The actual article
I thought I just link the article, but while re-reading it, it actually gets better and better. Fair play to the copywriter who wrote this masterpiece!
The Truth About The Irish Ferries Crisis
Eamonn Rothwell, CEO
The Taoiseach would condemn me if I said this:
“There is no more room for concessions…I do not believe the intervention of any other group or agency would assist at this stage…there is no role for the Employer Labour Conference…the officers will accept the overall plan, or if not, the shipping line will close from Friday.”
That was said eighteen years ago by Bertie Ahern, then Minister for Labour about the precursor to Irish Ferries, the state-owned B&I line. He had reached the end of his tether, and Bertie Ahern has a pretty long tether. But the absolute refusal of officers to make changes had exhausted even his patience.
I’m in the same place right now. Or, rather, in a worse place.
The state could, and did, buy industrial relations peace with SIPTU by acquiescing to demands and pumping taxpayers’ money into the B&I. When Irish Ferries took over B&I, it had accumulated losses of €171m. Irish Ferries has no state support. If it doesn’t deliver profits, shareholders lose money – and most of those shareholders are Irish pension funds. When SIPTU officials talk contemptuously about Irish Ferries “making substantial profits,” those profits end up benefiting pensioners.
The fact that Irish seafarers are between 50 and 60 percent more expensive than other seafarers, the arrival of low-cost airlines and the massive rise in fuel prices, all together mean Irish Ferries won’t make any profits, after 2007, if it can’t get radical change. Independent examination of our books by Farrell Grant Sparks, the consultants nominated by SIPTU, verified this.
95% of all ships calling at Republic of Ireland ports use outsourced crews. Are we going to ban cruise ships arriving at Dublin, ships delivering oil and grain, containerships and other ferry operators? Or just destroy the competitiveness of Irish Ferries?
Ireland is a major benefactor of outsourcing - we attract US companies here because of our relatively low labour costs, tax rates and good (low price) transport links to the rest of Europe. We also gained from joining the EU. We voted for enlargement of the EU, but now EU citizens, who are entitled to work on the Irish Sea, have become “exploited migrant workers.” Wherein lies the exploitation? The outsourced crews will be paid in real terms (given accommodation, food, travel and living expenses are covered) 30% higher than on-land Irish minimum wages. They’ll be paid five or six times what they could earn at home where they live. That’s not exploitation. For them, Irish Ferries is the best thing that ever happened.
We’ve spent years negotiating with SIPTU. No substantial change has ever emerged. SIPTU talks reasonably about the need to negotiate, but once you agree, the process is akin to moving into the twilight zone: a parallel universe where nothing moves, no result ever emerges.
Because Irish Ferries has to stand on its own feet, unsubsidized by other parts of our holding company, we offered our crews a severance package generous enough for 90% of them to accept.
If SIPTU really represented the interests of workers, the union would want that 90% to get their money quickly. Instead, SIPTU is trying to prevent the majority of its own members getting their money. Go figure.
When Irish Ferries knew 9 out of 10 of its crews who wanted the package were prepared to familiarize incoming European crews with the ships, our priority was to protect our passengers and crews from intimidation. So we retained an Irish based company who are the leading experts in people-protection.
Extensive planning was done to prevent the recurrence of the sabotage we’d experienced on the Normandy, when spare parts were removed from stores, damaged, and carefully put back in a move calculated to endanger an entire shipload of passengers and workers at some point in the future.
Thanks to the discipline of these experts, nobody was hurt. (We have yet to ascertain if damage has been done to the ship by the officers occupying a key location.) Black propaganda has created the image of flak-jacketed, weapon-carrying, tear-gas brandishing heavies. None of that is true.
Nor is it truthful to portray Irish Ferries, as Government Ministers have done in the last few days, as uncaring villains who won’t use state mechanisms for industrial relations.
We’ve been back and forth to the Labour Court, the Labour Relations Commission and the National Implementation Board, literally, for years. We went back – at their request – to the LRC yesterday. But the Government and others talk only of Irish Ferries rejecting one Labour Court recommendation. That recommendation was that we do nothing for 2 years. We don’t have two years. We’re not a state-supported shipping line. We’d go under in two years. We have to reject any recommendation which won’t secure our survival. Doesn’t mean the company won’t listen. Doesn’t mean the company lacks respect for the Labour Court or any other institution.
It means the company has – like Bertie Ahern eighteen years ago – come to the end of its rope.
This is about the life or death of a company. It’s about the right of freight and passenger customers (and the Irish tourist industry) to low-fare carriers on the Irish Sea. It’s about paying EU citizens a wage which in real terms is higher than the on-land minimum wage. And it’s about the rights of a majority, who do not have faith in SIPTU, to the package they’ve chosen.
At the moment, the rights of the majority count for nothing. Our ships cannot move, because a tiny minority won’t allow the 90% to get their package. Or allow new crews, eager for work, to take over: under the guise of protecting them against exploitation, SIPTU are preventing them getting employment.
And, lest anybody think the officers preventing our ships moving are financially threatened, they’re not. Those officers who choose to stay with us are being offered different conditions, certainly. They’re being asked to work 26 weeks a year. And get paid for 52.
Tough, isn’t it?
The Truth About The Irish Ferries Crisis
Eamonn Rothwell, CEO
The Taoiseach would condemn me if I said this:
“There is no more room for concessions…I do not believe the intervention of any other group or agency would assist at this stage…there is no role for the Employer Labour Conference…the officers will accept the overall plan, or if not, the shipping line will close from Friday.”
That was said eighteen years ago by Bertie Ahern, then Minister for Labour about the precursor to Irish Ferries, the state-owned B&I line. He had reached the end of his tether, and Bertie Ahern has a pretty long tether. But the absolute refusal of officers to make changes had exhausted even his patience.
I’m in the same place right now. Or, rather, in a worse place.
The state could, and did, buy industrial relations peace with SIPTU by acquiescing to demands and pumping taxpayers’ money into the B&I. When Irish Ferries took over B&I, it had accumulated losses of €171m. Irish Ferries has no state support. If it doesn’t deliver profits, shareholders lose money – and most of those shareholders are Irish pension funds. When SIPTU officials talk contemptuously about Irish Ferries “making substantial profits,” those profits end up benefiting pensioners.
The fact that Irish seafarers are between 50 and 60 percent more expensive than other seafarers, the arrival of low-cost airlines and the massive rise in fuel prices, all together mean Irish Ferries won’t make any profits, after 2007, if it can’t get radical change. Independent examination of our books by Farrell Grant Sparks, the consultants nominated by SIPTU, verified this.
95% of all ships calling at Republic of Ireland ports use outsourced crews. Are we going to ban cruise ships arriving at Dublin, ships delivering oil and grain, containerships and other ferry operators? Or just destroy the competitiveness of Irish Ferries?
Ireland is a major benefactor of outsourcing - we attract US companies here because of our relatively low labour costs, tax rates and good (low price) transport links to the rest of Europe. We also gained from joining the EU. We voted for enlargement of the EU, but now EU citizens, who are entitled to work on the Irish Sea, have become “exploited migrant workers.” Wherein lies the exploitation? The outsourced crews will be paid in real terms (given accommodation, food, travel and living expenses are covered) 30% higher than on-land Irish minimum wages. They’ll be paid five or six times what they could earn at home where they live. That’s not exploitation. For them, Irish Ferries is the best thing that ever happened.
We’ve spent years negotiating with SIPTU. No substantial change has ever emerged. SIPTU talks reasonably about the need to negotiate, but once you agree, the process is akin to moving into the twilight zone: a parallel universe where nothing moves, no result ever emerges.
Because Irish Ferries has to stand on its own feet, unsubsidized by other parts of our holding company, we offered our crews a severance package generous enough for 90% of them to accept.
If SIPTU really represented the interests of workers, the union would want that 90% to get their money quickly. Instead, SIPTU is trying to prevent the majority of its own members getting their money. Go figure.
When Irish Ferries knew 9 out of 10 of its crews who wanted the package were prepared to familiarize incoming European crews with the ships, our priority was to protect our passengers and crews from intimidation. So we retained an Irish based company who are the leading experts in people-protection.
Extensive planning was done to prevent the recurrence of the sabotage we’d experienced on the Normandy, when spare parts were removed from stores, damaged, and carefully put back in a move calculated to endanger an entire shipload of passengers and workers at some point in the future.
Thanks to the discipline of these experts, nobody was hurt. (We have yet to ascertain if damage has been done to the ship by the officers occupying a key location.) Black propaganda has created the image of flak-jacketed, weapon-carrying, tear-gas brandishing heavies. None of that is true.
Nor is it truthful to portray Irish Ferries, as Government Ministers have done in the last few days, as uncaring villains who won’t use state mechanisms for industrial relations.
We’ve been back and forth to the Labour Court, the Labour Relations Commission and the National Implementation Board, literally, for years. We went back – at their request – to the LRC yesterday. But the Government and others talk only of Irish Ferries rejecting one Labour Court recommendation. That recommendation was that we do nothing for 2 years. We don’t have two years. We’re not a state-supported shipping line. We’d go under in two years. We have to reject any recommendation which won’t secure our survival. Doesn’t mean the company won’t listen. Doesn’t mean the company lacks respect for the Labour Court or any other institution.
It means the company has – like Bertie Ahern eighteen years ago – come to the end of its rope.
This is about the life or death of a company. It’s about the right of freight and passenger customers (and the Irish tourist industry) to low-fare carriers on the Irish Sea. It’s about paying EU citizens a wage which in real terms is higher than the on-land minimum wage. And it’s about the rights of a majority, who do not have faith in SIPTU, to the package they’ve chosen.
At the moment, the rights of the majority count for nothing. Our ships cannot move, because a tiny minority won’t allow the 90% to get their package. Or allow new crews, eager for work, to take over: under the guise of protecting them against exploitation, SIPTU are preventing them getting employment.
And, lest anybody think the officers preventing our ships moving are financially threatened, they’re not. Those officers who choose to stay with us are being offered different conditions, certainly. They’re being asked to work 26 weeks a year. And get paid for 52.
Tough, isn’t it?
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