Anyone Interested in Ships

[rockershovel]

I don't recall BP doing that in 1986 (during the great oil price collapse of that time) but I certainly remember them doing something similar to their offshore oil exploration and development personnel - I was one of them....

 

It needs to be remembered that the EU always had a surplus of cheap labour - Spain and Portugal were pretty much Third World countries when they joined, and the Germans used Turks in the same way before they had East Europeans available. 

 

This was always the core problem with the EU - Britain was one of a small number of major nett contributors (they haven't signed a new nett contributor since we joined). It was also a major factor in the bitter union resistance to contractors of any sort in the nationalised industries. The EU also knew  all along, that there was no point trying to get a majority on-side in the UK for their wider plans, 

 

But the world turns, and we all turn with it... 

[MarkC]

6 hours ago, Bon Accord said:

 

Exactly the same thing that happened today happened with Irish Ferries in 2005.
In that case security staff (thugs) and replacement foreign crew came onboard disguised as passengers and when on passage attempted to take control of the ships - the Irish/British crews initially resisted by barricading themselves in the crew accommodations/engine room/bridge etc. and this led to something of a stand off.

The ships were also reflagged from Ireland to Cyprus.

With Irish Ferries that was purely a profit maximisation exercise, hence the heavy handed approach with no notice.

Of course considering the atmosphere of the time it was initially thought to be a terrorist attack by some.

 

Those with longer memories shall recall that BP also made all their seastaff redundant instantly - again with no warning - one day back in 1986, with the overwhelming majority of crews finding out about the situation due to it being the lead story on the BBC news that evening. All staff were then invited to reapply for their old jobs via offshore agencies, but with a 25% pay cut and no pension or benefits.

 

Charming people, shipowners.

Indeed so - and the same happened to the staff of one of my previous Companies, back in 1986. (I joined them in 1990). All gathered together on board, ratings dismissed on the spot, to be replaced by Asians, & the officers told that they too were fired, but they could sign back on immediately, on much worse Terms & Conditions. The agency involved was Denman, who had been dismissed themselves by the time I joined the Company. I suspect that Denman would have done the same as P&O did yesterday, by remote video call, had the technology been available then.

 

Denman were notorious for their ruthlessness and parsimony - nobody shed a tear for their going...

 

Mark

[rockershovel]

BP mostly dismissed their rig personnel while they were on rotation, letters simply arrived saying "don't return". In those days when communication moved at the speed of the postman's bike and crews were widely dispersed when off duty, it had the same effect. 

 

 

 

[Bon Accord]

3 hours ago, MarkC said:

Indeed so - and the same happened to the staff of one of my previous Companies, back in 1986. (I joined them in 1990). All gathered together on board, ratings dismissed on the spot, to be replaced by Asians, & the officers told that they too were fired, but they could sign back on immediately, on much worse Terms & Conditions. The agency involved was Denman, who had been dismissed themselves by the time I joined the Company. I suspect that Denman would have done the same as P&O did yesterday, by remote video call, had the technology been available then.

 

Denman were notorious for their ruthlessness and parsimony - nobody shed a tear for their going...

 

Mark

 

Mark,

I take it Denman were in someway affiliated to the "Diamond D" and one of their arms length subsidiaries?

[MarkC]

39 minutes ago, Bon Accord said:

 

Mark,

I take it Denman were in someway affiliated to the "Diamond D" and one of their arms length subsidiaries?

They were indeed - part of the <Glasgow Greeks> - although I understand that that was somewhat derogatory towards Greeks...

 

Mark

[62613]

11 hours ago, Bon Accord said:

 

Those with longer memories shall recall that BP also made all their seastaff redundant instantly - again with no warning - one day back in 1986, with the overwhelming majority of crews finding out about the situation due to it being the lead story on the BBC news that evening. All staff were then invited to reapply for their old jobs via offshore agencies, but with a 25% pay cut and no pension or benefits.

 

Charming people, shipowners.

Thought that was in 1984? I was well ex - BP by that time, but I remember seeing the bit about them changing flag to IoM (or was it Bermuda?) on the TV.

[62613]

6 hours ago, rockershovel said:

I don't recall BP doing that in 1986 (during the great oil price collapse of that time) but I certainly remember them doing something similar to their offshore oil exploration and development personnel - I was one of them....

 

It needs to be remembered that the EU always had a surplus of cheap labour - Spain and Portugal were pretty much Third World countries when they joined, and the Germans used Turks in the same way before they had East Europeans available. 

 

This was always the core problem with the EU - Britain was one of a small number of major nett contributors (they haven't signed a new nett contributor since we joined). It was also a major factor in the bitter union resistance to contractors of any sort in the nationalised industries. The EU also knew  all along, that there was no point trying to get a majority on-side in the UK for their wider plans, 

 

But the world turns, and we all turn with it... 

Erm, there have been contractors since before the EU was founded, after the Treaty of Lisbon. Most of the freedom of movement for labour stuff didn't come in until after that, so it was pure money - grubbing  even then. Before anyone starts going on, I'm not averse to business entities making a profit, but when it's at the expense of their workforces then changes need to be made..

 

[62613]

4 hours ago, MarkC said:

Indeed so - and the same happened to the staff of one of my previous Companies, back in 1986. (I joined them in 1990). All gathered together on board, ratings dismissed on the spot, to be replaced by Asians, & the officers told that they too were fired, but they could sign back on immediately, on much worse Terms & Conditions. The agency involved was Denman, who had been dismissed themselves by the time I joined the Company. I suspect that Denman would have done the same as P&O did yesterday, by remote video call, had the technology been available then.

 

Denman were notorious for their ruthlessness and parsimony - nobody shed a tear for their going...

 

Mark

Denman, or Denholm (Management)?

 

[MarkC]

9 minutes ago, 62613 said:

Denman, or Denholm (Management)?

 

Denman were a subsidiary of Denholm, based in the IoM

 

(Ditto Britship - part of Maersk (UK), but their office was in Ballasalla...)

 

Mark

[Bon Accord]

1 hour ago, 62613 said:

Thought that was in 1984? I was well ex - BP by that time, but I remember seeing the bit about them changing flag to IoM (or was it Bermuda?) on the TV.

 

It was definitely '86. Many ships went over to Bermuda and Gibraltar flag initially before they slowly started to trickle over to IOM.

As I remember the new employment agencies were Wallems and Dorchester Maritime (part of the Schulte empire).

Later all crew were changed again to BP Maritime Services which was a post office box in Bermuda and Dorchester's managed it all on their behalf from their office on the Isle of Man. I think they changed again to somewhere in Singapore about 15 years ago and of course only a year ago there was another massive round of redundancies within the fleet with them going third party yet again.

When the latter occurred there was still a slack handful of people in the fleet who'd gone through all 4 sets of redundancies/reorganisations over a 35 year period!

All gone now though.

[rockershovel]

1 hour ago, 62613 said:

Erm, there have been contractors since before the EU was founded, after the Treaty of Lisbon. Most of the freedom of movement for labour stuff didn't come in until after that, so it was pure money - grubbing  even then. Before anyone starts going on, I'm not averse to business entities making a profit, but when it's at the expense of their workforces then changes need to be made..

 

Contractors have always been on the scene.

 

The canal and railway networks were built by an army of displaced and impoverished agricultural workers from England.

 

"macAlpine's Fusiliers" is specifically about the rapid increase of contract labour from the then-new Eire in the 1930s, 40s and 50s, and the use of DP labour in the later 1940s and 50s. 

 

 

The earliest "race riots" as they were then called, were in the North-East about 1949 and revolved around the attempted importation of Yemeni seamen.

 

Unrest over the importation of contract labour from the Commonwealth led to the legislative controls of the late 1960s and early 70s. 

 

The influx from Eastern Europe began before Lisbon, Maastricht paved the way for it and Blair opened the gates around 2003. 

 

 

Edited March 18, 2022 by rockershovel

[MarkC]

17 minutes ago, rockershovel said:

 

 

The influx from Eastern Europe began before Lisbon, Maastricht paved the way for it and Blair opened the gates around 2003. 

 

 

May 1st, 2004.

 

Many businesses in the UK had to switch their fax machines off (remember them?) and have their phones on answering machines, because of the continuous calls/faxes from Eastern Europeans looking for work...

 

The shipping industry saw a steady influx of Eastern Europeans & Russians from the mid-90s, so we were already used to it all...

[MarkC]

Duplicate post for some reason...

Edited March 18, 2022 by MarkC

[rockershovel]

I quite liked the Azeri and Russian surveyors and engineers I met in the Caspian and Baltic. They were well trained (although their methods were very old-school) and they expected to be shown some respect, they didn't care for the commercial people in the least. 

[eastwestdivide]

Speaking of Russia, the owner of a Soviet-era submarine that’s been moored off Strood pier in the Medway for many years has nailed his colours to the mast so to speak, with a Ukrainian flag. Seen here this morning in a poor mobile phone shot against the sun:

 

Edited March 19, 2022 by eastwestdivide

[eastwestdivide]

Now we're back, a couple of better photos of the "Ukrainian-flagged" Soviet-era submarine moored off Strood pier in the Medway, one from Rochester Castle, one from the riverside in Strood:

 

 

[Fat Controller]

52 minutes ago, eastwestdivide said:

Now we're back, a couple of better photos of the "Ukrainian-flagged" Soviet-era submarine moored off Strood pier in the Medway, one from Rochester Castle, one from the riverside in Strood:

 

 

It was moored in Folkestone Harbour for a while, back in the 1990s.

[eastwestdivide]

21 minutes ago, Fat Controller said:

It was moored in Folkestone Harbour for a while, back in the 1990s.

Yes, you could visit it then (and I did). There's a similar one on the Belgian coast, Zeebrugge I think.

[alastairq]

https://gcaptain.com/ever-forward-general-average-declared/

 

A quick search revealed this hasn't been picked up on?

Or was it in the trade forum?

 

For all those eagerly awaiting Bachmann's latest, one of their containers is on board.

[admiles]

On 03/04/2022 at 12:11, alastairq said:

https://gcaptain.com/ever-forward-general-average-declared/

 

A quick search revealed this hasn't been picked up on?

Or was it in the trade forum?

 

For all those eagerly awaiting Bachmann's latest, one of their containers is on board.

 

Wouldn't have thought anything destined for the UK market would have been affected by the Ever Forward grounding. She is on a Far East - US East Coast rotation.  Bachmann US market stock maybe?

 

One thing that doesn't seem to have been mentioned here regarding the P&O mess is the fact the company is hemorrhaging money and in most circumstances would have gone bust years ago. It's only that the owning group DP World have been propping it up that it still exists at all. 

 

While I certainly don't condone what P&O/DP World have done, I'm not sure the company could have continued as it had been.  No easy solution there.  

[alastairq]

13 minutes ago, admiles said:

Wouldn't have thought anything destined for the UK market would have been affected by the Ever Forward grounding. She is on a Far East - US East Coast rotation.  Bachmann US market stock maybe?

Tootally have been caught up in the affair....

https://ngrm-online.com/index.php?/forums/topic/29521-tootally-update/&do=findComment&comment=760627

[admiles]

1 minute ago, alastairq said:

Tootally have been caught up in the affair....

https://ngrm-online.com/index.php?/forums/topic/29521-tootally-update/&do=findComment&comment=760627

 

Can't read that as not a member of that forum.  All I'll say on the matter is if they're shipping European market cargo on the Ever Forward they need to drastically re-think their shipping strategy and employ a better forwarding agent!

[alastairq]

Sorry..tootally is a UK retailer of Bachmann stuff [from the US. ]

The ship contains a Bachmann container, within which are some items ordered from Bachmann US, which they still haven't received yet.

The Ever-thingy is still stuck, having wandered off course out of the shipping lane.

Some while ago, now.

[admiles]

5 minutes ago, alastairq said:

Sorry..tootally is a UK retailer of Bachmann stuff [from the US. ]

The ship contains a Bachmann container, within which are some items ordered from Bachmann US, which they still haven't received yet.

The Ever-thingy is still stuck, having wandered off course out of the shipping lane.

Some while ago, now.

 

Ah ok, that makes a lot more sense!

[Bon Accord]

2 hours ago, admiles said:

 

One thing that doesn't seem to have been mentioned here regarding the P&O mess is the fact the company is hemorrhaging money and in most circumstances would have gone bust years ago. It's only that the owning group DP World have been propping it up that it still exists at all. 

 

 

With regard to the P&O saga if their press releases are correct then they have indeed been losing money for some years.

P&O management anticipated that a suspension of services whilst new crew were put in place would only be temporary and last a matter of days, for which they estimated they'd lose £1-2 million per day.

We're nearly 3 weeks on from the sacking debacle and most of their services remain suspended with no end in immediate sight, at a cost of many tens of millions (and mounting) and perhaps near irreversible reputational damage.

What I find baffling is that most of the senior management team at P&O ferries has been in place unchanged for many years and it is those same individuals that have overseen apparent continual loss making, defaulted on the pension funds (to the tune of £150 million) and have created themselves the current operational, financial and PR disaster.

Yet the top men survive unscathed whilst everyone else gets a P45? Bizarre.