Victory on the high seas

After Unite mounted a concerted campaign in conjunction with international trade unions and Holocaust campaign groups, ship owner Allseas finally gave in to global pressure on Friday (February 6) and announced it would rename its vessel honouring Nazi war criminal, Pieter Schelte.

 
The former SS Pieter Schelte, now being renamed the SS Pioneering Spirit, is the largest crane vessel in the world. It weighs 403,342 gross tonnes, is more than 120 metres wide (the length of a football pitch) and 382 metres long.

 
Now docked in Rotterdam, the ship is contracted by Shell UK and will be used in decommissioning Brent platforms situated on the UK continental shelf.

 
The pressure on Allseas Group to change the name of the ship was 10 years in the making, when the ship was first named after the shipping company owner’s late father.

 
Unite assistant general secretary Steve Turner was delighted by the outcome of years of campaigning from groups across the world.

 
Taking part in the campaign, Unite launched a petition and gathered hundreds of signatures from people in all parts of the globe, including the Netherlands, the USA, New Zealand, Germany and Argentina, among others.

 
The petition urged Allseas to rename the ship and Shell to withdraw from its contract if the shipping company did not comply.
Unite also wrote to Shell to demand that the vessel be renamed or stepped down, and called upon the UK government to intervene too. In both the Westminster and Scottish parliaments, motions were tabled calling for renaming.

 
Turner argued it showed what trade unions and campaign groups can accomplish when they work together.

 
“We are delighted that Allseas has at long last acknowledged the grave dishonour that was caused by naming this vessel after someone responsible for horrific war crimes,” he said. “At long last, they will now act to rechristen this ship.

 
“In the days after we commemorate the liberation of Auschwitz, there will now be an end of the distress caused by this appalling insult to those who died under Nazi tyranny,” Turner added. “Trade union members were proud to join with Jewish groups to press for this action, and we thank all Unite members and friends who supported this campaign.”

 
The ship’s former namesake, Pieter Schelte Hareema, father of ship owner Edward Hareema, worked with Josef Mengele in the elite 5th SS Panzer Division Wiking in the Waffen-SS, a unit linked to war crimes.

 
He was later jailed for the enslavement of 4,000 men on the eastern front, and allegedly spoke of the Aryan supremacy and in the most abhorrent terms about the Jewish people.

 
Flags of convenience

 
Although the days of forced labour on the scale that Pieter Schelte presided over are thankfully long gone, working conditions for seafarers on ships flying “flags of convenience” – as the renamed ship does – are at particular risk of being exploited.

 
As the International Transport Workers Federation (ITF) notes, flags of convenience (FOC) ships are vessels which fly the flag of a country other than its country of ownership.

 
This allows ships to circumvent labour regulations in the country of ownership, as well as avoid paying taxes in some instances.

 
Seafarers working on flags of convenience ships sometimes face very low wages, poor on-board conditions, inadequate food and clean drinking water, and long periods of work without rest.

 
Ship owners, on the other hand, are able to take advantage of minimal regulation, low or no taxes and cheap foreign labour.

 
Since the renamed SS Pioneering Spirit flies an FOC from Panama, home to the largest ship registry in the world and which critics say is beset by corruption, Unite contends that the campaign is not yet over.

 
“All that remains now is for Allseas and Shell to provide reassurance that the `flag of convenience’ under which this ship sails does not mean that the treatment of the workers on board falls below internationally acceptable standards,” said Turner. “We urge them to allow inspection of the crew in order to confirm that decent labour standards are being upheld.”

 
Turner will again write to energy secretary Ed Davey to support minimum standards for workers on the ship, especially since taxpayers’ money will be used for the decommissioning.

 
Unite is grateful to all who signed the petition and urges them to take one more step – to email the energy secretary as well and ask that he does not sign off on this ship entering UK waters until minimum labour standards are upheld.

 
Davey’s contact information can be found here.