Union warns over ferry services


Essential ferry services running from mainland Scotland to the Orkney isles are under threat due to decades of underinvestment, the RMT shipping workers’ union has warned. 


The union said that after years of cuts, the service faces a £1.6 million budget deficit this year.


RMT general secretary Mick Cash has written to Scotland’s first minister Nicola Sturgeon spelling out the damaging effect the union says Scottish government policies are having on the ferry services and its workers.


He wrote: “For the last five years, RMT has been repeatedly warning your government of the dangers to our members’ terms and conditions from a perfect storm of aging vessels, aging crew and historic funding shortfalls on council-run Orkney Ferries. 


“We are now approaching the very real prospect of service and job cuts, as a direct result of the Scottish government’s failure to properly fund these lifeline ferry services for Orcadians.”


Cash warned that any threat to jobs would be fiercely resisted. 


The union has pointed out that the shortfall on funding of the services comes on top of 30 years of under-resourcing and has left the aging fleet in dire need of investment and upgrading. 


It says this threatens the viability of the service both now and into the future, and the jobs, terms and conditions of the ferry crew.

https://www.rmt.org.uk/news/rmt-warns-of-dire-consequences-for-orkney-ferries