The lobby, at the congress centre in Llandudno, was organised by the International Transport Workers' Federation's British and Irish affiliates - RMT, NUMAST, the T&G and SIPTUin support of the Wales TUC's continuiung campaign against 'social dumping'.

Inside the congress delegates heard that despite the mass campaign against Irish Ferries, which had forced the company to sign up to an agreement to pay migrant workers at least the Irish mninimum wage, foreign workers were still being denied basic union rights - and that some had even been removed by police from vessels after complaining about conditions.

"The Irish Sea has become the latest battleground against shipowners displacing organised crews with 'low-cost' overseas labour paid at sub-minimum-wage rates and working on vastly inferior conditions," explained ITF campaign co-ordinator Norrie McVicar.

"The nationality of crews employed is utterly irrelevant," said RMT general secretary Bob Crow. "What matters is that they are paid properly, work in decent conditions, have the right to join a trade union, are treated with respect and are not used to undermine existing pay and conditions. 

"We need to see the government applying the minimum wage to vessels operating in UK territorial waters and ending the shameful exemption from the Race Relations Act that allows shipowners to discriminate with impunity," said Bob Crow.

"We now have Stena threatening to join the 'race to the bottom' in seafarers' pay by introducing low-cost overseas crew on their Holyhead-Dublin route," noted RMT national secretary Steve Todd.

"We have told Stena that we expect them to honour their agreement with us that sets out the rates paid to ratings working out of Holyhead, and that any attempt to undermine it will be resisted, with industrial action if necessary," Steve Todd said.