The Maritime and Coastguard Agency has defended its decision to transition rescue officers to an unpaid volunteer model, despite warnings from union officials and MPs that the move could force over half of Yorkshire's coastguards to reduce their hours or quit.
THE Maritime and Coastguard Agency has said it ‘deeply values’ the work of rescue officers amid a row over ‘cruel’ pay cuts.
More than half of the coastguards in Yorkshire and Humberside would be forced to reduce their hours or stop volunteering altogether over plans to strip coastguard officers of their hourly pay, the GMB Union has said.
The Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) plans to make coastguards volunteers rather than paid workers from later in the year.
A Maritime and Coastguard Agency spokesperson said:
“The decision to move the Coastguard Rescue Service to a revised volunteer model follows a legal judgment, which meant we needed to change how the service operates.”
Speaking to the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS), they said:
“We deeply value and recognise the significant service Coastguard Rescue Officers provide along our coastline and we will continue to work towards a model that supports our Coastguards and helps to keep the public safe.”
The scheme to change the status of coastguards follows a court of appeal ruling, which confirmed that people who had been serving as coastguard rescue officers (CROs) have been doing so as workers, rather than volunteers.
Subsequently, the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) decided to stop the payments from September, in order to start legally classing CROs as volunteers.
The MCA has said its current model did account for CROs having worker status and that it had a legal requirement to make changes.
However, a cross-party group of coastal MPs and senior employment lawyers have cast doubt on that assertion.
Joe Robertson, the Conservative MP for Isle of Wight East, said:
“The government and MCA must stop peddling this line… It is simply not true.
“The court found that CROs are already workers, which is hardly surprising considering they get hourly pay and payslips.
“The very fact the MCA is working through backdated tax liabilities and backdated pay is an admission that CROs have been workers for some time and the MCA has been in breach of certain obligations. It is the MCA which has now decided to change the CRO’s worker status since the court’s judgment.”
Speaking to The Guardian, leading employment lawyer Nigel Mackay said the MCA would have been able to preserve coastguards’ worker status and flexibility.
Alison Hume, the Labour MP for Scarborough and Whitby, said the plan “needs to be stopped, paused and re-evaluated”.
She highlighted that CROs currently receive payments of just over £11 per hour for emergency call-outs and training commitments.
The MP added:
“Stripping away their worker status risks sending entirely the wrong message to those who put themselves on the line to protect others.”
Almost 100 coastguards from Yorkshire and Humberside recently responded to a survey carried out by the MCA, the results of which were leaked to the GMB.
The survey demonstrated that 52 per cent would be forced to reduce their hours or be unable to continue if the cuts went ahead.
Responding to the leaked survey results, the MCA said that surveys conducted among CROs did not ask them to choose between models.
It added that survey questions explored how differing models might affect availability, and the survey findings were considered alongside a range of operational, legal, and practical factors.
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