Rob Rooney, Cornwall Socialist Party
Overworked and underpaid – RMT seafarers treated as second-class citizens by the Tory government were out on strike at Torpoint in Cornwall on 25 June.
About 20 crew members on a Royal Fleet Auxiliary (RFA) vessel mounted a picket at the entrance to the village before joining another picket at Plymouth, across the River Tamar.
The Royal Navy has a recruitment crisis and these workers are feeling the strain, RMT assistant national secretary, Mark Carden told pickets. “The key thing for us is the massive recruitment and retention problem. It’s now critical.
“We’ve exhausted all the avenues, right through to ACAS last December. It was like ‘talk to the hand’.”
Crew member Skye Allen, who has been with the RFA for eight years, said the working week is often 75 hours. They work four weeks on, three weeks off – when everybody else in the merchant navy works one month on, one month off.
Skye said: “They talk about ‘One Navy’, but marines get housing, free dental treatment and they had a 5% pay rise when we have 4.5%.”
This is a group of workers that expects a Labour government to address their grievances – or the fight will still be on!
