There are indications that seafarers in Nigeria are still facing ill-treatment and bad remuneration compared to their international counterparts.
Investigations revealed that some cadets onboard ship recently had their monthly salary slashed from N50,000 to N20,000.
One of the victims who spoke with Shipping Position Daily under condition of anonymity lamented that despite the fact that check-up dues were usually deducted by their union and the ITF from cadets’ salary, nothing has been done by both bodies.
Apart from these, the Maritime Workers Union of Nigeria (MWUN) has equally vowed to engage the Nigerian Liquefied and Natural Gas (NLNG) to ensure that the condition of service for 57 seafarers whose salaries were recently slashed and rendered redundant since 2016 should be reappraised.
Under the Maritime Labor Convention (MLC) 2006, an instrument which Nigeria is yet to domesticate, condition of service of seafarers are supposed to be the same with their international counterparts.
Even though he did not mention the names of the shipping companies involved in salary cut, the seafarer alleged that the associations and unions are colluding with shipowners table and NIMASA, so they cannot fight for the seafarers.
According to him, a cadet, going by International Labour Organisation (ILO) and International Transport Worker Federation (ITF) standards is supposed to earn N250,000 monthly, but they are now being paid N20,000
"I am also a victim too, so this is why I am talking, recently salaries of cadets onboard were slashed from N50,000 to N20,000 and nobody is asking questions, this happened in October, we don't know the reason for this, meanwhile under ILO and international standard, an AB (cadet) salary is not supposed to be receiving less than minimum of N250,000"
"How do you expect seafarers who pay check up dues and the ITF does not come to their rescue, what are the associations doing with the check-up dues?"
Also speaking last week during election of the union in Lagos, Seamen and NIWA Branch President of MWUN, Comrade Francis Bunu said that the union would by January 2018 engage the NLNG for appraisal of the condition of service of its members.
According to him, the terms and conditions have already been agreed upon with NLNG and NIMASA. He said Nigerian seafarers must receive salaries like their foreign counterparts.
"We are reappraising the condition of service of our members at NLNG.
Because of the economic downturn, they deducted from the salary of our members, but as of today, we know that Nigeria is counted as one of the ten gas producing countries, not just that, we are the second in the world"
"In NLNG, they laid-off 57 workers, but the agreement we had with them is that they should be placed on a voyage contract for six months, within this time we would be observing the economic trend if it increases or decreases, but thank God that as of today the NLNG is celebrating their 4000 cargo milestone, if the economy was not booming, they would not be able to celebrate that"
"Therefore, those workers they have placed on redundancy must be brought back as full staff. We already agreed that when the economy improves they should be the first people that would be considered, it is already a written document and by next year we would call them back"
"A voyage contract should not be more than six month, we don't want them to be using our members through the back door", he said.
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