Ill-informed and ill-considered report threatens UK-flag deep-sea fleet
The “Review of stakeholder evidence on differential pay in the shipping industry” issued today, displays a breathtaking ignorance of the nature of the shipping industry. This personal and subjective evaluation of the threat posed by the possible removal of the ability of shipping companies to pay seafarers at rates of pay related to the rates of pay in their counties of domicile stoutly rejects all evidence based on facts or research.
The ignorance on which the report is based is perhaps most simply shown by the statement “it is not clear why the Race Relations Act 1976 allowed wage differentiation on the grounds of nationality in the shipping industry.” This legislation, on the statute book for some 34 years, was the subject of clear and informed debate in Parliament at the time – and on the number of occasions when it was reconsidered. An understanding of why the legislation was framed as it was should have been a starting point for the consultant. Perhaps that would have provided the beginnings of an understanding of the complexity of the issue.
The report is also disturbingly self-contradictory. After accusing the Chamber of Shipping of exaggerating the threat of reflagging, it repeatedly states that shipping companies will be able to reduce the costs of the changes by reflagging – ignoring neatly that this would mean the changes would achieve nothing except that reflagging!
“The consultant plays down the practical evidence provided by shipping companies as to their expected reaction to the present draft of the regulations – particularly the harmful impact on the UK-registered deep-sea fleet,” commented Mark Brownrigg, director-general of the Chamber of Shipping. “In choosing to accept the arguments put forward by the TUC and the RMT – neither of which have any significant direct involvement in the deep-sea fleet – the consultant’s recommendations lack any basis of reality or appreciation of the national interest.”
“Because she disbelieves the industry’s warnings, she completely misses the point about flagging-out and its wider impacts on the UK maritime cluster and the UK economy – and its relationship to the last Government’s policy of growing the UK register, which is supported by the new Government. Even if the Chamber’s assessments of flagging-out are wide of the mark by 50%, the impact of the current text on the UK fleet – especially the deep-sea fleet – would be massive. Ships and business will leave the UK to the detriment of the UK’s national interest. This would – ultimately – hit business, employment both at sea and in the maritime cluster ashore, our strategic capability and our status in international organisations such as the IMO.”
Much of the argument of the report seems predicated on the specious view that full implementation of the Equality Act would improve employment prospects for UK seafarers. There is no justification for this view, in fact, at least in the longer term, the opposite is true. The more the industry moves away from links to the UK, the less likely it is to seek to employ UK seafarers. With the current international shortage of officers the current UK officers are unlikely to find themselves without employment – but will their replacements be sought from the UK?
Perhaps at the heart of the problem is that the report denies that seafarer employment is significantly different from employment in other industries, that the shipping industry faces competition of a unique nature and that the shipping industry is more mobile than other industries (its main assets and main workplaces being ships at sea). This is a deep misunderstanding of the industry.
The Chamber will re-present its case to the minister with the full expectation that the Government accept the need to maintain an internationally competitive shipping industry – particularly at a time when the Chancellor has made clear the importance he places in the concept of trading our way out of recession. Let us not forget that shipping is the third largest export earner in the services sector and that it carries 90% of UK trade.
ENDS
For further information please contact:
Jeremy Harrison, Chamber of Shipping
020 7417 2834