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Kokkola case closed with crew pay victory
7 November 2008
Joint union action that began during the recent Baltic Sea week of action has succeeded with a pay win of almost a hundred thousand dollars for a ship’s crew.
During the week a Finnish inspection team visited the Hong Kong-flagged Idefix Bulker at Kokkola and found that the 24 crew members had no sort of collective bargaining agreement whatsoever. Management of the apparently Danish owned or chartered vessel was delegated to Cosco Wallem in Hong Kong.
The Finnish Seamen’s Union (FSU) responded by asking the company to sign an ITF standard collective agreement for the crew members and to pay them wages in line with such an agreement. Cosco Wallem admitted that there was no CBA but they said they would sign one with Hong Kong unions. The FSU, after consulting with unions in Hong Kong, responded with their message that this was not acceptable.
Luckily there was time for negotiations because the unloading had been slowed by heavy rain and a new cargo of timber was expected, but after two weeks of talks there was still no satisfactory outcome. The FSU decided it had no other option than to boycott the vessel. The local dockers, who are members of the Finnish Transport Workers’ Union AKT, showed their support by stopping the loading of the vessel.
The boycott had an immediate effect and the owner agreed to cover the vessel with an ITF standard collective agreement and pay the crew’s outstanding wages of US$99,289.
The agreements were signed on 23 October and the FSU, with the support of its dockworker colleagues, lifted the boycott at noon on the same day, while there was still time to load the ship. The money for the dues arrived on 27 October and the outstanding wages were paid to the crew in the presence of ITF inspectors Jan Örn, who, along with his colleague Simo Nurmi, had been on the case throughout.
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