EMSA withdrew from the collective agreement concluded with Riigilaevastiku AS

The Estonian Seamen's Independent Union (EMSA) on Friday withdrew from the collective agreement concluded with Riigilaevastiku AS, which means that the labor peace in the company will no longer apply from the moment of cancellation, but the parties must still fulfill the terms of the collective agreement in force for another six months.

https://majandus.postimees.ee/8506306/emsa-loobus-riigilaevastiku-asiga-solmitud-kollektiivlepingust

BNS,10. juuli 2026, 08:57

EMSA juht Jüri Lember. FOTO: PILT VIDEOST

The collective agreement in question concerns the working conditions and wages of employees providing pilotage services for the Republic of Estonia, sea pilots and pilot boat sailors.

EMSA Chairman Jüri Lember said that the cancellation of the collective agreement and the break in the labor peace were caused by the state's rigid and unreasonable attitude towards the employees' salary demands.

«A state institution and its management have very limited possibilities for indexing salaries, i.e. keeping them in correlation with the cost of living, or for salary increases. The salaries of pilots and boatswains of a relatively new state agency have increased by only 2 percent over the past few years, while the salaries of our union's private sector have increased by more than 5 times, and the cost of living has increased by almost 4 times. The salaries currently in force for ship crews are even below the average Estonian salary. This is unacceptable for employees who work at sea and have received specialized training," said Lember.

"On April 13, when negotiations with the company's management had reached a deadlock, EMSA sent an official letter to Kuldar Leis, in which we outlined all the facts regarding the State Fleet's salary policy, since its establishment in 2023, and asked him to forward it to the government so that the requests of our membership to eliminate the shortfall in salary increases would be taken into account during the processing of the 2027 state budget. The Minister’s signed response came on June 4, stating that no additional budgetary resources have been provided for state institutions for either 2026 or 2027 due to the difficult state of the state budget.

EMSA believes that regardless of the situation with the state budget, men working in state offices at sea every day, like other state employees, must be paid a decent wage and it is unacceptable to force these people to work elsewhere due to low wages. Instead, the current government continues to finance such hopeless follies as the financing of the expensive and pointless Rail Baltica route, and this is not prevented by any limited possibilities of the state budget.

In this situation, EMSA, together with the pilots and the crews of their boats, has no choice but to prepare seriously for legal actions».