Following repeated failures to reach agreements between employers and seamen in Iceland, a countdown to strike action begins tomorrow as fishermen are balloted on whether or not to strike.
The ballot takes place online between 19th September and 17th October, with affiliated associations deciding individually on the question of whether or not to embark on strike action with no set time limit.
The strike is set to start at 2300 on the 10th November, if agreements have not been reached by that time.
The last agreement with unions ended in January 2011 and since then it has not been possible to reach consensus. A deal was struck between employers’ federation SFS and the Icelandic Fishermen’s Union earlier this year, but this was decisively rejected by the membership.
A key factor is the pricing of fish in Iceland, with some fish landed to auction and sold at the rate the market decided, while vertically-integrated companies owning both vessels and production are able to set their own prices for fish landed to their own plants, with crews paid a share of this price. The difference between this and the market price is judged to be as high as 30%.
There are numerous bones of contention that remain unresolved, including the lack of recompense for the loss of the former seamen’s tax breaks, manning issues, and a widespread dissatisfaction with the newbuild payment under which 10% of earnings of crews on new vessels are retained for seven years, while the crews do not end up with any ownership of the vessels they are expected to contribute to the construction costs of.
As one union has pointed out, this is equivalent to levying 10% of the earnings of pilots and air stewardesses as a contribution to airlines renewing aircraft, commenting that suggesting such a levy would be regarded as a ridiculous suggestion in any other industry.
