Crewing problems

[Les Woodard]

Talking to my mate who is about to embark on his last job on the gas ships then retirement. He said that the MUA (maritme union of australia) is recruiting seamen from the uk and nz to help with the numbers as they do not have enough bodies to crew the merchant ships. Tried to talk the grandson in applying for a position but is more interested in playing the fecking playstation much to his old mans regret. Oh how I would have jumped at that opportunity a while back. Single berth with ensuite and they even have a steward to clean their cabin for them. Two months on and two off but some are doing the three month swing as they live overseas.

[j.sabourn]

How times have changed in such a short time as well. The MUA as well as the offshoots from same apart from the bad inflammatory press they got , got excellent conditions for their members , the luxuries you mention was due to their efforts. I had to fight to become a member of the Guild , otherwise employment out here was not negotionable. No foreign labour on their ships was allowable and if was, was strictly engineered and had time limits on. They were the best conditions world wide that I saw in 50 years of shipping, and why not ? And that includes working for the Americans who weren’t that much above par than the British. The best way to identify the MUA. To other seamen is…They took the same duties as the British Shipping Federation and were the sole runners of this seamans labour exchange with no outside adverse corruption to its aims, unless it came to dishonest delegates which the media would exaggerate and make piecemeal of.
JS.

[Des Taff Jenkins]

The clown Albanese has sent soldiers over to England to train Ukrainian troops, meanwhile up in Queensland and down in Victoria the massive floods have people sitting on their roofs waiting for help, his brain must be in his posterior.
Des

[happy daze john in oz]

Des mate, if he had half a brain he would be dangerous, see he has a number of overseas trips to come again this year.
The problem with taking on crew while a ship is in an Oz port is that the company will have to pay them under Oz rates.
So they can take them on overseas and pay them the same low rate as any other crew member.

But the Maritime union is now part of a larger group, the CFMMEU.
Construction Forestry, Maritime, Mining and Engineering Union.