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ITF wins back pay for seafarers left stranded for 13 months

13 Jun 2019

The ITF has been successful in winning back pay for 12 seafarers left stranded off the coast of Tunisia for 13 months and helping them to get home.

The 12 crew members of the United Arab Emirates-flagged tanker Qaaswa were abandoned off the port of Sfax without wages, food and fuel. The ITF has been supporting them, and previously two former crews on the vessel similarly abandoned over the last three years by Alco Shipping Services. 

The ITF provided food and provisions for the crew, retrieved a total of USD130,952 for eight month’s back pay owed to them, and helped them to get home to India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Myanmar.

The crew members thanked the ITF and inspector Mohamed Arrachedi, the ITF’s Arab World contact network lead, for their assistance in getting them home with their wages. Mohamed Arrachedi congratulated the Tunisian union Federation Nationale des Transports/UGTT and UAE authorities for their actions in support of the seafarers. He commented that: “No seafarer should have to go through the experience that the crews aboard the Qaaswa have endured … The abandonment of seafarers is a cancer of the maritime industry that all actors in the industry must work together to eradicate.”

-------------------------------------PROBLEMS WITH PAY?-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Are you having problems with getting your pay in full? If you are, this could be a sign that your company is in economic trouble. You should contact your union or the ITF directly as soon as possible to protect your wages and employment. 

 

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