TUC Cymru called for action today to stop seafarers being paid below the minimum wage and investment in the maritime sector.

RMT’s Steve Skelly pointed out that since 2010 Irish Ferries had paid out roughly £300 million in dividends to shareholders “off the backs of 500 seafarers,” with skilled maritime workers spending over a month at sea still paid under either the British or Irish minimum wage.

Adoption of the Seafarers’ Charter through the Employment Rights Act was welcome but more needed to be done to secure collective bargaining across ports and shipping.

Investment in offshore renewable energy and port infrastructure could create new skilled jobs in the maritime sector, a composite motion from the union and fellow seafarers’ union Nautilus pointed out.

Nautilus’s Martyn Gray pointed out that from Venue Cymru where the conference was held on the Llandudno seafront, you can see “wind farms, turbines — infrastructure on our shores, but very little of it actually manufactured here.”