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Displaying items by tag: France: New Labour Law

Across the Celtic Sea to France where politicians unanimously have backed plans to introduce new laws to tighten employment laws for ferry operators on the English Channel.

The France-Channel Islands operator, Manche Îles Express, previously warned the change would pose recruitment challenges for the ferry firm as it would not be able to continue offering the same perks for staff.

According to ITV News, the new legislation is aimed to protect against the practice of "social dumping", where existing staff are replaced with overseas workers. In addition the replacement staff work for worse pay and conditions.

It was in March 2022 when P&O Ferries, which operates on the Dover-Calais route, North Sea and the Irish Sea, was accused of a similar act when it laid off nearly 800 members of staff and crew. They were replaced with agency workers and allegedly earning around £1.80/hour.

For more on the story click here.

In addition The Currency also reports on the new France law which follows on from a UK pay measure, the Seafarers Wages Bill which formed part of a nine point plan to improve pay and conditions for seafarers which was introduced in July last year.

The new French labour law aims to improve safety on English Channel crossings, however Irish Ferries believes it is about “safeguarding the interests of certain ferry operators who are in receipt of state subsidies”.

For further reading click the story.

Published in Ferry

New York Yacht Club’s biennial Invitational Cup

Ireland has a proud history in New York Yacht Club’s biennial Invitational Cup, with Irish participation from the very start and a podium result in 2019.

In 2009, two Irish Clubs,  Royal St. George in Dun Laoghaire and Royal Cork in Crosshaven, entered into New York's newest sailing competition that was reminiscent of Newport’s America’s Cup days when 19 yacht club teams from 14 nations descended on this “City by the Sea”.

The Rolex New York Yacht Club Invitational Cup is a competition between yacht clubs, with strict eligibility rules ensuring that each team is comprised exclusively of amateur sailors.

The competition, which was first run in 2009, has drawn entries from 49 clubs from 22 nations on all six inhabited continents.

The New York Yacht Club won the inaugural event in 2009, with the Royal Canadian Yacht Club winning in 2011 and 2013, England's Royal Thames Yacht Club winning in 2015 and Southern Yacht Club from New Orleans winning in 2017.

In 2019 the regatta was sailed for the first time in the New York Yacht Club’s fleet of IC37 yachts, and Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron, from Australia, became the first Southern Hemisphere club to win the trophy. And it was in this edition that Anthony O’Leary’s Royal Cork team took the bronze medal.