Removes cable ships from Danish flag
SHIPPING: Alcatel-Lucent Submarine Networks Marine has decided that the cable ship Peter Faber and the cable ship Lodbrog in the future will change from Danish flags into French flags. The Danish crew will be discharged and replaced by crewmembers from the French company LDA.
The decision also means that the staff at Alcatel-Lucent Submarine Networks Marines' office in Copenhagen who manages the administration of the Danish part of the crew will be discharged as well.
"We truly regret that this decision will mean the loss of jobs within Det Blaa Danmark. In Denmark we have a long tradition of deploying cables all over the globe", says the chairman of 'Soefartens Ledere' Peer Boeje Brandenborg to maritimedanmark.dk.
"It is precisely specialities such as cable deployment we will survive on in Denmark in the end. To sail from A to B is something everyone can do", says Peer Boeje Brandenborg.
Exactly how many Danes will be affected is not stated. Alcatel-Lucent Submarine Networks Marine's managing director Kell Thyssen tells maritimedanmark.dk, that he cannot comment on the decision or give any information on the matter.
He refers to the shipping company's French owners ASN, who are unavailable for a comment on the decision.
Alcatel-Lucent Submarine Networks Marine has informed the unions about the decision and will schedule meetings with the unions in the coming days in accordance to the existing agreements and entries.
The decision for a change over to French flag is expected carried out by the end of March. The date of the discharges will be announced once the negotiations with the unions are closed.
In connection to the change to French flag, all administration and operation of the two ships will in the future be handled by the French company LDA. It is also from here that the four other cable ships Alcatel-Lucent Submarine Networks Marine's French owners have are operated.
The Danish seamen should not expect to be re-hired once the ships change flag. Unlike now, where the ships are registered in DIS, the Danish employees will have to pay taxes of their income under French flag. And this will make them too expensive in salary.
"We know that this is a problem and we have made the politicians aware of it several times", says the chairman
of 'Soefartens Ledere' Peer Boeje Brandenborg.
But according to Peer Boeje Brandenborg the association's wish, that Danish seamen working abroad should not be liable to pay full taxes in Denmark if they are abroad for more than 180 days a year, has so far not been met with political sympathy.
Source: maritimedanmark.dk
