Nineteen Pakistani seamen working on board Birger Jarl have been served termination notices (varsel) from May 15. The Birger Jarl, a cruising ship, is owned by Rederi Allandia.
Rauf Butt is one such worker. Working on this ship since 1987, Rauf Butt is soon 60. ‘I am now a sugar patient and have developed pain in my knees since long-time work on board a ship causes such ailments. I think it owes to constant vibrations’, he says. He simply has no idea what he would do if he is fired and is forced to go back.
”The Rederi Allandia justifies the redundancies on the pretext that under new EU legislation on employment, non-EU workers deprive the ship of monetary support (BIDRAG)the company is otherwise entitled from EU (European Union)”, Rauf told Internationalen in an interview.
Rauf thinks the citing of EU-law as a reason to fire the workers is mere an excuse. ”The real reason behind redundancies is: these workers, some of them working for almost twenty-five years now, earn better wages now owing to yearly pay raise (kollektive avtal). The company wants to fire them and employ new workers instead from possibly east European countrie at low wages”, Rauf asserts.
All these Pakistani workers were members of SEKO-Sjöfolk. Rauf accusses ‘the union bureaucracy’ for ”betraying the workers’ cause as Pakistani workers rank low on bureaucracy’s priority list”.
The resentment against Seko was strong when this scribe visited these workers at a meeting. One worker, Azhar, had saved in his mobile a sms he got from Seko ombud, Tedde . The SMS reads: ”No point in calling. We all loose jobs now. Why couldnt you be satisfied with the money you already earned?”.
” The Seko section on board Birger Jarl has been telling these workers that if they fight back for their jobs, the company would go bankrupt. Hence, according to Seko, these Pakistani workers better sacrifice their jobs in order to save the jobs of Swedish workers”, Tariq Nasim, one of the workers, told Internationalen. Regardless of what thes eworkers called ”union betrayal”, the workers have not given up the fight. Having lost hope in Seko, they joined SAC. Now, the SAC Transport Syndicae has taken up the cause of these workers and SAC is representing them in this conflict with the company.
”The jobs for us are life and death question as many have now reached their fifties.
On return to Pakistan, nobody hopes to find either a job or start a business”, says Rauf Butt. ”Firing these all these workers is tantamount to economic murder of twenty families in Pakistan”, he adds. Termination for Rauf Butt, like his Pakistani collegues, means return to Pakistan since they are not Swedish citizens even if they are working on board a Swedish citizens for over 20 years. ”The company would fix visas for us on annual basis. We would work for three months and return to Pakistan for three months”, Rauf Butt explains. The Swedish workers work one week and are free next week. The Pakistani workers, according to Rauf Butt, wanted the same previlege but the company would deny them the same rights as were enjoyed by the Swedish workers. ”I once worked one wee and took the next week as my week off. I kept doing it for two years, but the company refused to get me a visa. Hence, I was forced to do as the other Pakistanis were doing”, he said. He said Pakistani workers, without equal rights as Swedish workers would enjoy, were an easy work force to handle.
”It was this visa-situation the company is now exploiting”, says Humayoon who has his visa expired. ”The company had,it seems, planned to get rid of Pakistani workers easily through the expiry of our visas”, Rauf butt asserts. He explains: ”For instance, three workers —Ishtiaq, Humayoon and Azhar—have their visas expired. Ishtiaq had his visa expird two week ago. When his visa was expired, he was told to leave the ship. Now in a way he is living illegal in Sweden”. Similalrly, Azhar and Humayoon had their visas expired before the termination notices were served. These three workers told Internationalen that they had applied for new visas ”but the company did not send relavent papers to Migrationverket to help” them renew their visas. All the workers will have their visas expired latest by September. ”The company thinks when these workers would have their visas expired, they would not cause any trouble and could easily be dealt through police and Migrationverket”, suspects Rauf Butt.
‘This makes the situation acute and urgent’, says Rauf Butt. ‘But counting on the solidarity of the Swedish workers, we are fighting back’, he adds.
BY Farooq Sulehria