The insurance amount provided for the crew of m/v Gennady Tsygankov remained undisclosed

As often happens, the seafarers themselves did not know the insurance amounts that should be paid to them or their families in case of injury or death, and those sums were not stipulated in the documents available on board. Nikolay Sukhanov, Chairman of the Far Eastern Territorial  Organization of the Seafarers’ Union Of Russia (FETO SUR), which representatives last week visited the m/v Gennady Tsygankov (IMO 8714669, Russian flag, 1988-built) berthed at the fishing port of Nakhodka, noted that today such situation is typical for many ships. The representatives of  FETO SUR have recently applied to the Far Eastern Transport Prosecutor's Office and raised this issue.

It's worthy to note that the registered owner of the vessel is Fern Shipping Inc from Nicosia, Cyprus. However,  the operator and the beneficiary shipowner, who pays salaries to seafarers and bears financial responsibility, is the Russian company Azia Shipping Co from Vladivostok. There is a collective agreement on board valid until  2023. It was signed with a non-affiliated with the International Transport Workers' Federation trade union -  Water Transport Workers’ Union (PRWT).  Insurance certificates required by the Maritime Labor Convention (MLC 2006) were in place on board, though, they were issued by a London-based foreign company. 

The ship's crew consists of 18 Russian seafarers. The salary for the AB seaman is RUB65,000 (the basic rate was RUB17,460). The captain's salary is RUB 204,000, while in fact he receives just RUB165,000 as the rest of the money he gets  at the end of the voyage as a bonus, if there are no any reprimands.

During the meeting with representatives of the trade union the captain of the ship joined the SUR membership right on board, and the rest of the crew asked for application forms for themselves either. Also, they handed the crew members  magazines “Maritime Union’s Herald” and FETO SUR 2022 calendars.

According to Nikolay Sukhanov, the FETO SUR representatives told the crew about the Union’s work to  protect the rights and interests of seafarers, answered the seafarers’ questions and highlighted urgent current issues. “In particular, we told about our focus area, which is the fulfillment of the MLC requirements by the Russian Federation,” said the FETO SUR Chairman. – Currently, work is underway to align Russian legislation  with the requirements of the Convention, since many regulatory documents still need to be revised. Besides, we consider it important that the system of control over the operation of  crewing companies to be exercised  not by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, as is the case today, but by the Ministry of Transport, which is more competent in maritime matters. In addition, in our opinion, it is necessary to simplify seafarers’ employment agreements. It is often that captains of ships flying the Russian flag show to FETO SUR Inspectors the  individual employment  agreements  on 15-20 pages. Notably, such agreements contain the articles of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation and excerpts from regulatory documents, but do not provide clear information on the most important thing – how much wages  are the seafarers entitled to. It is impossible to understand and calculate how much the crew members earn according to such agreements. Therefore, it is worth to develop a simplified form of an employment agreement on one or two pages, where the amount of wages should be clearly indicated.”