The International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) has fiercely criticized Australia’s Queensland Sugar Limited for its “reckless and heartless chartering policy”.
Namely, QSL has hired the notorius Greek owned ship Ken Sirius, also referred to as the ship of shame, under a lucrative shipping deal despite pleas from the ITF not to do so following a recent incident that left the ship’s crew without food and water.
The Flag of Convenience (FOC) ship, Ken Sirius, came into the QSL terminal in McKay over the weekend and loaded Australian sugar. The ship’s crew was forced to contact the Queensland water police begging for food and water at the anchorage off Townsville, ITF said, adding that minimum stores were only taken out to the crew after the ITF intervened.
Owned by Greek company “Ikaros Shipping,” it sailed on Sunday to an international market.
However, ITF said that calls not to use the ship have been ignored completely by the company.
“Unless and until exporters and shippers like Queensland Sugar accept a fundamental human responsibility to make sure crew are treated with dignity and respect, they are no better than the scumbag bottom feeders like Ikaros Shipping,” ITF National Coordinator Dean Summers said.
“These obscene violations of human and workers’ rights are being seen more regularly in Australian ports and, under the Federal Governments policies, in our own domestic markets.”