‘Shocking’ Safety Breaches At Sea – ITF has the Evidence

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ITF Releases Images Of ‘Shocking’ Safety Breaches On Water

It’s reported that the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) has evidence of shocking safety breaches on board another Flag of Convenience (FOC) ship berthed alongside Pacific Aluminium’s new foreign charter vessel in Newcastle.

The ITF Observations on Panamanian flagged ship:

  • Owners are underpaying its 19 Filipino crew.
  • Owners are putting workers lives at risk by making them clean the cargo hold without proper safety harnesses or equipment.
  • ITF has photos of the crew standing unsecured on planks of wood which have been haphazardly tied on by ropes to the inside of the hold, many metres up in the air.
  • Owners are putting the crew’s lives in further jeopardy by making them do such highly dangerous job at sea.
  • Owners don’t even have a washing machine for the workers.

“This is yet another example of the atrocious alternative to national flagged shipping and a warning of worse to come under deregulated shipping,” Mr Summers said.

The ITF today secured $US 30,000 backpay for the crew, who have been on board the ship for 14 months.

Source: MUA