Seafarers and fishermen, crewing and bowling — the daily routine of SUR KTO

Not only seafarers, but also fishermen often apply to the Kaliningrad Territorial Organization of Seafarers' Union of Russia (SUR KTO). And this is naturally - the fishing industry was, is and will be one of the leading industries in the region. Over the past year, the trade union lawyers had to deal with many interesting cases, the most striking of which were related to fishermen. 

- Perhaps, the most notable in the past year was the case of the crew members of the m/v "Pavel Kopytin" - the former employees of ZAO "Albacor Prim", - says the Chairman of the SUR KTO, Vadim Mamontov. - This story had begun as early as in the fall of 2016, when the seafarers addressed to us with the complaint about regular delays in salary payments. Almost a month the vessel was drifting in the Barents Sea: there was no work, in fact, people were abandoned without food and water. In early November the SUR appealed to the Prosecutor General's Office with a statement requesting defense of rights and interests of the crew members of m/v "Pavel Kopytin". After that Rostrud (Federal Service for Labour and Employment) began inspections. Due to the effective work of the legal department of the SUR KTO, the case was brought to court, but the process dragged on for four months - it was completed only in March 2017. Nevertheless, the court upheld the requests of the SUR KTO lawyers to sustain the stated claims. The happy end had another story which happened to the Kaliningrad fisherman worked on one of the Laskaridis Shipping's ships. Though the story itself began absolutely unhappily: he got into a hospital with a heart attack, having worked for less than a week. The shipowner refused to pay compensation, referring to the terms of the contract. Moreover, by the time the seafarer asked SUR for help, the ship had already sunk. "We did our best to achieve justice. After lengthy negotiations, we managed to convince the shipowner to pay compensation in the amount of more than one million rubles" - says Vadim Mamontov. 

Nevertheless, the activity of the trade union is not limited to dealing of seafarers' appeals. During the year, the SUR KTO held ten seminars for the representatives of crewing agencies. 

- One of the indicators of fruitful work with crewing agencies is our cooperation with the agency “RusAm”. Last year 196 members of the Union, who were employed by the company on ships under the management of Eagle Ship Management, were given certificates of insurance against accidents, - says Vadim Mamontov. 

In addition to official meetings the Union arranged informal events. So, on the eve of the Day of the Seafarer, the SUR KTO, in conjunction with local crewing agencies and representatives of the PSC, organized a bowling tournament for the "Kaliningrad Seafarer Сup" in which different representatives of the Kaliningrad maritime community took part. The participants of the "competition" liked this format so much that it was decided to make it an annual tradition. 

Also, the Union paid attention to work with the cadets. During the meeting with the 4th year cadets of the Baltic Fishing Fleet State Academy in November, Peter Dzendzelyuk, the lawyer of the SUR KTO, told the future seafarers about the activities of the SUR and the International Transport Workers Federation. He described what kinds of collective agreements exist, how seamen can protect their rights and what are the nuances of work in the merchant and fishing fleet. 

The trade union reveals its standpoint not only at meetings – with cadets, crewing agents or media - but also via the Internet. Over the year, the SUR KTO has posted 192 articles on its website, the Organization has its social networking pages in VKontakte and Facebook which are regularly updated, also, they develop the group in Odnoklassniki. Recently, the Organization launched a channel on YouTube. Though there are only four videos, the Union intends to continue to spread the videos about important things related to the seafarers' activity.