This is another example of where the employee protections under state law can be more effective than the federal seamen’s remedies. The main difference is that the state actually enforces state law, where federal law just give seamen a right to sue. The crew should also should be glad that TAL is based in employee friendly Connecticut, instead of vessel owner friendly Louisiana.
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Yes. File the lien.
Some may remember that I suggested six weeks ago in the Mariner’s Rights thread that: the crew file liens with the USCG, send copies of the liens to the bank demanding payment, and file complaints with the California, Connecticut, and federal departments of labor.
My son received the balance of his wages due today. Hope everyone else has been paid in full.
Real justice should involve the owners having to live onboard until all issues (financial and otherwise) are resolved.
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Glad to hear… I agree they should have to live onboard the way he left his crew…without water, food and supplies!
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Unfortunately, the US Constitution forbids the government from exacting “cruel and unusual punishment.”
Otherwise, he should be forced to return to Iceland on his own ship.
You would think the crew is still owed a substantial amount of money for penalties for such a late payment of wages. After over two months of waiting, and struggling to get by, getting only what was originally owed seems extremely unfair.
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Give him a berth as an OS on the ship and put him on needle gun duty for as long as it takes for his lawyers to transfer the funds to pay off all of his debts. Shouldn’t take long. Somebody at MSC was either asleep at the wheel or complicit in abetting this fiasco.
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I know, right? He gets by withholding money, using it for other purposes and effectively earning him more money by having it, he should owe interest for beach of contractual payment of wages.
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The punishment being to return on his own American ship, or to return to Iceland at all??
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Both.
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He obviously wants to be here so deporting him would be a punishment. Make him go via the Transatlantic, going west from LA.
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OK, but a bag full of money MAY help to soften the punishment??
Sadly it would. It would be nice if the government would use asset forfeiture for a good cause for a change.
Way to easy of a punishment in my opinion. It should either be sewage system detail, endlessly cleaning rose boxes, or mucking the chain locker. Or all three in a constant rotation with the crew getting a chance to drop trow and use the spill pipe “egyptian style” while he is in the chain locker.
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Any news if this company has been "scuttled " yet?
Think we all agree it should be; with ownership on board.
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The last we heard they paid all the crew in an attempt to get their certificates back.
Not entirely accurate.
But things are progressing
What happened to the crew being entitled to additional/penalty pay for being paid so late?