UNITE PAY CATCH SUCCESS FOR NORTHERN IRELAND HARBOUR WORKERS

 UNITE PAY CATCH SUCCESS FOR NORTHERN IRELAND HARBOUR WORKERS

Landworker Autumn 2024 article

By joining UNITE, harbour workers at Ardglass, Kilkeel and Portavogie;  three small historic villages on the Irish Sea, have boosted their pay and legal standing, writes Mark Metcalf.

Employed by the Northern Ireland Fishery Harbour Authority (NIFHA) these highly skilled employees, who maintain the facilities, responded to their wages dropping like an anchor to minimum wage rates over the years by joining Unite in January 2023. “It was all new territory for us,” states Unite rep Jim Lenaghan, a qualified welder, keen to maintain the high standards of service to privately owned boats who land our best loved, healthiest food, fish.

At Ardglass, at least £8 million passes through the fish trade, mainly in herrings, prawns and whitefish, annually.

Very reluctantly, Jim’s union colleagues were set to down tools. “They wanted us to accept £11.44 an hour,” he explains. “But with UNITE’s assistance we managed to pressure NIFHA and we got £12 an hour. That was backdated  to April 2023. It means that as we also obtained the £1,500 one off payment awarded by Stormont to all civil servants plus then we were owed £5,000. The key to our successes was joining UNITE.”

In 2022 an estimated 150,000 public sector workers in NI went on strike at different times. Then on January 16, 2024 there were was joint strike action, the largest in more than half a century, by workers from 16 trade unions led by Unite.

The fact that NIFHA workers were included alongside civil servants in being awarded the £1,500 is significant. Because NIFHA is an arms-length body funded by the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) Jim is not technically a civil servant.

“This has previously allowed our employer to sink our pay to the lowest levels. We now see ourselves as more part of the civil service, a much bigger body than we are on our own,” says Jim whose fellow trade unionists are now casting ahead to “significantly increase” the pay rates of harbourmasters who remain on £14 an hour and who are threatening to quit.

UNITE’s research has established that in similar posts that are not even commercial that harbourmasters are being paid up to £38,000 annually. “You can’t just replace these jobs easily. Harbourmasters are highly skilled. If we lost any of them then the future of all of us is endangered.” 

Unite regional officer Joanne McWilliams said, “winning these workers a minimum of the Living Wage was only the start. We are now benchmarking pay with similar workers elsewhere so we can present the employer with a claim that sustains skills and employment. The harbour workers are highly skilled and are responsible for multi-million pound vessels day in and day out – the days of low pay are well and truly over.”