Sydney: Rio Tinto has been dragged into an embarrassing shipping scandal in Australia with news that the crew on of its chartered in ships have not been paid for more than two months. The AOM Milena (2009 built; 76,606 dwt) is on charter to the miner, moving bauxite between mines in Weipa and Gove, and an aluminium factory in Gladstone. The Panama flagged ship is owned by Japan\u2019s Nissen Kaiun.<\/p>\n
International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) national coordinator Dean Summers\u00a0described the situation of the 21 Philippine crew as dire, saying that had received no wages since\u00a0April, were running short on food supplies, and were being forced to live and work in filthy\u00a0conditions.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot content to employ seafarers from poverty-riddled nations on wages that amount to\u00a0just $2 per hour, the operator of this ship has not paid a single cent in wages to these crew\u00a0members since April,\u201d Summers said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe food situation is equally dire, with the crew given just $50 per day to buy food for 21\u00a0people ahead of the next leg of their planned voyage, where they will sail to Weipa to\u00a0collect a load of bauxite for Rio Tinto.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf Rio Tinto wanted to transport this bauxite by road or rail, they\u2019d need to pay Australian\u00a0minimum wages and adhere to Australian health and safety regulations, but because they\u00a0transport it by sea they can avoid those requirements and slash costs.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rio Tinto has said it is investigating the state of the ship and its crew.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sydney: Rio Tinto has been dragged into an embarrassing shipping scandal in Australia with news that the crew on of its chartered in ships have not been paid for more than two months. The AOM Milena (2009 built; 76,606 dwt) is on charter to the miner, moving bauxite between mines in Weipa and Gove, and …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":25998,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_ml_titleColor":"#000000","_ml_titleFont":"Roboto","_ml_titleFontSize":1.136,"_ml_titleFontWeight":"400","_ml_titleLineHeight":1.3,"_ml_metaColor":"#708090","_ml_metaFont":"Montserrat","_ml_metaFontSize":0.6785,"_ml_metaFontWeight":"400","_ml_metaLineHeight":0.92,"_ml_bodyColor":"#a9a9a9","_ml_bodyFont":"Open Sans","_ml_bodyFontSize":0.85,"_ml_bodyFontWeight":"400","_ml_bodyLineHeight":1.2,"_ml_wooPriceColor":"#666","_ml_wooPriceFont":"Open Sans","_ml_wooPriceFontSize":0.9,"_ml_wooPriceFontWeight":"400","_ml_wooPriceLineHeight":1.27,"_ml_headingColor":"#000","_ml_headingFont":"Merriweather","_ml_headingFontSize":2.02,"_ml_headingFontWeight":"700","_ml_headingLineHeight":1.47,"_mlglobal_userfontcolors":{"headingColorUser":[],"titleColorUser":[],"metaColorUser":[],"bodyColorUser":[],"wooPriceColorUser":[]},"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[80,57,68],"tags":[203,103,196],"yoast_head":"\n