When Strong Union is Behind Your Back

Novoship's  Primary Trade Union Organization held the report and election conference in Novorossiysk. The Primary Organization  is the  part of the SUR's South Territorial Organization. 51 delegates among the seafarers  and the workers of Novoship's shore-based infrastructure  evaluated the five-year period work of Primary Organization (PTO) on its merits. The  delegates handed their ideas on future. Nikolay Popov was  unanimously reelected as the PTO's chairman until 2022.

“There  are seven key components in our work: social partnership;  programme on sports  and recreation and  mass-cultural events for  seafarers and  their  families; organizational activity; legal defense; informational support; ship inspections and union cooperation,” - noted Nikolay Popov in his speech. “We succeeded  in achieving good results in each area. There will be renewal of  collective agreements and negotiation on seafarers' wage increase and updating to social programmes in the future. I call to take active part  in the union's work because the  power is  in our unity. We can cope with anything when the strong union is behind our back.» The delegates didn't fail to this advice  and voiced their wish instantly – to receive on ships the union's news during the voyages. Human resource director at Novoship Oleg Stepanov, who visited  the conference as a guest, confirmed such possibility. Seafarers raised another question at  the  last PTO's conference: why ratings were not included in the  support programme  on retirement  workers? Under this programme the  Novoship's officers receive lump sum payments for  many years and delegates asked  to spread the programme to all crew. No sooner said than the employer and  the  union have been paying the  material rewards  to newly retirees among ratings since 2014. Today seafarers and the union are concerned first of all such issues as salaries, employment and protection. “Job stability  and regular pays,” said the  bosun of NS Creation Gennady Eremenko who in such manner described the seafarer's days. Novoship's Union Organization will work further using a collective agreement as  its  main tool which is the best in our country, by the way.