Issue No 10 | 23 April 1999 | |
NewsCrew Saved by Message in a BottleBy Zoe Reynolds
- MUA, Media Office The MUA's Robin Hood, has been hard at work again, this time on behalf of downtrodden Romanian seafarers visiting Port Kembla on our southcoast.
Robin Hood, alias Trevor Charles Australian co-ordinator for the International Transport Workers' Federation in Australia, was called in after crew members dropped a message in a bottle to a passing yacht. The crew on board the Tomis Future had gone weeks without pay, clean drinking water or adequate food provisions. They knew they had to get word to the ITF. So when they sighted a fishing boat nearby, they ran onto the deck, waving frantically. Australian fisherman Gordon Green was fishing near where the Tomis Future was at anchor outside the harbour, when he noticed the crewmen waving to him: "I pulled up anchor and went over closer to the ship," he told the Illawara Mercury reporter Geoff Faiiles. "The next thing they threw the bottle towards me and I scooped it up out of the water." The message in a bottle said simply: "Please, if you can, call ITF because we have big problem on board. No money, no food, no water. Thank you." Gordon Green returned to Wollongong Harbour and handed the bottle to coastal patrol officer. The message was passed on to MUA branch secretary Mark Armstrong, who immediately contacted ITF headquarters in Sydney. Within minutes Trevor Charles phoned the ship and demanded to speak with the crew. When the vessel came into port, pre-dawn on April 16, both Trevor and Mark were there to meet it. Crew members aboard the ship complained they had not been paid for months. They also said they had been without fresh water for almost two weeks and were unable to shower or bath while waiting outside the port. "Their main concern was that since late December no allotments of money from their wages had been made to their families in Romania," said Mark. "Things were getting desparate. Bills weren't getting paid. Their children were going hungry." Once the ITF/MUA had a talk with the ship's captain and the ship's agent, however, things quickly changed. Trevor and Mark ensured there were adequate food supplies on board and the seafarers received all outstanding wages. But the story did not end there. As is often the case crew neglect and abuse go hand in hand with poor ship maintenance. When an inspector from the Australian Maritime Safety Authority checked the vessel, last week, he found problems with the engine and detained the ship until repairs could be made. The MV Tomis must now stay in Port Kembla all week, awaiting spare parts for its generators before being allowed to sail. FOR MORE INFO on the work of the ITF FOR MORE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD http://mua.tcp.net.au/Pages/rhood.html FOR MORE INFO on AMSA http:/www.amsa.gov.au
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Interview: Latham: Leading With The Chin Labor's heretical voice talks about trade unions and how they'll survive in the land of the Third Way. Unions: Nursing the Numbers Active members are the key to recruitment for one of the state's strongest unions, the NSW Nurses Association. We talk to some of the star recruiters. History: A Sense of Community Historian Greg Patmore looks at labour-community coalitions in the Lithgow Valley between 1900 and 1932. International: Labor Council Official to Dili Front Line Labor Council�s Chris Christodoulou will be one of the first foreign unionists to head to East Timor in the leadup to independence. Review: When Billy Met Lindsay What happens when a British political popster meets with an Australian political thinker? Legal: CyberPorn in the Workplace A new protocol in the NSW public service is setting the benchmark for acceptable use of the internet.
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