Pay dispute could delay ship’s sailing

Press, 15 July 1987, Page 6

Pay dispute could delay ship’s sailing

A pay dispute between Filipino crew and the Laurltzen shipping company, of Copenhagen, could delay the Nippon Reefer sailing from Timaru for Iran next week with 3200 tonnes of frozen meat.

Exploitation of the Filipino crew is at the heart of the dispute, says the ship’s second officer, Mr George Justiniani, and he wants the company to pay each of the 14 crew overtime they are owed. The ship’s Danish master, Captain Charlie Jacobsen, could not be contacted yesterday. Mr Justiniani said Filipino crews on nine other Reefer ships around the world including the Tunisian Reefer, which regularly calls in Timaru, are receiving the same treatment and he has called on the New Zealand Seafarers’ Union to help. The union’s South Island secretary, Mr Terence Stuart, met the crew on Monday and will return to Timaru on Thursday. If the crew

does not receive the money they are owed, Mr Justiniani, who has served five years with Lauritzen, said the Nippon Reefer would not sail for Iran next week. If the Lauritzen Company agrees to pay the crew then the ship will sail. But he, a mess hand, Mr Orlando Tangco, and the chief cook, Mr Leo Nebreja, intend flying back to Manila, even though they have served three months of a ninemonth contract with the ship.

The three men said Lauritzen must pay their air fares back to the Philippines but the company has refused to do so. Mr Pangco said the company owes him 90 hours overtime pay and yet is only prepared to pay 64 hours. Since joining the ship as a mess hand Mr Tangco has worked as a steward, second cook and a deck hand. He has not been paid for his work during June.

“Today the captain said go home but I will have to pay my own way home and the money I earned during June will have to go towards the ticket. I went to the Customs Department and tried to get them not .to give a clearance to the ship.” The ship owner’s agents in Timaru, D. C. Turnbull and Company, Ltd, were reluctant to comment on the dispute. _ A spokesman for Turnbulls, Mr Peter Weith, said that the company was not prepared to comment on the matter and that he was unaware of the pay dispute. Messrs Hebreja, Pangco and Justiniani, said they wanted to return to Manila because they feared their vessel could become another casualty of the Gulf War.

They pointed to the recent attack on the USS Stark, an American naval vessel which was attacked by an Iraqi missile and suffered the loss of more than 30 crewmen.