With a recent letter addressed to the newly appointed fisheries minister from the COSATU (Congress Of South African Trade Unions) Provincial Secretary, Tony Ehrenreich, one cant help but wonder whats on the agenda. It was apparently clear with Marius Fransman's engagement and drive for ANC votes from the small local fishing communities that they would continue to press further ahead after showing some improvement with votes accrued.
With the drive by the unions to become more involved in the fishing sector as mentioned by Tony, this past week saw the first of what we expect to be many more altercations and loud discussions with crew employed on one of our hake long liners. The entire crew have joined a small union and have upon affiliation become increasingly more difficult. Needless to say the entire crew received written letters of warning (the first of its kind ever issued from our company) to all the crew for all and any transgressions noted.
With our Government/ Department of Labor looking to to implement the national standardization of wages in the fishing sector a year or so back, I wonder why it has taken the Unions so long to wake up. Standardization of commission wages would only provide a monthly security of a wage however they would ultimately end up earning less and paying more taxes or see the fishing vessels becoming increasingly tied up (fed up) and not being able to operate due to increased operational costs. The Department of Labor needs to realize that their fellow Governmental Departments are far ahead at increasing operational costs with the electricity hike that run the ice makers, the increased diesel price that powers the engines and of course the fees and levies billed by the Fisheries Department. The vessel owners are being squashed and forced to save every cent with operational costs continuing to increase.
I'm not quite sure what the unions will do apart from the annual strike (annual leave) that their members will be forced to participate in or be press ganged into joining or face some sort of wrath of the participants, most likely for higher wages, free dental and housing allowance (its not an allowance if you are demanding it free). The truth is the level of education of the fishers is some what lacking and to be honest most fish out of necessity and not by choice. With this in mind, the crews aboard our vessel will look for every opportunity to permanently borrow anything of some remote value. For an illustrated example, last month I caught one particular crew member (lets call him Jack) stealing 2x10kg boxes of pike bait, literally red handed with the cash in hand during the exchange of goods. Needless to say Jack was dismissed on the very spot. Two weeks later we received a summons to appear in the CCMA. That very crew member Jack had taken us to court over an unfair dismissal and sought compensation of R50k. The judge laughed the matter off and in the end only time was wasted. However, we were advised to issue written warnings to all crew members for contraventions and keep the on file for that rainy day at the CCMA.
I wish the unions the very best of luck as this is the mentality of who will represented.
