RMT Seafarers at the Royal Fleet Auxiliary (RFA) will take strike action on Sunday despite efforts by the union to find a settlement.
RFA have imposed a one-year deal of 4.5% which does not reflect the value and sacrifices of staff in the fleet.
RMT members work as civilian merchant seafarers onboard the fleet of Royal Fleet Auxiliary (RFA) vessels which provide the Royal Navy with vital logistic and operational support including humanitarian operations around the globe.
Over 500 RFA seafarers will be taking part in the Sunday strike.
RMT general secretary Mick Lynch said:
“I want to congratulate our members in RFA who will be taking a stand on Sunday. RFA members have reached their tolerance limit towards poor pay and conditions for UK seafarers despite the vital work that they perform. Management has remained inflexible throughout the negotiations and has failed to present an improved offer that meets our members’ expectations.
RFA must acknowledge the gravity of the situation and avoid a crewing crisis by showing respect for the role and sacrifices of merchant seafarers, who play a crucial part in long deployments away from home on operations worldwide. We have made efforts to reach a negotiated settlement with management, but now we have no choice but take strike action.”
Pay them what they deserve to live comfortably & provide for their familiies. We see the wealth of the nation being hoarded by the few at the top while tghe ordinary folk are left struggling & all the country needs to function starved of funds.
Every year it gets worse. The richest get massively richer while 80% at least get poorer or at best increase a tiny bit. Normally the poorer you the worse it gets.
I’ve a water treatment works fairly near to where I live I’m also an angler and iam incensed that these places are allowed to dump ANY SHIT into the natural rivers and streams anywhere.then seeing the size of bonus,’ given to the bosses of the company is obscene. and symptomatic of much that is wrong with the country I nobody knows what the F**K is going on
agreed
Slightly off topic but was discussing it yesterday with a still current submariner (who has his notice in) and while he would like to stay, the negatives are far outweighing the positives. Stuff like Legionnaires disease being in the accommodation blocks and the guys being told to share a bath. Meanwhile back on the Bibby Stockholm……. 🤔 A lot of this stuff is down to perception and when the dynamic is that you’re being treated worse than illegal immigrants its easy to buy into the ‘its better outside’, especially when you have transferable skills. Good luck to the boys and… Read more »
That is a disgrace.
Share a bath? Are you sure they are asking people to take baths together? When ever I’ve been in accommodation blocks some of the older ones don’t have en-suite facilities so there was normally say 6 separate rooms with a bath in each one. Some had separate shower rooms or they may be in the bath. The officers accommodation at a certain barracks had 4 baths on each corridor with shower in the bath. The cleaners cleaned the facilities daily. The maintenance and services will all be run by external profit driven organisations so the bare minimum will normally be… Read more »
Not sure if you’re being serious or not MS but I bet you ‘share’ a bath with other members of your household. It doesn’t mean you all need to be in it at the same time. The blocks in question have en suite showers but the guys were told they couldn’t use them. From memory each floor had a single bath at the end of it and the dozen or so people would all have to use that.
You never can tell sometimes what people might be asked to do. I didn’t think folks would actually be told to take baths together. Even in a hot water shortage people would probably prefer a wet wipe down than jumping in the tub with some other bloke
or a submariners dhobi in under AA minute.step in, get wet, soap hp, rinse and step out again👍😁😁😁
I was a prison officer for 24 years after I left the navy. prisoners got a bath a week in a maximum of 18 inches of water for
ten minutes I’d rather have just hosed the creature s down in the exercise yard bloody places were similar in smell to H.M.S Sultan,and Nelson where I did shore time between my final ship the nshore survey ship, echo,and discharge. i wish I’d turned around at the gate and gone back in and signed up again.
When they mean share a Bath I think they mean having too share the Bath between those others in the block not 2 in the Bath ,when Keppel and Samaura Blcks stood in HMS Nelson each floor had 4 baths and 4 shower trays someone would always nick the plugs we used too bung up the plughole with Bogroll
share a bath? bloody hell. can the WRNS do it as well? id pay to see it🤔
4.5% is a joke. Pay needs to rise above inflation. Pensioners etc should not get more than the RFA.
Asda is doing a 12% rise and someone is trying to say 4.5% is acceptable. It’s a pay cut.
The RFA are doing more with less and with a shortage of staff the ones left need to work more.
4.5% is probably far higher than the rest of the public sector. Percentage pay increases get us nowhere. They need to get inflation back down to 2% where it should be and then review every service one by one and get everyone on the correct pay. Then they need to link pay to something solid so everyone keeps up.
Oddly the inflation was created by the Russians – hopefully we can defeat the bugg*rs without losing British lives. That’s something at least.
Actually the RFA last year had the lowest pay across the Blue light and all civil service sectors. Considering the work that they do on the frontline and the time spent away from their loved ones then don’t think that a 4.5 percent really suffices, considering the role they play in keeping us all safe and the Navy supported. You got to think these guys are expected to go to war and get shot at, how many other civil service jobs do you know have the same risks. These people need the pay that reflects the sacrifices that they make.… Read more »
I’ve got average pay growth in the public sector at 4.8%. NHS workers etc. will be at the top of that list.
What I am saying is that if you give inflationary rises you simply feed the loop of inflationary rises followed by inflationary prices and we are back to square one. We need a better way. We don’t want the 1970s-1980s all over again.
Well sometimes you have to practice what you preach. How many pay rises have MPs awarded themselves that are higher than the rest of the civil service. I take it inflation is not affected by the recent pay rises enjoyed by doctors.
The average includes the entire public sector which yes includes Doctor’s NHS pay. No idea what MPs got – they are a drop in the ocean and nothing to do with the Civil Service. Personally I think the MP pay increase should not exceed the inflationary minimum otherwise you get this sort of situation.
fat cat bonus in areas that should be nationalised,like the water companies who get billions and are allowed to PumpS*T. INTO the rivers and waterways of the U.K
in the 1980’s we had a fleet.
In the 1980s we had hulls. I suspect a lot of the guys who went to the Falklands would have swapped the T42s for just one T45 anyday let alone 6 of them. Also Harriers were good but their replacements are much better. I think I have made my point without even discussing Astute. The kit is just more lethal nowadays?
how many others? how about civil service jobs police, prison and fire brigades come under the umbrella too.
I wasn’t aware that Liz Truss and her disastrous administration were Russian.
They weren’t as you know. Inflation grew out of oil & gas shortages increasing costs for businesses thus driving inflation.
The majority of recent inflation came from Brexit, Covid and Ukraine, the largest being Ukraine. Truss wasn’t around long enough to cause more than a blip.
or Chinese?
Maybe you should look at QE since 2008, direct constant money printing from your own government from even earlier – and US and EU. Also the desire by extremists from political “centre” to increase food prices and forbid you to eat meat and fish by increasing punitive regulations…
Toffee. QE was the financial crisis. Normal mechanism to put us on the right footing as you well know. The rest is conspiracy theorist nonsense.
Maybe you should look at data from money printing in UK, US and EU, plus just read about Waitrose CEO for UK…
Or if could read Portuguese you could have a portuguese major supermarket chain saying that for example Spain will loose oranges production with current rules.
Or just have your hears and eyes opened and see farmer protests.
You can also read World Bank public declarations about food production…
caught in ever rising polluted water.
.5Mark In 2006 the RFA had a 3% pay rise over 3 years. Until last year 4.5% award the past 18 years have seen increases less that the public services and between 2010 – 2014 no rise at all. Average salaries with in the service have decreased by 34% over this time. If you look at what the RFA does and it’s output compared with the RN it is greater and in fact without the RFA naval aviation and SF training would be deluded of any maritime training. his is in addition to its core roles both as Tankers or… Read more »
Firstly I am looking at this purely from an inflation perspective. I am not disrespecting the work done by the RFA. There is no need to justify anything on those grounds. I am merely pointing out that if everyone got a pay incrrease at the same level as inflation then inflation would stay at the same level and everyone would need the same next year until the country was bust. Then nobody has a job and we all starve. The RN have no possiblility of strikes. Their pay is set effectively by a review body probably using an array of… Read more »
Time to Pay the RFA a decent wage, comparable or even better than their RN colleagues. They certainly spend more time away from family and go to all the places, and sometimes more than the Fleet.
The government can find millions of pounds for the likes of illegal immigrants ,and can’t fund the RFA part of our defence.Just bloody typical 🙄
it’s time to raise the profile of the RFA and it’s importance