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SEAFARERS' UNION OF RUSSIA
A NON-UNIONIZED SEAFARER
IS AN UNPROTECTED SEAFARER
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The Far Eastern Territorial Organization (FETO) of SUR
received a complaint from a seafarer. The insurance company “Soglasie” which
had insured the seafarer's salary from non-payment, refused to pay him a
compensation.
Andrey Leonidovich Pavlenko, who worked as Master on the ship “Smile”, have made a complaint
about the non-payment of wages for the period from February 6 to February 28,
2017. The owner of the ship was “Linton Consulting Ltd”, which entered into a
bareboat charter agreement with “Laetana Holdings Ltd”. On February 23, 2017,
the vessel’s operator, MV-Line, asked Andrei Leonidovich to prepare “Smile” for
delivery to representatives of a Chinese company in the port of Jiangyin.
When the Master asked about salary, he
was promised that the backdated wages would be paid to him at the company's
office in Vladivostok. When he arrived in the city, the representatives of the
"MV-Line" refused him to pay his salary, citing the fact that there
was no money. After some time, the crew members of "Smile", who
applied to law enforcement agencies, found out that neither the ship, nor the
company longer exists.
The salary of seafarers for this period of time was secured
by the insurance company "Soglasie". According to the amendments to
the Maritime Labor Convention, 2006, which entered into force in Russia on
January 18, 2017, each vessel must have insurance certificates in order to guarantee the payments to seafarers in case
of ship’s bankruptcy. In such event, a
seafarer has a right to apply to the insurance company by himself and ask for wage compensation. Andrey Pavlenko did just that.
But the company “Soglasie” told him that the franchise in the amount of 2,500 dollars should be deducted from the 3,730 dollars of wages due to him for the period in question. In addition, he was required to submit documents which he could not had in principle: bareboat charter agreement between the shipowner and Laetana Holding Ltd and certificate of unpaid wages from Laetana Holding Ltd. It should be noted that these requirements were not stipulated in the terms of the insurance agreement. Thus, actually the "Soglasie" refused to make insurance claim payout to Andrei Leonidovich.
The SUR FETO prepares a lawsuit in court upon the Master's complaint. This is the first case when seafarer files a lawsuit against insurance company. “Our lawyer examined the complaint from Andrey Pavlenko and admitted the requirements as fair. This process is very important for us. Many members of our Union work on ships insured by the “Soglasie”, ”said Nikolai Sukhanov, the SUR FETO Chairman.
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