116th Annual Conference

January 15th, 2004 by JCB
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116^th UKMPA ANNUAL CONFERENCE

Crown Plaza Hotel, Liverpool

I have noticed many members, who do not attend the annual conference, do not fully realise what goes on unless they read the detailed minutes which, as the one who writes them, I fully appreciate does require some stamina to fully digest! Whereas I do not intend to return to the old Pilot magazine format of filling most of the year’s content with conference proceedings, it is a very important part of our organisation’s activities and a forum for pilots to debate the varied issues affecting districts around the country. Equally importantly the conference is a social event where pilots can get together and swing the lantern!

 

The 2003 Conference was hosted by the Liverpool pilots and was held in the Crowne Plaza Hotel within a new development on the site of the old Princes dock in the shadow of the Liver building.

The conference was opened by the UKMPA PRESIDENT: Lord Tony Berkeley

Agenda Items discussed reveal the full extent of the valuable work undertaken by pilots and members of the Section Committee on behalf of members. This work is unpaid and mostly undertaken in their spare time. The following is a list of topics along with those involved in them.

RETIRING CHAIRMAN:

Norman McKinney (Belfast pilot)

PNPF: Richard Williamson (Boston pilot & Deputy Chairman of the Board of Trustees)

PNCP: Mike Kitchen (London Pilot and Chairman)

TREASURER: John Pretswell, (Forth Pilot, Secretary and Treasurer)

UKMPA RULES: John Pretswell

INSURANCES: John Pretswell

IMPA: Geoff Taylor (Tees & Vice

Chairman of IMPA)

LES CATE: (Incoming Chairman, Vice President EMPA, Southampton Pilot) MCA: (Les Cate)

MAIB: (Les Cate)

ITF: (Les Cate)

TECHNICAL & TRAINING: John Wright (Tees)

In addition to the above presentations given by pilots, the following are brief notes on topics given by associated speakers:

T&G LEGAL: Fergus Whitty, (T&G Legal Director)

WORKING TIME DIRECTIVE AND PILOTS

This had come into force for pilots in August 2003 and was basically a Health & Safety directive designed to ensure that all workers, regardless of whether they were employed or self employed, received adequate rest. Although not contained within a specific group pilots were included under what is termed the Horizontal Amending Directive (HAD).

The directive lays down the following basic criteria for safe working / rest:

·        Max 48 hour week

·        20 minute break every 6 hours of work

·        11 hours uninterrupted rest between each working day

·        1 day off per week

Fergus warned that such criteria would be likely to trigger unscrupulous employers to attempt to pressurise workers into waiving their rights under the WTD and advised delegates of some of the ploys that may be used such as re-defining “working time”, advising workers that they needed to sign “opt out” agreements, offering a new “collective agreement” and above all withholding information on “compensatory rest”. The current “opt out” rules permitted individual workers to elect to work over the 48 hour limit but there was no opt out from the night work provisions, 4 weeks annual holiday or the daily and weekly rest periods.

Fergus then went on to define “Working Time” and of particular relevance to pilots is an interpretation made by the European Court of Justice which has clarified the situation for workers on-call. Basically if a worker is at his place of work he is officially “working” even if only on stand by and that definition applies even if he has facilities for rest.

If a worker is on stand by at home or “comparatively free” away from his work place then this is not counted as “working time”.

Employers cannot designate periods of inactivity at work as “rest breaks”.

Fergus then defined “night work” and stated that of relevance to pilots there was an absolute limit of 8 hours for “night work” if the “work involves special hazards … or mental strain”.

Again if any of the provisions of the night work regulations are set aside then adequate “compensatory rest” must be provided.

To summarise the situation for pilots Fergus warned delegates to be aware that employers may use the directive to introduce changes to established practices but pilots’ had powerful negotiating tools by means of the negotiated agreement and the “compensatory rest” provisions.  In the subsequent Q&A session the main questions revolved around work patterns in different districts. In the opinion of Fergus, any established roster systems would be compliant so long as both the port and pilots were agreed that they were safe and any breaches of the criteria were covered by “compensatory rest”. He did however warn delegates that if a district were subject to an outside audit then recommendations could be made to review breaches.

LEGAL: Michael Nott (UKMPA retained legal advisor)

During the past year Michael had been involved with matters in the following ports:

Wisbech

Falmouth

London

Poole

1987 PILOTAGE ACT

MN was of the opinion that there was now an urgent need to address the shortcomings of this Act. Since an Act of Parliament could only be changed by another Act, MN was of the opinion that there was now an urgent need for this to be undertaken. The wheels could be set in motion by a Private Members Bill and Lord Tony Berkeley had offered to sponsor the Bill and Fergus Whitty had offered his services to progress it.

Q&A

In the subsequent discussions Michael detailed the process for a Bill to become law but noting that it was a very slow process which would involve a lot of work for Section committee and Fergus Whitty.  Other questions referred to the rights to self employment under clause 4 with several districts having received varying legal interpretations. MN was of the opinion that C4 offered no protection and needed to be amended.

Graham Hutchinson (Manchester) had been dismissed from the Clyde in 1996 and during his case against the Clyde, supported by the UKMPA & the T&G.  Graham had been dismissed without reason and despite everybody stating that the Clyde could not do that, they had and they had got away with it. During his hearing the Act had been described an “unnecessary and restrictive piece of legislation” and the senior judge, in summing up the case had stated that the Clyde had acted wrongly but since the Pilotage Act offered no protection to the pilot he could not rule against the CHA.  MN agreed that such cases proved the inadequacies and ambiguities of the Act. Another problem was that any disputes over the Act required costly court proceedings and MN felt strongly that any new Act must include a disputes procedure.

GUEST SPEAKERS: In addition to the above speakers the conference welcomed guest speakers:

NICK CUTMORE: (Secretary General of IMPA)

Nick explained the following areas where IMPA had been active:

·        Working with the IMO on a revision of resolution A485.

·        The joint EMPA / IMPA safety campaign which had had quite an impact on the ship owners and the IMO. There was considerable concern at the high level of defects and failures that pilots encounter on a regular basis.

·        Work was on-going with the shipping industry on bitt failures and AIS reliability.

Such involvement raised the profile of pilots as professionals with valuable relevant experience especially within IMO.  Nick was pleased to announce that IMPA membership was growing the finances were sound and he hoped to see UKMPA members at the IMPA conference 2004 in Istanbul (28^th June-2^nd July). (See page13)

MIKE POWELL: Director, Confidential Hazardous Incident Reporting Programme

(CHIRP) Director Mike Powell provided an overview of the CHIRP initiative which was based on the aviation industry model. The idea was that any individual could confidentially raise issues of concern to an independent reporting body who would then bring it to the attention of the regulators and management with the original reporter remaining anonymous. Whereas the MCA and MAIB were regulatory and investigative bodies, who were generally reactive to incidents, it was intended that CHIRP should underpin those organisations by providing the “precursor” information from those working within the industry who were best placed to identify potentially dangerous / disastrous situations. CHIRP was therefore interested in gaining information on bad practices and minor incidents which may lead to major incidents. The anonymity of any reporter was guaranteed.

Mike then detailed the status of CHIRP as a charitable, non profit making trust with an executive board of trustees who provided the governance. The organisation had a three year contract funded by the DfT but no one from the DfT sat on the board. Members of this executive board consisted of members from the MCA, OCIMF, NI and aviation industry experts.  There is also an advisory board made up from various maritime experts which was still being finalised and Les Cate had accepted an invitation to join this board.  The advisory panel would collate reports and would be largely responsible for deciding what action should be taken over the reports and would monitor the effectiveness of the response and CHIRP itself. The organisation would also have a small permanent staff who would be the only ones who would know the identity of the reporter.

The reporting programme would cover all sectors of the maritime community from serving mariners on both domestic and foreign ships along with other sectors including, ports, classification societies, charterers and insurers through to equipment manufacturers and installers.

When and what do you report?

·        When you wish others to be made aware of a situation

·        When other reporting procedures do not work or are not available

·        All other avenues have been exhausted

The procedure for dealing with a report involved:

·        Report received

·        CHIRP contacts reporter. This initial contact would continue until the reporter was confident that the process would protect their identity. This process in the aviation industry had meant that not one reporter had ever been identified in 21 years of operation.

·        The report is then sent to the organisation concerned

·        Organisation responds

·        Response transmitted to reporter

·        Process repeated as required to satisfaction of reporter / organisation. This process ensures malicious reporting is eliminated.

·        Action to be taken over report discussed and agreed to achieve most positive result

·        Reporter advised of outcome

·        Assess outcome to ensure that it’s been effective.

·        At the close of the process the only document referring to the identity of the reporter is returned and no records of that reporter are kept in any manner within CHIRP.

·        The storage technique of data within CHIRP ensures that no examination of a collection of reports could identify any reporter.

The main questions from delegates raised concerns over confidentiality and anonymity of the reporter to which Mike detailed the protection methodology.

TONY WOODLEY: General Secretary T&G

Guest speaker Tony Woodley, in a passionate presentation, explained to delegates that although new to the position as General Secretary the key issues to be faced in the future were old ones and in particular employment legislation and pensions. He expressed frustration with the current erosion of rights and a genuine desire to right many of the wrongs that had been inflicted upon workers and he saw it as his duty to try to deliver more protection for jobs, workers rights and pensions. The fight against bad employers and legislation that supported bad employers were key areas where he

intended to focus his efforts and there was an urgent need to fight for the legal rights of the work force.

TW then quoted several recent cases highlighting current abuses of employees which had exposed existing legislation as inadequate. The existing laws resulted in workers paying the price for Globalisation and supported the rights of shareholders over those of the workforce. Whilst on one hand the Government was signing up to much EU legislation they had consistently refused to sign up to EU employment legislation and the recently passed UK employment Act offered no real protection for workers and would be illegal under EU rules. TW was realistic that such laws could not be overturned but he wished to use his position to persuade Government that rather than protecting employers, protection of workers rights was a vote winner rather than a vote loser.

Turning to pensions TW was firmly of the opinion that the existing pension regime needed to be reformed. Restoring a link between RPI and pensions was essential for pensioners and the £6 billion required to restore the link could be found if the Government could be persuaded of the political advantages. Recent Governments had not just ignored the State pension sector. During recent years 65% of occupational pension final salary schemes had been terminated or closed to new entrants by employers. These employers pleaded hard times but during the 15 years of good times of surpluses they had robbed funds of £19 billion with pension holidays and the Government, which now claimed it was powerless to act, had also robbed the funds by introducing taxes on fund surpluses. The action of closing funds to new members had introduced new problems in that with no new members the pension funds were not receiving new money to support them and the workforce now had differing terms and conditions. Unless the Union fought for justice and rights on this matter then the closure of all final salary pension schemes was inevitable. The promotion of “stakeholder” schemes removed responsibility for pensions to employees whose pensions were then at the mercy of “market forces”.  TW was passionate in his belief that every worker had a right to a pension and he had been lobbying hard at the Labour conference and had raised a motion to make pension contributions compulsory and to introduce legislation forcing employers to make pension provisions for workers. Despite coming under extreme pressure to remove the word “compulsory” the vote had been won and TW was working to progress the motion into legislation.

Tony reassure delegates that he was not a militant but was frustrated at the lack of

focus of unions in tackling the core injustices in the workplace and of facing demoralised work forces. Prior to becoming General Secretary he had worked with the government and had achieved recognition on key points and obtained money to keep factories open and was proud that many of these were now operating profitably. It was this spirit that motivated him to keep on educating whatever Government was in power to the advantages of providing workers with the rights they deserved. TW was encouraged by the large interest and commitment to fighting for rights shown by the UKMPA by the presence of so many delegates at the conference. It was that commitment that he was determined to revive in other sectors around the country in order to generate confidence to use Union membership to improve conditions for all.

LOUISE ELLMAN MP: (Liverpool Riverside)

& Member of the Transport Select Committee (TSC).

Norman McKinney introduced Louise Ellman MP who had kindly agreed to address the conference at the invitation of the Liverpool pilots.

Louise opened her speech by acknowledging that since becoming an MP she had become aware of how little people knew about how Government worked and the role that MPs undertook. Likewise, since becoming a member of the TSC she in turn had become aware of many aspects of transportation that previously had been outside her sphere of knowledge. Pilots and pilotage had been such a case and she regretted the fact that there was such a low public awareness of the critical role that pilots played in the safety of shipping.  Interest in shipping was only aroused for the wrong reasons following a disaster.  Through meetings with the Liverpool pilots she had been made aware of the critical role that pilots played in the safety of shipping and consequently the economic development & prosperity of Britain as a trading nation.

Liverpool had a rich maritime tradition and had grown up around seafaring and looking at the present and future, the river and its trades held the key to its prosperity.  The port of Liverpool was now enjoying the highest level of tonnage handled in its history and the award to Liverpool as culture capital in 2008 was an ideal moment to bring inward investment and regeneration. Louise welcomed the news that cruise liners were to return to the port which in turn would increase tourism and its associated inward investment.

Underlying all of this was the need to ensure the safety of shipping and in this pilots were the key element.

Louise concluded by emphasising that she was aware of the many issues being debated at this conference and many of the problems being faced by the UKMPA and she was willing to be fully involved in helping pilots in any manner that she was able and in particular in maintaining professional standards.

LES CATE addressed the Conference as the new Chairman:

Following his election as new chairman, Les addressed the conference by paying tribute to Norman McKinney reminding the delegates of all the issues that Norman had dealt with and concluded by wishing Norman a long and happy retirement, stating that Norman had served the Association “above and beyond the call of duty and deserves our heartfelt gratitude and appreciation”.

The sentiment was supported by the

assembled delegates who provided Norman with a standing ovation. Norman replied by thanking the delegates for their warm send off. He had undertaken the role of chairman to the best of his abilities and he hoped that he had built on the principles established by the founders. He wished the Section Committee and all members success in the future.

The above resume of the conference is a very skeletal account of the proceedings.  Some pilots have questioned as to what their subscription provides. I would urge those doubters to take the time to read the conference minutes along with the reports included in the agenda papers. The defeat of the EU ports directive is just one example of where the UKMPA has had an effect which even alone would be worth the subscription. The dedication of those committed to fighting for all our rights not only deserves recognition but the full support of all pilots. It is acknowledged that the subscription can seem large to pilots from a small port but it is no coincidence that the UKMPA is the first organisation that pilots from such ports turn to when their future is under threat.  Michael Nott’s report reveals how the UKMPA has achieved successful resolutions to problems in such ports.