| Title: | All about Scandinavia |
| Moderator: | TLE::SAVAGE |
| Created: | Wed Dec 11 1985 |
| Last Modified: | Tue Jun 03 1997 |
| Last Successful Update: | Fri Jun 06 1997 |
| Number of topics: | 603 |
| Total number of notes: | 4325 |
Exerpted from United Press International, transmitted on the SISCOM
IP:
REYKJAVIK, Iceland. Some 5000 Icelandic sailors planned to ring
in the new year with a strike that would shut down Iceland's fishing
industry.
The Icelandic Seamen's Federation called the walkout for midnight
Wednesday (New Year's Eve) to press demands for a 12% pay raise.
The fishing fleet would remain in port on New Year's Day.
Fish products provide 75% of Iceland's export earnings and are the
predominant occupation for the nation's 250 vessels. The strike
by 5000 seamen would idle 8000 workers in the onshore fish industry.
Union officials complain fishing vessel owners have not negotiated
a real raise with seamen for more than two years, having simply
sent their wage claims to official arbitration.
The center-right coalition of Prime Minister Steingrimur Hermannsson
was not expected to step into the sailors' dispute unless it became
a serious threat to the national economy. New talks were scheduled
for Friday between union and trawler officials.
| T.R | Title | User | Personal Name | Date | Lines |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 178.1 | Seaman's strike spreads | TLE::SAVAGE | Neil, @Spit Brook | Wed Jan 07 1987 09:30 | 26 |
United Press International 7-JAN-1987
REYKJAVIK, Iceland. Icelandic merchant shipping crews went on strike
Tuesday, joining a six-day walkout in the fishing fleet that has
idled the island nation's fishing industry.
Some 1,000 members of the merchant seamen's union struck at midnight
Monday after failing to gain a 20-percent wage increase in negotiations
with shipowners. News reports said the talks, supervised by a
government mediator, would continue Tuesday.
The strike was expected to cripple Iceland's three major shipping lines
in a week's time as the North Atlantic island nation's 50-odd
commercial vessels sail into port one after another. Also kept in port
were an estimated 200 trawlers and large fishing vessels by a strike by
some 5,000 crew members demanding a 12-percent pay raise. Wage talks
broke down Monday between trawler owners and crews, whose strike
began on New Years Day and subsequently idled 6,000 workers in the
onshore fishing industry.
The striking seamen's union said it would not resume the talks as
long as some 50 trawlers remained at sea despite the walkout. Trawler
owners apparently hoped to sell their catches in British and German
ports before heading home. The seamen's federation was sending
an official to Britian Tuesday to urge transport workers there not
to unload Icelandic trawlers, news reports said.
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