By ADAKU WALTER
Worried by the rising cases of death of tugboat workers, the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF), yesterday, unveiled a film titled: Tug Workers Sound The Siren to expose the human cost of an industry in crisis.
Troy Pearson and Charley Cragg died last year, while towing a barge to a Rio Tinto power station in rough seas and strong icy winds. They were pressured to work despite the unsafe conditions.
A new report released with the film also exposed the rapid deterioration of safety conditions of employment, driven by industry consolidation and cartel-like behaviour from the shipping lines, The Trumpet gathered.
ITF General Secretary, Stephen Cotton, said: “The death of Troy Pearson and Charley Cragg is a tragedy, but painfully, their story is not unique. Many other families have lost their loved ones in the industry. Today we mourn Troy, Charley and all workers killed at work, it simply should never happen.
“We launch this film with heavy hearts, but if I can borrow the words of Troy’s wife, Judy, as a union, we must sound the siren on this crisis, because if we continue to allow these injustices to happen, nothing will change and we will continue to lose lives.”
Read Also: Army dislodges IPOB/ESN hideouts in Anambra
Cotton warned that the tug and towage sector is likely to be the next frontier of the supply chain crisis that has grabbed media headlines over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic.
He said shipping companies were increasingly using the leverage gained from consolidating into ‘ocean alliances’ to drive down tug and towage rates to unsafe and unsustainable levels.
However, the ITF report titled: Stopping The Race To The Bottom, revealed worsening bidding environment created by the alliances’ demands for discounts and enabled by weak labour laws, which allow operators to survive by clawing back costs from their maintenance, safety and labour budgets.
Towage Committee Chairman of the European Transport Workers (ETF), Jacques Kerkhof, said: “This investigative research reveals an alarming picture about the modern state of the tug and towage industry.”
Kerkhof said the current bidding environment had not taken long to flow through to lower health and safety standards, and attacks on workers’ wages and conditions.
On the anniversary of the refloating of the Ever Given, Chairman of the ITF Inland Navigation Section, Yury Sukhorukov, said the industry and governments should recognise the role of towage workers in keeping the global supply chains moving.
