The authorities of the port of Amsterdam have barred a Russian transport vessel with crew on strike from leaving the port, a senior trade union official said on Dec. 2.
"Port authorities have barred the Nikolai Kasatkin transport ship, owned by the Parus LLC from Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, from taking to the sea after an inspection discovered trade law and security violations on board," said Vadim Mamontov, who heads the Kaliningrad department of the Russian sailors’ trade union.
The ship’s owners owe the crew $90,000 in wage arrears. Inspectors also found out that the crew’s labor contracts contained numerous violations, their health certificates were invalid and safety rules on board the vessel were often neglected.
The crew, which is currently on strike demanding wage arrears to be paid, is running out of food, Mamontov said.
The ship’s owner informed the trade union that "the crew’s demands are not justified," because de-facto the company owed its workers only one month in wage arrears and had to withhold the payment "for objective reasons."
Transport investigators in Russia’s Far Eastern Sakhalin region has launched a probe into the case.
Source: TASS