Cunard threat to sell ships
NZPA Barbados The Cunard Line has threatened to sell its three passenger liners, including the Queen Elizabeth 11, to foreign owners if the British Seamen’s Union does not end a labour dispute that cut short a Caribbean cruise for 703 passengers, last week. The strike by 110 crew members idled the Cunard Countee in Bridgetown, Barbados, last week as part of the British Union’s effort to block a plan to switch the ship to Bahamian flag-of-convenience registration. The Cunard chairman (Lord Matthews) told a news conference in London that the Trafalgar Group, which owns Cunard, would be forced to sell the ships to avoid further losses if the dispute was not settled in less than a months Lord Matthews said that there initially was union agreement to register their ships in a wholly owned subsidiary company in the Bahamas to reduce losses, which totalled $49 million on the Cunard Countess and its sister ship Cunard Prin-
cess over the last five years. “We had union agreement to the change,” he said. “But then they had a change of heart, for which we’ve had no explanation.” The 110 members of the National Union of Seamen form the most vital third of the 319-person crew. They object to Cunard’s determination to transfer the ship to the Bahamian flag, under which the ship could be worked by lower paid nonunion men. A Cunard spokesman, Alan Fitzgerald, said the company had issued dismissal notices and wag preparing to fly the crewmen back to England. The passengers were flown out from Barbados on Friday and have been offered compensation. Mr Fitzgerald said\ the decision to switch flags was irreversible and pointed out that (the Countess’s sister ship, was already under .the Bahamas flag. The striking seamen have continued living aboard ship since they refused to take the Countess to sea eight days ago.
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Press, 23 October 1980, Page 6
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313Cunard threat to sell ships Press, 23 October 1980, Page 6
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