It has taken the attempted suicide of a seafarer to get Sea Lion Shipping Co to respond to repeated and urgent warnings about the welfare of its crews from the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF).
The ship’s owner said the financial losses the company had incurred, coupled with the fact that its entire fleet was currently inoperable were gradually disrupting all its operations. “As a company, we are making every effort to rectify this situation, including exploring measures such as selling the ships,” a spokesman said.
A crew member of the Med Sea Eagle, who must remain anonymous for legal reasons, was transported to hospital ashore last week after taking an overdose of painkiller tablets. The ship has been at anchor off Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) since July. The ITF’s inspectors demanded immediate action from the UAE maritime authorities in light of this seafarer’s extreme situation. They responded quickly, taking the seafarer ashore for the medical assistance needed. “The question the maritime community now has to ask itself is: ‘how were things allowed to get so bad that this seafarer wanted to take their own life?’,” said Steve Trowsdale, the ITF’s inspectorate coordinator. “Sea Lion Shipping claims to be in financial trouble, but it is highly immoral – and contrary to international law – to shift the burden of its failures onto its crews. In any event, there are systems in place which are supposed to protect individual seafarers caught up in this type of situation. Those systems are failing because of the underhand way the company is behaving and because a whole range of other people are ducking their responsibilities.”
Earlier this month, Sea Lion Shipping sent remittances to the crew, suggesting that their outstanding salaries were about to be paid. No payment was made.
According to the ITF, any claims the company has about crew welfare are given the lie by their actions over another ship, the Med Sea Fox, also at anchor off the UAE. After many months of applying pressure, the ITF managed to get 10 of its crew paid (although four Ukrainians are still owed for 26 days they worked in June) and repatriated, only for the company to replace them with 10 new crew members. The new crew have not been paid for more than three months.
Trowsdale says the company must sell at least one of its ships to end its financial crisis and start treating its seafarers with the respect they deserve.
