SOLIDARITY COMMITTEE FOR JUSTICE ON BIRGER JARL

19 PAKISTANI WORKERS ON SWEDISH SHIP FACE REDUNDANCIES

EXPRESS YOUR SOLIDARITY TO SAVE 19 JOBS IN STOCKHOLM (Sweden)

(Please find a sample protest letter at the end of the message. For updates: www.birgerjarl.info)

Twenty Pakistani seamen working on board Birger Jarl have been served termination notices from May 15,2008 with a three-month grace period.

The Birger Jarl, a cruising ship, is owned by Rederi Allandia shipping company.
The Rederi Allandia justifies the redundancies on the pretext that under new EU legislation on
employment, non-EU workers deprive the ship of monetary support the
company is otherwise entitled from EU (European Union).

This, however, is mere an excuse to fire the Pakistani workers. The real reason behind redundancies is: these workers, some of them working for almost twenty-five years now, earn better wages now owing to yearly pay
raise they were qualified under Swedish laws. The company wants to fire them and employ new workers instead from possibly east Europe at low wages.

All these Pakistani workers were members of Service and Communication Union for Seamen
(SEKO-Sjöfolk), an affiliate of LO (LO is an umbrella organisation like British TUC and is affiliated with Social
Democratic party).

Unfortunately, the union bureaucracy as usual betrayed the workers’ cause also because Pakistani workers rank
low on bureaucracy’s priority list. The shop steward even told one of the workers that they should be happy to have earned so much money and now better return to Pakistan. Regardless of the union betrayal, the
workers have not given up the fight since the jobs for them are life and death question as many have now reached their fifties. On return to Pakistan, nobody hopes to find either a job or start a business. Firing these 20 workers is tantamount to economic murder of twenty families in Pakistan.

The workers need your immediate solidarity as they often get one-year work permits and visas. Three
of them already have their work permits and visas expired as the company did not help workers renew their visas. The company, in advance, was planing to fire these workers without intimating them since it was counting on the expiry of their visas so the workerss could be deported through immigration authorities. All of them will
have their visas expired latest by September this year. This of course makes the situation acute for the workers and their struggle precarious.

The urgency of the situation needs an urgent action.

Please send your protest letters to Swedish embassy/Consulate in your country and copies to:

Rederi Allandia on [info anedinlinjen.se]

Or fax: 00 46 8 10 07 41

CC to Swedish Commerce Minister Maud Olofsson

redaktionen maudolofsson.se

CC, also, to: campaign birgerjarl.info

Fraternally,

Talat Butt

On behalf of : SOLIDARITY COMMITTEE FOR JUSTICE ON BIRGER JARL

SAMPLE PROTEST LETTER THAT YOU CAN COPY PASTE:

WE PROTEST TERMINATION NOTICES TO PAKISTANI WORKERS ON BIRGER JARL

We have learnt with grave concern that 19 Pakistani workers have been served termination notices.

The pretext that Rederi Allandia will lose certain EU compensation is not acceptable since Birger Jarl is making a profit worth € 1.5 million according to company’s own claim. The possible redundancies are simply discriminatory, immoral and unacceptable.

We demand that termination notices be withdrawn immediately and these workers be given a job guarantee.

We also demand an immediate end to harassment of the workers.

Regards.

(Name of the sender.................)

on behalf of

(Name of the organisation....)