The ITF has pledged solidarity with Dutch affiliate Nautilus NL/FNV Waterbouw in its fight to stop Boskalis sacking skilled seafarers and downgrading the quality of jobs.

The company plans to cut 650 jobs worldwide, including 150 in the Netherlands, and scrap 24 ships despite making EUR 440m ($446m) profit in 2015 and EUR 148m in the first half of 2016.

“In the Netherlands, Fairmount Marine – a wholly owned subsidiary of Boskalis – is attempting to replace permanent seafaring officers with lower paid nationals by outsourcing its entire ship management and crewing to Anglo Eastern,” claims the ITF.

“So far Boskalis and Fairmount have refused requests from Nautilus NL/FNV Waterbouw to see the financial data that the company says justifies its plan.”

ITF maritime coordinator Jacqueline Smith said: “Boskalis continues to make a healthy profit, so it is clear that this is another case of crude social dumping – using highly vulnerable workers to do skilled work for low pay.

“The company plans to use this attack on seafarers to cut salaries, but with no regard for the impact on workers.

“The ITF is fully behind Nautilus NL/FNV Waterbouw in opposing and exposing these actions, which are bad for workers and bad for good business.”

General secretary of Nautilus International Mark Dickinson said: “If there has to be redundancies as a result of declining volumes of work, then Boskalis should show us the financial data proving this.

“Then we can work with the company to ensure that the workers affected are redeployed – something that should be easy for a global company like Boskalis that employs more than 80,000 people. Until they do this we will fight this proposal and we welcome the backing of the ITF.”

Source: Trade Winds News