The International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) said last year, union ship inspectors recovered more than US$37 million in unpaid wages owed to seafarers.
ITF noted that 125 inspectors and coordinators of the federation completed 7,265 inspections in 2021 to support seafarers with wage claims and repatriation cases, despite Covid-19 restrictions preventing inspectors’ ability to board ships for much of the year.
“It’s not uncommon for crew to be paid the at the wrong rate by a shipowner, or less than the rate set out in the employment agreement covering the ship,” pointed out Steve Trowsdale, the ITF’s Inspectorate Coordinator.
“Crew can generally work out when they’re being underpaid. And that’s when they contact us. ITF inspectors help seafarers recover what’s owed to them,” he added.
ITF noted it clawed back US$$37,591,331 in unpaid wages and entitlements from shipowners in 2021.
Trowsdale said the makeup of seafarers’ wage claims was changing.“Concerningly, we’re seeing a rise in the number of seafarers reporting non-payment of wages for periods of two months or longer, which actually meets the ILO’s definition of abandonment,” he said and went on to add, “Seafarers might think it’s normal to go unpaid for a couple of months, waiting for a shipowner to sort out financing, but they need to be aware that non-payment can also be a sign that a shipowner is about to cut them loose and leave them abandoned.”
The ITF reported an all-time high of 85 cases of abandonment to the International Labour Organization (ILO) last year. In many of those cases, the federation noted that the abandoned crew had already been waiting on several weeks or months of unpaid wages.
