Vladivostok hosted SCF Ship Officers Seminar

The event took place on September 8-9 at the Far Eastern Maritime Training Center. During  the first day of the event, dozens of seafarers holding senior positions on board of  Sovcomflot ships were addressed by the company's management, representatives of Admiral G.I. Nevelskoy Maritime State University and the Seafarers' Union of Russia - SUR First Vice President Igor Kovalchuk and Chairman of the SUR Pacific Regional Organization  Valeriy Berezinskiy. It has been the first face-to-face seminar since the pandemic began,  the previous one was held online in December. 

One of the main objectives of such meetings is to highlight issues that are important for ship's officers. In particular, Viktor Petrusevich, Head of the SCF Navigational Safety Division, spoke about the current situation and the prospects for the company's future development. Other topics raised at the seminar included human factor

 and career development, SCF's this year technical policy, energy and environmental management. According to Valeriy Berezinskiy, also the seafarers were reminded of importance to keep a healthy psychological environment on board, as the period of the pandemic, problems with repatriation and current changes in the Russian maritime industry affected emotional state of seafarers. Thus, the ship's officers were urged to be attentive to the psychological aspects of work and to do everything possible to avoid and to promptly address arising conflicts.

The company also has shared good news: the issue of increasing the salaries of  ship cooks is being under discussion now. 

At the seminar the SUR representatives told about their work, discussed issues of seafarers' concern, some of which had been raised during the August meeting with the crews of the m/v "Aleksey Chirikov" and m/v "SCF Enterprise". One of those issues related to salary transparency. Today the situation is such that many of the crew members do not understand the algorithm of calculation their salaries. The problem is that pay roll calculation under the legislation of the Russian Federation is more complicated than for ships flying a flag of convenience, and the former can be difficult to understand. The Union intends to think how this issue  might be solved. One option could be to prepare the necessary clarifications for seafarers.

“At the moment the  work has begun on drawing up a new collective agreement for SCF ships under the Russian flag, and we hope to take into account many issues. We are planning to complete the draft preparation roughly in December,” Valeriy Berezinskiy said. 

In addition, there has been raised the issue of pensions which is of great concern  for seafarers. “Today the system is such that, in fact, seafarers' time off and leave are paid during their period of work on board,” the SUR PRO explained. - During the period between voyages the salary is not transferred to crew members, which means that contributions from the employer to the Pension Fund are not made and this time is not included into a pension qualifying period of crew members. Thus,  by the time of retirement, which is 60-65 years for SCF's seafarers - depending on the position,  many seafarers would  accumulate the necessary qualifying period for a preferential pension (for men - 12.5 years), but wouldn't gain the required total insurance (employment) period (25 years). In this case they face the prospect of receiving only a minimum social pension. Therefore, we raised the question about

the possibility to make at least  minimum payment during the periods seafarers stay on shore, so that this time to be included into a pension qualifying period. In general, our arguments found understanding among the representatives of the company. They are ready to examine this issue, and we hope that the problem can be resolved in the near future.” 

Besides, the seafarers were told about the activity of the primary trade union organization of the SUR “Pacific Trade Union Organization”, which gives ongoing  support to crew members. “This year alone we paid RUB3,163,000 of financial aid to seafarers, including more than RUB2 million paid to SCF's pensioners,”-  Valeriy Berezinskiy said. - We directed about RUB900,000  to co-financing of health resort rest treatment and rest for seafarers. Almost half a million rubles we spent for the purchase of sports equipment for ships.

Also,  the seminar touched upon  documents that are significant for the work of seafarers, in particular, the approved last year Regulations on certification of crew members of seagoing vessels. “It is very important to fix the problems that arise during its implementation  in order to understand what changes may still be needed,” Igor Kovalchuk said.

Also, he told the seafarers  that the Ministry of Health is preparing a draft regulation on medical examinations, to work on which the SUR  made great efforts. “The documents that would regulate pre-employment medical examinations of seafarers simply do not exist for now, their conduct today is mostly based only on established practice, so we are very much looking forward to the release of a new regulation,” the SUR First Vice President  said.

Note that  communication with seafarers is an important part of the trade union' s work.

Crew members can always send their questions to the SUR direct line ("On-Line")  the link to which is available on the website, or either to call us or write an e-mail. However, visiting ships and participating in such events is a great opportunity to personally communicate with seafarers, discuss current issues and take steps to address them.