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Abandoned - whose responsiblity?

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Page context: Home > Transport International Magazine > Issue 14 January 2004 > Abandoned - whose responsiblity?

There can’t be many workers more at risk from financial insecurity than seafarers, hundreds of whom are literally left stranded without money, food or water each year...

Thousands of poor workers from Asian, African and Eastern European countries are attracted to sea by the promise of a regular salary to send home to dependent families. Many will be hired by cowboy operators, who register their ships with flags of convenience or less rigorous national flags and soon create trouble.

An alarm bell may ring when a month’s salary is delayed or an employer fails to provide proper funds for the running of the ship. Perhaps a second or third month will pass with empty promises of pay at the next port.

Then the nightmare begins. Thousands of miles from home, your ship runs into difficulties or is detained by port authorities on safety grounds. The company owning the ship falls out of contact and perhaps into bankruptcy. You may be owed thousands of dollars in wages, and you have no money for a ticket home. The supplies of food, water and fuel on board run out and it becomes clear that the shipowner will not provide even your basic means of survival. You have been abandoned.

Perhaps with no contract, your gut feeling is that if you leave the ship you will have no way to prove you ever worked on it – you will have to stay and wait for the money you are owed. But this could mean waiting forever. If you are a union member, your national union should advise you to come home. It may begin lobbying on your behalf, perhaps approaching the nearest embassy to request assistance with your welfare needs and repatriation. In some cases the union will begin raising funds to repatriate the crew itself.

According to international conventions, in cases of abandonment it is actually the responsibility of a ship’s flag state to arrange and pay for a crew’s passage home.

The reality in many such cases however, is that ships’ crews, and the unions and other bodies who advocate for them, are cut off by every formal source of authority or assistance. Hundreds of abandoned seafarers spend months living on handouts of food and fuel, in ever more wretched conditions, wondering how they will survive, and when they will ever see, let alone provide for, their families again.

In most of the dozens of abandonment cases dealt with by the ITF each year, neither the ship owner nor the flag state (nor even in some cases the embassy) has any intention of fulfilling its basic obligations.

Funding backwages from scrap
The ITF, the seafarers’ own union if they have one, a sympathetic local port workers’ union, or Mission to Seafarers will do what they can to help with essential provisions, fight the case for back wages and arrange repatriation.

But if an abandoned vessel proves, as so often, to be virtually worthless even as scrap, who is going to fund a whole crew’s back wages of many thousands of dollars? It can take years to recover even a small percentage of a crew’s claim, and millions of dollars owed to seafarers will never be paid.

The International Maritime Organization (IMO) – the United Nations body charged with regulating shipping – has made some efforts to address the problem of abandonment. One major recent initiative was a scheme to generate financial security for vulnerable workers in an industry where the least seaworthy vessels are refused insurance, yet may still be allowed to sail. Without the commitment of key stakeholders in the industry however, no such scheme has much chance of success.

Responsible unions continue to lobby their governments into ratifying and implementing ILO conventions and recommendations on seafarers’ welfare. Meantime they will warn members to steer clear of a company known to be in difficulty, or to be creating difficulties for its employees. Often they succeed in alerting the media to a government’s apparent disinterest in the fate of its nationals stranded in some distant port. They may also succeed in influencing government policy. In Romania, for example, unions have helped to bring about some regulation of the manning agents who send seafarers into employment.

Concern over the issue of abandonment of seafarers has led to the establishment of a joint working group of the IMO and the International Labour Organization. In November 2001, both organisations adopted Guidelines on provision of financial security in case of abandonment of seafarers. This was with a view to eliminating the operation of substandard ships and enhancing the social protection of seafarers. The joint working group also established a mechanism for the reporting of abandonment cases, by member governments and non-government organisations with consultative or observer status in the IMO or ILO, such as the ITF. The ITF submitted its latest cases in September 2003. These cases show shipowners and flag states flouting their responsibilities under the adopted guidelines.

The reporting process not only raises the profile of the issue, but also allows the ITF and others to apply pressure on flag states at the IMO to assist individual seafarers who have been abandoned.

Case 1

Vessel: Tara (cargo ship)

Flag: Tonga (FOC)

Age: 30 years

Owners: unconfirmed, informal sources believe the owners are Dimitrios Kokkos and Mahmood Riffat

Crew: 18 – 6 Indian, 8 Pakistani, 4 Romanian

Abandoned: November 2002, Algiers, Algeria

Means of survival: Begging/handouts from local transport workers’ union Federation Nationale des Travailleurs du Transport (FNTT)
Requests for assistance made to: Pakistani and Indian embassies in Algeria, Tongan government

Responses: All requests declined or ignored

Repatriated: May 2003, by ITF/FNTT

Salaries: None ever paid

Case history: The Tara set sail from Tunis for Oran, Algeria, in October 2002, but soon developed engine problems. In November the ship was towed into the port of Algiers, where it remains rusting to this day. The vessel’s owners,believed to be Dimitrios Kokkos and Mahmood Riffat, initially sent some money to the crew stranded on board. In January they repatriated four Romanian crew and promised to make arrangements for the remaining 14 men to get home.

This did not happen and no further money was received by the crew. The men survived by begging in the port and receiving handouts from local dockers’ unions. Both the local Indian and Pakistani embassies refused to offer assistance, pointing to the foreign flag of the vessel. The Tongan government failed even to acknowledge many repeated fax appeals from the ITF.

Tonga has been repeatedly attacked by the ITF and others for failing to act after announcing the closure of its registry. The Tongan flag has attracted the most unscrupulous possible shipping companies including allegedly some with terrorist links. In the case of the Tara even a cursory look at the ship’s history (previous crews say with the same owners, but flying different FOCs), reveals a record of poor maintenance, arrests, and backwage claims from crew hired without contracts or union representation. The national union in Romania has made efforts to warn its members away from any vessel linked to Kokos and Riffat.

Repatriation of the crew of the Tara was finally arranged jointly by the ITF and local transport workers' union FNTT in May 2003. No backwage clam has been lodged for the crew since the ship has no value and the claim of the port authority for salvage costs would take precedence.

Prospects compensation of crew: none

Case 2

Vessels: Asphalt 1, Asphalt Carrier, Al Baraka
Flags: Panama (FOC)

Ages: 21, 23 and 26 years

Owners: Arabian Tankers company

Crew: 32 in total – from Ethiopia, India, Russia, and Ukraine

Abandoned: July 2002 in the United Arab Emirates – at Sharjah and Ajman ports

Means of survival: Food and fuel from the Mission to Seafarers centre in Dubai

Requests for assistance made to: Panamanian registry

Response: Ignored

Repatriated: May 2003 by the seafarers’ centre

Salaries: Total claim over US$300,000, some claimants unpaid for 20 months before abandonment

Case history: The three sister ships were admitted to the ports of Sharjah (Asphalt 1) and Ajman in July 2002 under “port of refuge” status after the owner reportedly ran out of money, and ceased to provide provisions.

The crew depended for their survival entirely on the support of the local Mission to Seafarers centre. Many of the crew had worked regularly for the company for up to nine years. Hence they were prepared to believe promises month after month that payment would come at the next port.

Once abandoned, the crews were initially keen to hold out for their money. However, by April 2003 most were ground down by their dire living conditions. At this stage some had been unable to send money home to their dependent families for up to 18 months. They were desperate to get home and willing to leave power of attorney in Dubai and wait for a settlement.

The Mission to Seafarers successfully repatriated the crews in May 2003. As Transport International went to press court cases had been filed against the ships in Dubai and Ajman. The cases had been repeatedly adjourned while awaiting the outcome of various summonses to and appeals from the owners. Having declared themselves bankrupt, the owners are actively opposing the rights of their crews to wages by appealing the decisions made by the tribunals in favour of payment for the individual seafarers.

Prospects for compensation of crew: Lawyers are hopeful that wages (no costs) will eventually be recovered from the sale of the vessels, even if only for scrap.

Case 3

Vessel: Al Yassin 1 (cargo ship)

Flag: Syria

Age: 47 years

Owner: Suleyman

Crew: 16 Pakistani

Abandoned: April 2003, Aden, Yemen

Means of survival: Pakistan Seamen’s Union

Salaries: None paid for seven months before abandonment

Requests for assistance made to: Pakistani embassies in Yemen and London, Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Yemen

Responses: Acknowledgements given, arrangements made for repatriation

Repatriated: 11 crew in May 2003 (via Pakistani embassy in Aden).

Five remain in Aden to file court case for unpaid wages in Yemen.
Case history: When the ITF was notified that the Al Yassin 1 was stranded at Aden in Yemen in April 2003, the crew had been unpaid for seven months and were living in dangerous conditions anchored in rough seas. There was no safety or communications equipment (life jackets, life rafts, fire extinguishers etc) and crew members talked of finding many holes in the ship’s bottom and in the hull.
The owner was uncontactable, having failed to pay the crew’s salaries for seven months.

Following requests from the ITF and the Pakistani Seamen’s Union, the Pakistani embassy in London arranged repatriation for 11 crew members in July 2003. Five crew remain in Aden having filed a court case for unpaid wages. The PSU secured the arrest of the ship’s owner in Aden, by the Federal Investigation Authority of Pakistan. However he is bankrupt and the ship, built in 1957, has negligible sale value even for scrap.

Potential for compensation of crew: Some hope that Pakistani government will eventually take responsibility, since the manning agents operated through the government shipping office.

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Issue 14 January 2004

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