What should you do, if you encounter problems connected with your employment relationships?
The order of negotiation shall be complied with in the resolution of problems and issues connected with an employment relationship. The order of negotiation has been agreed upon in the multilateral agreement between the central organisations.
If you encounter in your working place, problems connected to your terms and conditions of employment, salary or the application of agreements, take the following steps in the following order:
1. In the first phase negotiate the situation or issue with your supervisor. If you want, you can request that your department’s or the ship’s shop steward to be present to support and advise you even during the first phase of the negotiation.
2. If the matter can not be resolved with your supervisor, then you must immediately contact if you have not contact before your department’s or the ship’s shop steward. Provide your shop steward with background information about the situation and furnish any documents which are needed to clarify the matter. The shop steward will negotiate the matter with management i.e. with the supervisor or with a senior supervisor.
3. If the dispute that has been created in the working place can not be resolved at the ship or department level, then the shop steward will draft a memorandum of dispute. The matter will then transfer to the hands of the senior shop steward. The senior shop steward will carry out the relevant negotiations with the personnel department.
4. If the matter still continues in disagreement, necessary memoranda concerning the matter will be drafted after which the matter will be transferred to the union. The union will then start new negotiations with the employer.
5. If the matter is still unresolved and if it is a question of a dispute of interpretation of a collective bargaining agreement, the dispute will be transferred to negotiations between the union and the shipping company.
6. If the dispute can not be resolved through negotiation, it is possible that the handling of the matter, depending of the content of the issue, will be forwarded to the labour court or to the general court of first instance for processing.
The primary target is that the matter can be resolved according to the possibilities that already exist at the working place/vessel level.
