Dover Port officials prevented ITF inspectors from boarding P&O Ferries ferries

Today three P&O ferries are stopped in the port of Dover Ferries, the Pride of Kent, the Pride of Canterbury and the Spirit of Britain, while arriving in the port English a fourth ship of the company, the Cote des Flandres.

Specifying that you have anticipated, as a courtesy, the visit of their inspectors with an e-mail and to have completed the course on the security necessary to carry out the visit, the ITF has made I note that the port police have nevertheless refused access to the inspectors on the basis that he had not received any notice. The union recalled that its inspectors are not obliged to communicate their imminent visit to inspect the ships or to investigate the abuse of seafarers' rights by sending a notice to ports or shipowners. In addition, the ITF has specified whereas, in the presence of inspectors pending a decision on the their access, port officials phoned P&O Ferries.

'As an INSPECTOR of the FTT in the United Kingdom - pointed out Tommy Molloy, one of the inspectors rejected by the port police - in 17 years this is the first time I has been refused access to a United Kingdom port at the in order to investigate the well-being of the crews. The experience - has added Molloy - shows us that if employers not in good standing are informed of our inspections, often members of the crew are threatened and the documentation incriminating Disappears. Our inspections - he explained - are surprising both by their nature than by necessity'.

"P&O Ferries - the secretary has increased the dose ITF general, Stephen Cotton - has shown that he has no regard for the law and it is puzzling that the port of Dover prevent access to ITF inspectors who are only there to ascertain the well-being of the crew and the safety of the ships. ALL over the world, ITF inspectors are at the forefront in safeguarding safety standards for seafarers and ships of which they are crewed. We have serious reservations about the reason why they would be denied access, especially - he Cotton specified referring to the detention of P&O ships Ferries arranged in recent days by Maritime and Coastguard Agency - as a result of the stoppages imposed by the MCA and related to problems safety and familiarization of the crew with the ships. We ask the Minister of Transport, Grant Shapps - concluded the Secretary-General of the FTT - to ascertain why the our inspectors have been blocked and to commit themselves so that let this not happen again."

The nautilus international union has also asked the government of the United Kingdom to intervene and to ensure that inspectors can board ships. "This - he said Micky Smyth, Head of Industrial Relations at the Trade Union - it is the last worrying sign as far as P&O Ferries. We have already seen the levels at which it is P&O Ferries management fired through Zoom eight hundred seafarers of the United Kingdom. It is essential that the FTT inspectors are able to do their job trying to urgently ascertain the living conditions and work of seafarers on board'.

Meanwhile, ITF, Nautilus International and the British trade union RMT have announced a protest action to be held tomorrow at the London headquarters of the DP World group.

"P&O - said the Secretary General of the RMT, Mick Lynch - runs a pirate organization consisting of poorly trained, poorly trained and over-exploited temporary workers that make their ferries unsafe to be used in travel with passengers. The contempt that the company has in both the comparisons of the staff that of the passengers is highlighted by the chaos of Easter voyages occurring in UK ports and provoked by their illegal actions'.