Seafarers on board m/v NORDRUBICON and m/v RMS GOOLE are happy with everything

Inspectors of the Kaliningrad regional organization of the Seafarers Union of Russia (KRO SUR) regularly visit ships calling at the port of Kaliningrad. The other day union representatives boarded the bulk carrier NORDRUBICON (IMO 9763693, flag of Portugal) and the bulk carrier RMS GOOLE (IMO 9213600, flag of Antigua and Barbuda). Although both ships are covered by ITF collective agreements theinspectors found some discrepancies on board the first vessel which had been inspected earlier.

«We inspect the m/v NORDRUBICON owned by the German company Reederei Nord Group for the third time and something always goes wrong», said Petr Dzendzelyuk, technical inspector of labor of the KTO SUR. Last time, for example, we came across an extremely unresponsive captain who at first pretended not to hear some questions and in the end he quietly stole copies of several documents we needed.

This time there was another captain on board and the inspectors were received with great hospitality, the crewmembers were friendly, and all the necessary information and papers were provided quickly. The seafarers did not complain about anything, the vessel was in perfect order, clean and in the operative condition. However a fly in the ointment in this barrel of honey still hit.

«The main difficulty is that there the vessel is manned by the mixed as well as hersisterships,» said Petr Dzendzelyuk. - The collective agreement indicates salary scales only for seafarers from Sri Lanka and Indonesia but in fact on board there are crewmembers from all over the world: two Ukrainians, two Romanians, two Poles, one Bulgarian, one Peruvian, eight seafarers from Kiribati and seven from Sri Lanka. So it’s simply impossible to assess the correctness of the salary amount based only on this document.

Also the inspectors' attention was attracted by the fact that two repair specialists from Poland, who were not part of the crew, worked on board the vessel. «They have no labor relationship with either the captain or the shipowner», said Petr Dzendzelyuk.  Accordingly the effect of the collective agreement and its guarantees in case of loss of health, life or property do not apply to them. In our opinion this is a serious gap in ITF policy».

The inspection of the second vessel belonging to the German shipowner RHENUS MARITIME SERVICES GMBH, m/v RMS GOOLE, passed without unpleasant surprises.

«There are two seafarers from Cape Verde, three Ukrainians and two Russians who were hired through Marlow Navigation in Petrozavodsk and Kaliningrad», said Lyudmila Izmalkova. Many of them are not the first time employed by the company. It is worth adding that despite the safe manning certificate providesof the six crew members a third mate was added in order to reduce the burden on the master. OS salary is 1560 euros. Guaranteed overtime for AB is 180 hours. Besides the company has an additional cadet agreement in the collective agreement».

In general there is nothing to complain about on board the vessel taking in mind the seafarers have no complaints and there are no questions about the technical condition of the vessel. The SUR representatives hope that everything will continue to be the same on board the RMS GOOLE and the deficiencies identified on the NORDRUBICON vessel will be fixed.