in maintaining the purchasing power of the marine ones in legal tender, so that their real wages do not diminish, besides to share a small part of the gain of productivity of the field that are generated by the competences and the hard job of the marine ones".

The formula - Dickinson has explained - fixed the minimum wage to 683 dollars to the month with effect from first January 2022, with an increase of 1,40 dollars to the day regarding the current figure of 641 dollars that has been fixed in 2018 as a result of the negotiations near the ILO. "We consider - it has emphasized - than the minimal salary adapted characterized ILO for a marine one is at least of 683 dollars to the month beginning from first January 2022 and we will consequently advise it to our associates and to the directive organ of the ILO".

"Our door - it has concluded Dickinson - remains opened for ulterior negotiations, if the good sense had to prevail".

The doors, therefore, remain opened from both the parts, but - in the heat of the moment - it seems that nobody has the intention to cross them.