The crew of the m/v Port May without salary and with limited supplies

Seafarers from the vessel Port May (IMO 8912807, flag of Russia, built in 1992) asked for help. The shipowner, the Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk company Vip- Stroy Holding LLC, did not pay their salaries for several months so that the amount owed to them is 1 850 331 rubles. The food and fuel supplies on board are running out, and the crewmembers, which are trying to defend their interests, are under constant pressure from the employer. This is reported in the collective appeal of the crew, signed by eight of the 17 people, and delivered to the chairman of the Far Eastern territorial organization of the Seafarers Union of Russia (FETO SUR) Nikolay Sukhanov. As the seafarers themselves report, the rest of the crew is afraid to resist the shipowner as they were not paid the salary for the previous contracts so that they are afraid to be left with nothing.

At the moment, the ship remains on the inner harbor of the Gulf of Korf, in the north of Kamchatka. Earlier, on April 4, part of the crew appealed to the inspectors of PSC with personal statements, which contained a demand for repayment of the debt for the three-month period of service amounted to more than 3, 7 million rubles for that date. In response, the PSC prohibited Port May from sailing until the full payment of wages to crew. Only after that, the employer transferred part of the money in amount of 1 904 000 rubles.

In addition, the crewmembers said that the company actually forced them to unpaid work. Under the threat of discharging and non-payment of full wages, owner instructed the crew to start unloading and loading cargo on their own, promising to pay for it 600 thousand rubles. Under pressure from the head of the company the part of the crew had to work more than 12 hours a day to speed up cargo operations from March 14 to April 1, but the company is in no hurry to pay for this. In general, the employer is not eager to pay wage, so he goes to any tricks and pressure to make the ship leave the port without meeting the requirements of the port state control.

So, on April 6, a relative of the shipowner illegally boarded the vessel and tried to convince the First Mate and Second Mate to remove the captain from the running of the ship and, in fact, to hijack it. In addition, according to the crewmembers, they face the direct threats of harm to health and extortion of money for the period the vessel was detained by the state port control. «Mr. Pivnev forced me to go on the voyage without fixing the deficiencies mentioned in the PSC inspection act of 17.03.2021 and in the RMRS (Russian Maritime Register of Shipping) inspection act of 03.04.2021, without registration of departure by port control and without permission to leave the ship from the FSB of the Russian Federation.

He also falsified the RMRS act of 03.04.2021, removing all the comments that inhibited the exit from it, and forced me to send this fake to the PSC of the port of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky for the safe registration of the ship's departure, which I did not do» - the captain says. In addition, there are very few supplies on board today. The crew will eat only cereals and lean soups, fresh water on board is only 8 tons at a daily consumption of 2.5 tons, and diesel fuel-8.5 tons, and every day becomes one ton less. It’s not enough for a ten-day passage to the port of Nakhodka, where it was planned to deliver the cargo. «In two or three days, after a possible announcement to all services about the need for emergency assistance, these reserves will only be enough to reach the nearest port of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky,» - mentioned the crewmembers.

It should be noted that FETO SUR has repeatedly faced with LLC Vip-Stroy Holding in regard with the claims from the seafarers due to non-payment of wage. According to Nikolay Sukhanov, in the past, the company used a cunning scheme, where the crewmembers were given two contracts, one of which was concluded with Vip-Stroy Holding with a salary of 13 000 to 17 000 rubles, the other with a foreign company General Exporters LLP with a remuneration amount of 800 to 2700 US dollars, depending on the position. Moreover, the latter was awarded to the crewmembers as a bonus at the request of the shipowner it means it can paid or not without explaining the reasons.

«It is not yet known exactly what kind of the contracts on board now, but most likely the shipowner again applies some system of «bonuses» that he pays according to his own understanding. We are regularly contacted by crewmembers working on the vessels of this employer. At one time, we, together with the crew of one of them, m/v ST Vind, prepared a corresponding collective appeal to the Direct Line to the President of the Russian Federation, and although it was not possible to ask a question on the air, the next day 20 criminal cases were initiated against Pivnev for non-payment of wages for more than two months»,- said Nikolay Sukhanov.

However, for some reason, the company still operates and still is allowed to deceive seafarers.

«We strongly recommended the crewmembers of the m/v Port May not to leave the port and stay here until the end, until the entire salary is paid in accordance with the PSC requirements. We are also going to contact the Far Eastern Transport Prosecutor's Office and the Far Eastern Investigative Department for Transport of the Investigating Committee of the Russian Federation in the very near future, so that they deal with this situation. »- said Nikolay Sukhanov.