Hull ship's crew 'has had enough'

News Release International Transport Federation (ITF) May 3, 2012

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<HTML><HEAD><TITLE></TITLE>
<META content="text/html; charset=unicode" http-equiv=Content-Type>
<META name=GENERATOR content="MSHTML 8.00.6001.19222"></HEAD>
<BODY>
<DIV>
The ITF (International Transport
Workers’ Federation) has been called to assist the crew of the Liberian
registered 2,997GT tanker Leon, which is anchored outside the UK port of
Hull.
 
The ITF received calls for
assistance when the vessel was alongside but before an inspector could get to
the port the ship operator, Roswell Tankers Corp of Athens, Greece, ordered the
captain to take it out to anchor to await orders.
 
“The crew were complaining that they
were owed wages and had no fresh food provisions,” explained Nautilus ITF
Inspector Tommy Molloy, who took a launch out to the vessel late last
week.
 
“When I boarded the first thing the
crew did was take me to the food stores. Mostshelves are empty. There is flour
for baking bread, sugar, butter; some canned fish, which they claim has been
their staple diet for a number of weeks. There was no sign of fresh food apart
from some lemons and some chillies. No fresh or frozen meat, poultry or fish, no
vegetables and no fruit.”
 
The crew were also worried about the
condition of the fresh water tanks, which they had photographed before they were
filled in a previous port. Molloy stated that he verified that there was no
bottled water left on board.
 
“When I asked why food was not
brought on board when the vessel was alongside in Hull I was told the company
had claimed it was too expensive in the UK.”
 
“They also complained that they were
owed wages since January and that they had each only received USD50 cash on
board during that period. A calculation revealed that the total owed at the time
I was on board amounted to more than USD58,000 for eleven of the 15 crew who
have requested assistance and who wish to be repatriated from the Port of
Hull.”
 
Molloy also has a copy of a medical
report from a doctor in Poland for one crew member who has constant stomach
pains, which stated that the crew member should ‘go home to his local
hospital for longer treatment’. But the company did not repatriate him from
either Poland or Hull.
 
“The company are putting great
pressure on the crew to sail the vessel but the 11 crew members are adamant they
do not want to sail the vessel anywhere, theyjust want to be paid their owed
wages and repatriated from the UK”, said Molloy. “They are not refusing to work
and have made a statement to the effect that they will continue with normal
maintenance work, watchkeeping duties, fire fighting, mooring and any other
duties that will help maintain the safety of the vessel while they await
repatriation from Hull. The company are saying there will be food in the next
port and they will look into repatriation for those who want it. They also say
that since ITF involvement they have arranged payment of some wages into the
crew’s home bank accounts. Neither the crew nor the ITF have verification of
this, but even if it is the case, the damage has already been done. The majority
of the crew has had enough and is not prepared to sail the vessel any
further”.
 </DIV></BODY></HTML>