News / Seatruck refuses Serco’s offer to fund wage rise
SUBCONTRACTING firm Seatruck, which charters vessels for the Northern Isles freight service, has come under renewed fire over its refusal of Serco’s offer to pay it enough money to bring staff wages up to the UK national minimum wage level.
Serco made the offer following a direct request from Scottish transport minister Humza Yousaf, after it emerged that Seatruck was paying around 20 European staff on the Helliar and Hildasay vessels wages falling far below the UK minimum.
The issue was raised last week by transport union the RMT, and after saying nothing on the subject last week Serco NorthLink this week said it had offered earlier this year to pay “an additional amount that would fully cover the cost of paying the UK minimum wage to these workers but Seatruck have so far refused to accept this offer”.
A company spokeswoman said that having been advised of the issue it has “sought to ensure that all workers on the service receive the UK minimum wage irrespective of the specific legal requirements”.
She added: “We continue to talk to Seatruck and the Scottish Government to find a resolution to this issue.”
Shetland MSP Tavish Scott said that if the shipping company, which is owned by the Copenhagen-based Clipper Group, continue to refuse to pay the accepted rates to its staff then Serco NorthLink ought to replace them.
“Public money is being used to profit a shipping company who are deliberately and knowingly paying less than they should to some members of their shipping staff,” Scott said.
“If they continue to do this the Scottish Government should step in and make sure Serco replace them in providing freight ships for the Northern Isles services.”
Seatruck spokesman Tony Redding said the issue of topping up pay to the national minimum has “been around for some time”, but fundamentally the company felt unable to deviate from its “fleet-wide pay structure”.
“From our perspective it’s hard to see how that particular issue could change for the company.”
He said Seatruck rejected the RMT’s claim that some staff were paid as little as £3.66 an hour, stating all staff on the Helliar and Hildasay were earning at least £4.50 an hour. That still remains some £2.70 below the £7.20 an hour minimum.
Redding said all staff were paid “well above the minimum of the International Transport Workers’ Federation”, and claimed Seatruck had “very good labour relations” and “very high levels of crew retention”.
Seatruck has chartered the vessels to Serco NorthLink until mid 2018 when the six-year, £240 million publicly-funded contract comes up for renewal.
Asked whether the company could foresee a resolution to the impasse, he replied: “We don’t know what’s going to happen. We are expecting to be asked to reconsider the position. We’ll have to see what happens.”
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