ITF stalls on releasing finances ahead of crunch wage talks

The International Transport Workers' Federation (ITF) has still not posted its long-awaited financial returns for 2016 as it is set next month to enter into the final stage of collective bargaining wage agreement (CBA) negotiations with employers under the International Bargaining Forum (IBF).

As TradeWinds reported before, the union’s last financial returns in 2015 show it is sitting on a whopping £90m ($120m) in cash reserves, while it has also placed significant funds into the reserves of associated charity the Seafarers’ Trust.

The ITF generates £38m per year from so-called “Welfare Fund” contributions, which are part of IBF wage agreements and constitute its largest single source of income.

Currency fluctuations and a growth in the number of ships operating under IBF agreements was expected to see the ITF coffers swell further in its 2016 financial report.

The healthy state of ITF finances could play a significant part in the final stages of next month's planned talks — shipping’s largest single CBA — because shipowner Welfare Fund contributions are one of the matters on the table for negotiation.

TradeWinds understands that although the 2016 figures refer to the ITF’s financial status from more than a year ago, under UK law, it has until June this year to publish its financial report — after which it could be subject to a warning and a fine.

The union is putting the delay in filing the figures down to problems in securing the signatures of ITF executives, TradeWinds is told.

Although the existing IBF agreement ran out at the end of 2017, employers negotiating under the IBF and the ITF agreed to extend the agreement into this year to ensure thousands of ships that have been signed up to the deal are still covered by a recognised wage agreement.

A new deal was originally intended to be thrashed out at a Tokyo meeting in July last year but unions and employers failed to come to an agreement.

In the meantime, the union’s negotiating hand may have been strengthened by an improvement in the dry bulk market and a general feeling that the shipping markets hit the bottom of the cycle last year.