ABOUT 80 staff at the Maritime and Coastguard Agency in Southampton are today starting indefinite industrial action in protest at their latest pay offer.
Marine surveyors, responsible for ensuring vessels are seaworthy, and senior managers, including directors and deputy directors, are refusing to work overtime or provide any out of hours coverage.
They are not using their own vehicles to travel to and from any surveying work that is required under national and international maritime safety regulations.
They hope their industrial action, short of a strike, will persuade bosses to increase the average 2.5 per cent pay increase already on the table.
They have ruled out full strike action because they do not want to jeopardise the public's safety at sea.
The action at the agency's Southampton headquarters and 19 regional centres will involve 170 Prospect union members following a 87.1 per cent vote in favour of industrial action during a ballot last month.
Prospect union negotiator John Ferrett said workers' goodwill had been taken for granted by MCA bosses who had refused to budge on their below inflation pay offer.
"We have proposed to start the action today. There has been no other movement from Maritime and Coastguard Agency managers on the matter.
"That is why we are taking the indefinite action short of a strike."
Coastguards and administrative workers belonging to the Public and Commercial Services Union have this week also voted for industrial action. Members are protesting at a pay offer of up to 2.5 per cent.
It is likely they will begin to withdraw various non-essential duties, such as the issuing of fishing vessel certificates and writing incident reports, within the next fortnight.
They have also said they will not do anything to compromise people's safety at sea.
About 100 of their members are based at the MCA headquarters in Southampton with another 650 nationwide - including the Solent Coastguard base at Lee-on-the-Solent.
Negotiations officer Paul Smith said: "We have been talking to management since August and they have consistently prevaricated.
"We are prepared to meet them at any time."
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