Nortraship - More Crewing Problems

More Crewing Problems

During the summer and autumn of 1940 ship losses catapulted: from 9 April to 30 December 1940 Nortraship lost 96 vessels and hundreds of seamean, almost all in the North Atlantic trade. This resulted in an increasing number of Norwegian seamen taking landbased work in the US or changing to other countries' ships running in less dangerous areas. This created a shortage of seamen which was a huge challenge for Nortraship and the Norwegian exile government.

The seamen's organisations argued that the only effective remedy would be higher wages. This resulted in wage negotiations started in London in June 1941 which were concluded with a new and significantly higher wages agreement effective 1 September 1941. The British government was highly critical, but Nortraship and the Norwegian government's view was that it was impossible to withstand the seamen's demand. A second round of negotiations were concluded in an agreement effective 1 December 1942, with yet higher wages; this one was to last for the rest of the war.

The need for strict discipline in wartime created other problems that were not easily solved. Even though the Norwegian government in exile decreed as early as 12 July 1940 that all Norwegian citizens above age of 18 had to register and take assigned work, this legislation was difficult to enforce as the government had no jurisdiction in the UK and no courts. This was facilitated by a law by the British government of 22 May 1941, the Allied Powers (Maritime Courts) Act 1941, which gave allied governments the power to establish their own courts on British soil where all but the most severe cases could be tried.