American corporation Alcoa got tangled into another incident related to its ship hiring policy in Australia.
Namely, following the controversial dumping of the Australian ship MV Portland, on Monday the Panamanian registered Flag Of Convenience Greenery Sea, hired by Alcoa, arrived in the WA port of Bunbury to take the second company cargo of alumina.
“Unfortunately for the Hong Kong shipping firm Parakou Shipping, owners of this ship and its fleet are well known to the ITF and inspectors soon found that $65,000 of back wages for the full Chinese crew were still outstanding from 2014,” the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) Australia said.
The ITF added that none of the paperwork on the ship added up and that the master was unable to provide a confirmation that crew wages including home allotments had been paid for the past 3 months.
Moreover, the ITF revealed plans to also refer other concerns to the Australian Maritime Safety Authority about poor conditions on board such as low provisions, questions on overtime records and the spartan nature of the accommodation. If they are in breach of the Maritime Labour Convention then they must be detained regardless of who the charterer is, the union stressed.
“Clearly Alcoa has shirked their responsibility to check the human conditions of FOC coastal traders – not surprising while they are being used as an industrial wedge against Australian workers, ” said ITF national coordinator Dean Summers .
The ITF will now mobilize inspectors around the world to check the rest of the fleet of 12 FOCs most of which have a history of wage complaints.
Alcoa has replaced the Australian ship MV Portland with the cheaper FOC ships available on single voyages to take Alumina from Western Australia to Victoria for processing.
In addition, last month, the Flag of Convenience Strategic Alliance was found by the ITF to have bribed foreign government officials in at least 3 countries before being hired to take the first cargo for Alcoa under contentious Australian government licences.