LATVIA in the news again…
Ireland to sell Latvian-owned ship whose owners have refused to pay crew - International Herald Tribune
Ireland to sell Latvian-owned ship whose owners have refused to pay crew
The Associated Press
Published: June 7, 2007
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DUBLIN, Ireland: A Latvian-owned ship that has been impounded in Ireland since April will be sold to pay the 11-man crew’s past seven months of overdue wages, the International Transport Workers’ Federation announced Thursday.
The federation, an umbrella for labor unions that represents sailors on international waters, secured an Irish court order preventing the Fortuna I from leaving the port of Dundalk, north of Dublin, after the crew refused to operate the vessel.
The crew complained they had gone unpaid since November and claimed they were owed heavy overtime in addition to their basic pay of €257 (US$347) a month.
The federation’s coordinator for Ireland and the United Kingdom, Norrie McVicar, said he met the ship’s owners Thursday but they had failed to demonstrate they had sufficient money to pay the crew. Based on this, McVicar said, the federation “will now assist the crew in the sale of the vessel so that they can be paid.”
The Fortuna I was the latest in a growing string of cases, largely involving Eastern European-owned vessels, that have been impounded at British and Irish ports when their crews complained they were not being paid properly.