Maritime Unions Herald: Russian Union of Dockers anniversary, struggle of pilots and sanctions challenges

A new, this year's fourth issue of the "Maritime Unions Herald" magazine has been released. One of the central texts of the issue is dedicated to the 30th anniversary of the Russian Union of Dockers (RUD). Over the years, RUD has contributed a lot to the  protection of social and economic rights and interests of workers. A clear evidence of its efforts is thу fact that today the RUD primary organizations are active in almost all major Russian ports. Among the indisputable merits of the trade union is participation in the certification of workplaces in terms of working conditions, and later in their special assessment, which provided confirmation of  special working conditions for dockers and supporting services workers. 

Today, thanks to those efforts, manual physical exertion  is limited at the legislative level to no more than 24 tons per 8-hour shift, additional paid holidays have been introduced, and dock workers have been given the opportunity to retire at 55. You can learn about these and other achievements of the RUD from the article  "Only a strong trade union can guarantee workers a good collective agreement."

 "The Prosecutor's Office came down on the side of pilots" is about the next stage of the struggle of the primary trade union organization of the Interregional Trade Union of Pilots "Maritime  Pilots of St. Petersburg" for full-fledged  participation in collective bargaining and  signing a collective agreement. The fact is that this year the collective bargaining company for signing the agreement for 2023-2024 took place without the full participation of four primary trade union organizations of the  Interregional Trade Union of Pilots operating in the FSUE “Rosmorport” North-Western Basin Branch. The primary trade union organization of the FSUE “Rosmorport” North-Western Basin Branch of  Russian Federation Water Transport Workers' Union which does not unite more than half of the employees of the branch, in violation of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation, entered negotiations on its own and concluded an agreement with the employer, as they have done it before. The Interregional Trade Union of Pilots  opposed, and the prosecutor's office supported its position and obliged the primary trade union organization of the FSUE “Rosmorport” North-Western Basin Branch of Russian Federation Water Transport Workers' Union  to establish a single representative body of workers for collective bargaining, drafting and concluding  collective agreements.

In recent months the effects of  EU sanctions have become a serious problem for seafarers. For example, difficulties have emerged in relation to the transfer of wages from abroad to the accounts of crew members in Russian banks. You can read about the ways seafarers receive their payments in the current conditions and about extreme  importance of the right bank choice  in the article  "Informal formality".

In mid-July the leaders and technical inspectors of the Seafarers'  Union of Russia - more than 20 people in total - took part in an online seminar on training and testing knowledge on labor protection.  Important amendments to Section X of the Labor Code "Labor Protection" and new "“Peculiarities of investigation of industrial accidents in certain industries and organizations, forms of documents, relevant classifiers necessary for the investigation of industrial accidents" were on the agenda.

SUR representatives  highly appreciated the event. Chairman of the SUR primary organization of Vladivostok Petr Osichansky noted: “The  seminar highlighted  all amendments and additions  in the legislation and clearly outlined the role and purpose of the trade union in the accident investigation process.”  You can read more about this in the article  "Our task is to pursue a policy to protect the interests of seafarers and their families."

Among other topics of the issue are examples of SUR assistance to seafarers and the SCF veterans retirement ceremony. The text “The sea makes real artists out of the seafarers” is about those for whom the sea is the most important muse.

The electronic version of the journal is available HERE.