"2. The shipowners The contribution of British shipping to the solving of our balance of payments problem is consistently falling. This cannot be blamed on labour costs which are below those of our successful international competitors. The growth of the world's super tanker fleet - which, British owners realised too late, are more economic = proves their failure to modernise, despite the largely undisclosed super profits made, They are a powerfiil and ruthless vested interest, with a long history of antiunion activity. In 1955, they broke an unofficial strike by getting the Government to send out National Service call-up papers to strikers between 18 and 26 years old. In 1960, they jailed unofficial strikers who had breached the notorious Merchant Shippin Act (Note: This act is the one remaining example of 19th Century Master-Servants Acts. It is the same form of criminal law as in the armed forces, and enables the shipowners to dictate conditions of employment to which seamen's resistance is mutiny,..Every day Masters act as Judge, Jury and Prosecutor, to fine men at seas for being a few minutes late to work, a man may be fined several dsys pay, and on subsequent offences, fines are doubled, eeeA seaman on leave who fails to report, maybe for serious domestic reasons, can be dragged back to the ship by the police on the orders of the Captain. If absent when the ship sails, he is a deserter, and can be “jailed! His wife can also be jailed for "harbouring a deserter"! ) "3. Incomes policy. The NUS accepted the incomes policy in belief that it would benefit low-wage groups like seamen, We now find a 15% increase for doctorse. is permissible, but a 15% increase for seamen will ruin the country! Is it wrong for us to feel that "incomes policy” has become the old familiar WAGE RESTRAINT? Shipowmers cry that they can't afford it, the seamen cannot judge this, and neither can Mr. Gunter BECAUSE PROFITS AND COSTS ARE THE BYST KEPT SECRET OF THE INDUSTRY eeoelTH® SHIPOWNERS MUST PROVE THEIR CASE BY OPENING THEIR BOOKS. Too long they RSet OV ge "eae os Ce ee) eee Sl le ae ee!
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