Estonia, Legislation, Tourism, Transport, Wages

The majority of the claims were filed by the trade union of seamen who represents its members working on the ferries, writes LETA.

All in all, the committee ruled in 44 cases involving Tallink and in more than half of the cases ruled that the company had treated its employees who are paid hourly wages unfairly.

The biggest single compensation awarded by the labour dispute committee was over 25,000 kroons and the smallest was 480 kroons.

The more the employee had been working in Tallink and was able to prove that the company had violated its responsibilities with regard to salaries and discriminated the worker, the highest has been the compensation.

The rest of the compensation that Tallink was ordered to pay were benefits for illegal layoffs when the employer has terminated the employment contract because it deemed them incompetent or unreliable or accused them of breaching the terms of their employment contract.

However, ten workers who had disputed their redundancy when Tallink found that they had caused the company damages by letting others use their company food coupons saw their case go against them when the labour dispute committee found that the evidence collected by the employer was sufficient to cause suspicion in the employees and formed a sufficient reason for ending the employment relationship.

As reported, Tallink Grupp in the second quarter of its 2010/2011 financial year (December-February) transported 1,999,313 passengers which is more than a 23% increase as compared to the previous year.