Due to recent talks on whether UK should leave the European Union (EU) or stay as part of it, the trade union Nautilus International said at its meeting in April that the best interests of the maritime profession and the shipping industry would be secured by the UK remaining in the EU.
The union, which represents maritime professionals in the UK, Netherlands and Switzerland, confirmed that “on balance, UK maritime workers are better in Europe than out.”
General secretary Mark Dickinson revealed that it remained unclear how ‘Brexit’ would impact the British shipping and seafarers.
At the union’s council meeting in April he led a discussion to ascertain what was best for Britain in terms of the British seafarers working in the global shipping industry.
Dickinson said that leaving the EU would mean the UK is no longer subject to EU directives, including those outlawing discrimination on race or nationality, which could enable ship owners to employ labour from lower-cost EU countries, thereby endangering British jobs.
“On the other hand, the UK does apply the national minimum wage and work permit requirements in a limited and haphazard fashion to shipping, and as a Union we have on occasion been able to ensure that foreign seafarers are paid at least the correct UK minimum wages or have the required work permits,” he noted.
Dickinson also said that historically no British government has ever restricted employment in UK shipping to UK nationals and therefore there would be no reason to assume this would happen if Britain withdraws from the EU.
“However, EU state aid guidelines for maritime transport have led to UK support for the shipping industry through tonnage tax, the SMarT training scheme, and income tax (SED) and social security concessions,” he added.
Dickinson said that whilst there are many benefits to UK shipping from being in Europe, none of the current challenges facing the industry will disappear as a result of being outside.
“We will still have to deal with global competition, but instead of fighting the negative aspects of globalisation as part of the largest economic bloc in the world, we will have to fight it alone,” he said.
JPY1.82trn in the previous year.
The huge loss resulted from a previously announced JPY179.3bn loss taken in the fourth quarter of the related to the restructuring of its dry bulk and container shipping businesses, which includes the closing down of its MOLBC business in Singapore.
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