BY SIGURLAUG GUNNLAUGSDÓTTIR AND SIGURDUR J. HARALDSSON
REYKJAVIK, Iceland - Engineers and workers on fishing ships went on strike here February 3. Organized in separate unions, they have been negotiating new contracts since the fall of 1997.

The Engineers Union had voted to strike early January, but postponed it to start jointly with the deckhands and other crew members. Some 5,000 members of these unions are on strike. Processing plant bosses that have started laying off workers.

This is the third strike in four years. At the center of the negotiations now, as in recent years, is the way the workers "share," which determines wages, is calculated. Another factor in the negotiations is how trade with fishing quotas affects workers' wages on the ships. A "share" is calculated on the basis of the price the ship gets for the catch. About 60 percent of the catch is divided up among the crew. The captain gets two "shares," engineers one and a half "shares," and workers receive just one "share."

The problem is that the price for fish is not uniform. Some owners of fishing ships decide what workers are paid for the catch because they also own the plants where they have it processed.

Other trawlers and boats sell the catch on the domestic market at varying prices. Still others, especially the biggest trawlers and floating freezing plants, sell their products on international markets.

The negotiation committee for the unions have demanded that all catch be sold on the market. Whereas this was declared unconstitutional from several sides, they now call for a lower limit or index calculated on the basis of market prices, to estimate the wages.

One worker told the Militant that many on his crew on the Tjaldur, a boat that mainly catches cod and flounder on a fishing line, are interested in higher "security," i.e. payment they receive if there is no catch. It is now about 80,000 Kro'nur a month (just over $1,000). On the other hand, it resolves neither the actual question of higher wages, nor employer pressures on workers to participate in renting quotas for fishing, he said.

Following the last fishermen's strike in June 1995, in which workers won an increase in wages, the government set up as a part of the agreement, a committee to settle disputes about trade with quotas. Owners of ships who have quotas can rent it out in part or the whole quota, or sell it. It is illegal to make workers on the ships participate in this trading. It has been the owners' practice, however, to make workers deploy part of their salaries to rent or buy extra quota, under the threat of losing their jobs. Until 1995 it was an institutionalized practice, called "a ton to a ton" (one ton is equal to 1,000 kilograms), i.e., the crew had to pay half of the quota, the company paid the other half.

This committee has not eased the pressure on the workers. In 1996 a whole crew employed on a ship owned by the Samherji company was fired with the exception of the captain, when they collectively refused to participate in renting extra quota for fishing. Samherji spokesmen explained the firing saying "the captain couldn't use them."

February is an important season for the catch of capelin, mainly exported to Japan. The capelin swims from the east of the country to the west side, where it spawns. Ships from the Ocean Research Institute deployed east of the country have not reported any significant amount of this species yet. Many people hold the view that when it appears, the government will end the strike with a decree.

Several workers in freezing plants and on ships have told the press that they are against the government interfering contract negotiations, which has happened frequently in history when workers on the fishing fleet strike. The government probed February 9 the possibility of banning the strike until July, but decided not to. The unions decided to suspend the strike and restart it in mid-March if no solution has been negotiated.

There are about 9,000 workers employed in freezing plants and cod production. Although a minority of the working class is employed in the fishing industry, it is the most important industry for the capitalist class in Iceland, accounting for about 75 percent of the country's export value.

During a recent conference in Kyoto, Japan, on carbon dioxide and other toxic release into the atmosphere, it was reported here that with 270,000 inhabitants, Iceland accounts for 0.01 percent of the world release (9.5 tons per person per year). When taken into the account that other industries operate on hydroelectric energy and most houses are heated that way, the figure gives an idea of the size and operation of the fishing fleet. Sigurlaug Gunnlaugsdottir and Sigurdur J. Haraldsson are members of Dagsbru'n-Framso'kn Trade Union.  
 
 
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