‘UK seamen losing out to foreigners’

NORTH Sea trade unions yesterday launched a concerted campaign against the increasing use of low-cost foreign seafarers being employed in “flags of convenience” vessels supporting the oil and gas industry.

The International Transport Workers Federation (ITF), representing unions in the UK, Norway and Denmark, claims that the increasing number of non-EU registered vessels operating in the North Sea has led to a large number of British and other European seamen being thrown out of work.

Steve Todd, the national secretary of the RMT union, said: “The decline of British ratings in the North Sea over the years has been dramatic, and companies appear to be practising ‘under-the-table discrimination’ by refusing applications for jobs from experienced British seafarers while employing low-cost workers from outside instead.

“You see more and more British and European workers being put out of work and put on the dole at the expense of this.”

A spokesman for the ITF said European seafarers were being replaced by low-cost labour from countries such as Lithuania, Latvia, India, Romania and the Philippines on an increasing number of flags of convenience vessels.