On the 24-26th of October, the series of trade union awareness-raising seminars called UNION WEEK – NEW LEVEL were held in Odessa. The seminars were organized by the MTWTU with the support from the ITF side.
During these three days of the seminars, more than 150 Ukrainian seafarers attended the sessions on various maritime labor issues. Among the topics discussed were trade union awareness, the work the MTWTU and the ITF perform with regard to labor rights’ protection of seafarers, various pre-employment and employment aspects of working at sea, which should not by any means be neglected.
The MTWTU’s First Vice Chairman Oleg Grygoriuk spoke about the Union’s activities for its members, 45,000 Ukrainian seafarers. He elaborated on the protection of seafarers’ labor rights, international work and Union’s social projects.
ITF Inspector from Estonia Jaanus Kuiv spoke about the ITF Inspectorate’s daily work, the ITF CBA’s key provisions and processing of seafarers’ claims. The ITF Inspector in Ukraine Nataliya Yefrimenko highlighted the structure and main entitlements of the seafarers under the ILO Maritime Labour Convention, 2006.
The agenda’s items of seafarers’ taxation and pension provision particularly drew the seafarers’ interest, as well as the latest developments in Ukraine’s maritime industry.
In addition, every seminar participant could pass virtual reality simulation training, provided by the Optimum Maritime Solutions Company.
Recall that the first UNION WEEK training was held in 2016 by the ITF and MTWTU jointly and gathered about 400 participants. After the first seminar, the Union was requested to organize a follow-up, resulting in another two seminar series in Russian and in English languages. In two years, more than a thousand people participated in the UNION WEEK trainings.
