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Police are having to monitor bank holidays at Scottish ports as staff are being faced with abuse including threats to run over workers from travellers frustrated by ferry fiasco disruption.
Union leaders have warned that the bleak picture of “under pressure” staff could lead to wrong decisions being made about sailing – and risk lives.
They say that issues with abuse and threats to staff has risen in the past five years – as disruption to ferry services has become more acute.
And they say that police are now having to monitor certain Scottish ports when demand on ferries is at its highest like during bank holidays to keep order.
Nautilus International, the union for maritime professionals at sea and ashore has said there have been threats to run people over just to get on board ferries “as if that is going to help the situation”.
At the centre of the row are the continuing issues with the nation’s ageing ferry fleet breaking down, resulting in a string of cancellations and other disruption to services.
In 2022, around some 17 of state-owned ferry operator CalMac’s 31 working ferries deployed across Scotland were was past their its 25-year-old life expectancy. The oldest in the CalMac fleet is the Isle of Cumbrae, which is 46 years old.
Since the SNP came to power in 2007, the average age of Scotland’s ferries has soared from 17 years to 24 years.
Back in 1974, a CalMac vessel was typically just 13 years old.
Meanwhile, two new vessels being built for CalMac, MV Glen Sannox and Hull 802, are still being built languishing in the now state-owned Ferguson Marine shipyard in Inverclyde, with the costs of their construction soaring from £97 million to nearly £340m and scheduled delivery more than five years late.
Gordon Martin, regional organiser and lead officer for CalMac with the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT) said extra security has been needed to deal with the frustations of the public.
“He said “It [the ferry issues] is putting stress and pressure on frontline workers. When things don’t go the way people expect them to go, they very often take the blame and frustration on people that don’t deserve it, whether that be supermarket checkouts or with this, issue frontline ferry workers. So it’s been very difficult.
“You know, we’ve had to raise it with the company at managing director level, we’ve raised it wit the transport minister [Jenny Gilruth]. People are being threatened, physically, verbally and so on, and it’s not acceptable.
“The only way you can avoid that, is to get some resilience in there, and get some additional vessels so that when something goes wrong somewhere, there is an alternative vessel that can be used to take the pressure off everyone.”
He told MPs in a ferry resilience inquiry at the Scottish Parliament net zero, energy and transport committee: “Unfortunately, these are kind of societal problems. What can be done, and has been done, is during bank holidays and things like that, police have been made available at certain terminals and additional security [has been brought in] to ensure the safety of workers in particular as people wait to get on and off ferries during particularly busy holiday times.
Martyn Gray, executive officer with Nautilus said there was concern that some ferry users have tried to forcibly board ferries in frustration and threatened to run workers over, with issues rising in recent years.
He said: “I get that there’s a lot of anger and frustration and it’s hurting people financially, it’s hurting people, socially, it’s got a significant impact on the wellbeing, both mental and physical on island communities, but our members are really wanting to support island communities and get them moving and keep their economies going which is what the the ferry services are essential for.
“I think it is very important to remember that it is equally as frustrating for our members when these situations happen, which leads to delays and cause problems.
“We want to operate a safe, reliable ferry service for the people of Scotland. That is what all of our members want to do is operate safe and reliable ferry services that get people from where they are to where they need to be in a timely way.
“And because of issues with vessels, because of a lack of resilience because of upswing in passenger numbers, and other factors, such as a lack of investment in infrastructure and expansion in port infrastructure as well to cope with large vessels, we’re finding ourselves in a situation that is causing passenger frustration to be taken out on our people. And that’s not right.
“CalMac do try to deal with it robustly where they can, but physical threats from passengers are not uncommon when delays occur. And I think it’s really important to stress and have this opportunity to stress to you and to the travelling public that we are on your side.
“Our members are on your side and want to get you from where you are to where you need to be and want to do that in a timely way. And please remember that our members are not the ones who are responsible for the issue, but they are the ones that are trying to deal with it, to fix it, to get things up and running again to get things moving.”
He told MSPs abused staff could then make fatal errors of judgement.
“It is a significant call to stop a sailing, to stop one of those services.
“And if the continued abuse keeps being piled on, we’re looking at a situation where you’re then applying pressure to operating vessels that might not be safe to operate, which could lead to disaster and catastrophic consequences for the travelling public and for all of our members and workers on board those ferries if something was to go terribly wrong, whilst it was sailing.
“The knock-on consequences for this continued abuse could potentially lead to a situation where somebody is making a very fine judgement call on whether it is safe or is it not safe and they don’t err on the side of caution with it. That can lead to even more disaster and loss of life potentially, if that decision was made incorrectly.
“We’ve got to be really careful and we are very supportive of our people who are making these decisions on the ground knowing that safety should be the primary concern when it comes to operating the services. ”
Liam Kerr, Scottish Conservatives’ shadow cabinet secretary for net zero, energy and transport said: “It’s unacceptable that anyone should face intimidation and abuse just for doing their job.
“But it now seems hard-pressed CalMac staff are paying the price for the SNP Government’s ferries scandal.
“It’s even more galling that those on the receiving end are being let down every bit as much as frustrated passengers by the SNP’s incompetence and failure to provide a lifeline service.”
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