GFTU BGCM Minutes 2017

influence, we participate at the ILO, International Labour Organisation. We set

the regulations, so we have just set maritime labour conventions that will put

contracts into place for the likes of the yacht sector.

Going forward, that is quite a lot that we have done really in five or six years.

We have merged with the Dutch, which was the big one, we have merged with

the Swiss, which takes us over there. We are in discussions with Croatia,

20,000 seafarers to come into membership, to organise, Croatia being a new

part of the EU, the last country to join the EU, completely unorganised. It does

not matter to us whether we are in the EU or not. Switzerland is not in the EU.

It does not matter. We will still organise right across. We will not stay within

Europe, we will go global, obviously. A lot of countries now want to join. We

have had Finland, Norway, Sweden, Australian Officers Union, New Zealand

Guild. They all want to come into the federation, they all want to build on the

relationship for two years, they all want to harmonise into a merged union and

that is where we will go and our young people coming through, that is what

they will be, they will be international trade unionists working in that sort of field

rather than just the UK.

Just giving you an example of why that is so important, I spent a year with the

General Secretary and we were discussing with Shell International and they

brought over representatives from the United States etc. We had had a bad

relationship with Shell for about three or four years. They have got a massive

office in Waterloo, a big tower there, they employ thousands. They just sacked

one of our members, no reason. They said they do not need a reason, they

just sack who they want when they want for whatever reason they want. We

said, “You are not going to do that in the UK” and we had to go to court and

then we had to go to the appeals court and it basically created a massive rift

amongst both parties. We have a pride of trying to work with ship owners. We

were set up by ship owners in 1857 because of the slave trade between Africa,

America and Liverpool and because they are shipping merchants and the

amount of money they have made through the elements of the slave trade,

they formed Nautilus International to look after the welfare of seafarers. That is

where it all originated from. So we do have a link there that we try to work in

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