Update for RFA members

Update for RFA members 28th June 2024

Dear RFA Colleague

I am writing to update you on next steps and to congratulate RFA members on the rock solid day of industrial action on Tuesday 25 June in pursuit of a fair pay settlement for 2023-24.

The pickets in Birkenhead and Plymouth were extremely well supported by RFA members, RMT members from the rail industry and by other trade unionists. The refusal of nearly 500 Unite and GMB members to cross the picket line outside Cammell Laird’s of Birkenhead was a full endorsement from the wider trade union movement of your decision to take industrial action against an employer that is increasingly exploiting your labour.

Solidarity messages for RMT RFA members poured onto social media from Labour candidates in the General Election in a further demonstration to the employer of the depth of public and political support for our collective campaign for fair pay for RFA’s civilian seafarers.

Following some joint work started after we met him in April, the former First Sea Lord, Labour Peer Admiral Lord West also gave the union the following statement on RFA members’ industrial action:

“The position of merchant seafarers in an understaffed and under paid Royal Fleet Auxiliary is unacceptable. Since 2010 Conservative led Governments have short sightedly seriously undermined conditions of service of the RFA, damaging its efficiency and by extension the Royal Navy of which they form an integral part.

“The level of support for recent industrial action by RMT members in the RFA demonstrates an impressive resolve to reach a just resolution to this pay dispute.

“Labour’s manifesto for change applies to defence as it does across the economy. The RFA’s magnificent seafarers have my full support in reaching a fair pay agreement to settle this dispute and to start re-building the RFA after years of neglect.”


RMT has secured a meeting with the senior civil servant at the Ministry of Defence next week to discuss a resolution to the pay dispute. I will be attending these talks, along with your Lead Officer, Mark Carden and your RFA Convenor, Ian Parkin. A report back will be made to the NEC and you will then be updated.

We are pleased to see that membership is increasing in the RFA. Increasing RMT membership puts the union in an even stronger position in negotiations with the RFA.

I repeat your union’s commitment to securing a fair pay deal for RFA seafarers, achieving broader contractual improvements for you and your colleagues and an end to ever increasing workloads with fewer hands. The employer can no longer expect you to keep doing more work, including 67% of RN tasking, for less.

The whole membership of the RMT applauds and respects the resilience of RFA members in taking industrial action and this message of support for our RFA members was sent loud and clear by all delegates at the RMT AGM in Hull this week. We are with you as a collective and will win this dispute together.

Yours sincerely

Mick Lynch
General Secretary