Great reply! I’m guessing the USCG has little if any authority over a dead beat employer not paying wages. That is a civil matter, but they are held accountable for Port safety and must by law hold masters and vessel owners accountable.
I’m sure the COTPs affected do not like being put in this position. But their hands are tied! They must address hazardous situations and potentially hazardous situations.
The question of liability aside, if the captain and crew leaves and refuses to return, and the vessel at anchor who then is responsible for the vessel?
Say the CG is able to prosecute a case against the crew and they get life sentences. If the crew is locked up in jail and the vessel blows aground is the crew solely responsible?
The COTP has no responsibility for port safety in this case? That seems absurd.
First off, no one is getting a life sentence for this. Get real. There would be fines at most for the crew and MAYBE and short jail time for the master. The USCG has authority over all US waters. That’s pretty clear as well. Having said all of that if they left the owners would be responsible and considering the likelihood of BTC being able to get crew or being able to pay for it the job would be bid out to a towing company to bring it in as salvage because the vessels had been abandoned. Then they could follow admiralty law for salvage rights and probably sell the vessel to receive payment.
If a ship is abandoned by the crew the owners are responsible. If the vessel posed a hazard they would be the lead agency in ensuring it was attended to. If it was a pollution hazard the company COFR might be called into use for dollars…
If it was left adrift it might be ripe for a salvage claim.
It could be, but salvage isn’t finders keepers. They would get an award from the Court based on a number of factors, including the peril the salvaged property was in and the skill it took to effect the salvage. See e.g. The Blackwall 77 U.S. 1 (1869). In your scenario, in calm weather, that award might be little more than the going rate for towage in the locale. And the lien for salvage would be subordinate to that of the crew for unpaid wages, but higher than a mortgagee of the vessel.
The off going crew could make arrangements for the turnover, use the skiff to give the salvage crew a ride to the boat.
Agreed. It would all depend on the “peril” you saved the vessel from and of course the value of vessel and cargo.
I was once involved in coordinating assistance from a managed vessel of a Stolt chemical tanker that went dead ship in a fairway and was drifting toward a multi-platform cluster…
Since the potential hazard was fairly high the payout was good, and rescuing vessel crew also got treated well.
Regarding hierarchy of liens I would normally agree except in this case the operating Company BTC is separate from the vessel the assignment of wage Leon’s gets complicated.
No one has offered a solution to what happens if the cook manages to give everyone food poisoning and the crew need hospital treatment. Can the CG arrest and prosecute the Master and or mate for leaving the vessel because they are ill?
And even if they did arrest the master, that would still leave the vesssel without a master. If the point of threatening the crew with prosecution is to ensure the vessel is safely manned, the USCG is still failing in its duty if they adopt a process that may leave the vessel without a crew.
The USCG are at fault for having a process that is not fail safe.
It sounds like what they need is something that forces their removal from the ship. There are many possibilities.
Say the master and crew go on a hunger strike. Can they be prosecuted for not eating? Can the CotP order them force fed?
Say they all claim some medical condition (diarrhea). Can the CotP force them to be examined by a medical corpsman? Can he order them forcefully medicated against their will?
Say their spouses or domestic partners claim some domestic assault charge that would require their arrest and removal from the ship. Then the spouse would suddenly drop the charges. Would a judge order them held on a ship? Or maybe some other non-felony would work?
What about putting in an application to move their MMC enforcements to a document of continuity making them unable to legally serve as master or crew. Is that a crime?
Desperate times may call for desperate measures.
All the guys there are job shopping, alot of them hope to go with the equipment, the word I got is they aren’t coming out of this one. Morty wont give up and get the fuck out, cancelled a meeting they had with Genesis about the fleet 1hr before it was supposed to happen because they wont put him on the board of directors.
All these absurd “what ifs” being posted here about the cook supposedly making everyone ill and having to get off the boat or spouses/partners bringing charges that require a crewman’s arrest are ridiculous. Of course, if it’s a true matter of safety of life then the USCG is not going to fault anyone who needs to go ashore for medical assistance. Be prepared to explain what an amazing coincidence that is yourself, though.
What is not acceptable is using some lame, half true excuse that allows the crew to essentially abandon a non-gas freed tank vessel at anchor. The USCG has a very real obligation to public safety and the safety of other vessels/mariners to not allow that to happen, period. As much as we think that they’re here to serve us (and in many ways, they are) they have a greater obligation to the general public to protect them from hazards imposed by shipping. We constantly use these inherent hazards (especially on tank vessels) to justify our value as mariners - they are real. Unpaid wages are a civil matter which has nothing to do with the USCG and there is established law to handle cases like that. Hell, coast guardsmen themselves know what it’s like to work while unpaid. They do it every time the government shuts down.
Don’t like it? Don’t work on tank vessels and especially for BTC. The final writing has been on the wall on that place for awhile now.
The best thing for the crews is to get a lawyer involved and get liens placed against each individual vessel for their unpaid wages. Any of these other platitudes are a fallacy and waste of their time, effort and (possibly already stretched) money.
I would of had chest pains about 3 days after they missed payroll. If the USCG is so obligated for public safety why have they not trained for this scenario? Mariners do redundant drills day in and day out for situations that may never arise in ones career they should be prepared for this.
Disparaging what if’s doesn’t address the issue. They are merely thought experiments.
The CG has a responsibility for safety. But if their only means to ensure that safety reilies on a process that can easily be undermined by a simple question, their process is at fault.
The CG should be recognising the employer has abrigated their responsibility for the safety of the vessels by failing to pay the crew. The solution is to arrest the ship and force the sale to pay for all administrative costs and outstanding wages.
Agreed. But that is not a function of the USCG. That’s the whole point of this “argument”. So much criticism is being placed on the wrong entity. Bouchard likely owes more than just crew wages at this point. Lawyers are certainly circling like vultures preparing to file tort liens in federal court. After that, it is the US Marshals that actually arrest the vessel. The USCG has nothing to do with it.
If you have legit chest pains only 3 days after missing payroll, then prepare for your med cert to be pulled until you can be thoroughly examined and re-certified to the satisfaction of the USCG. That’s not healthy.
Trained for what exactly? They got word that BTC crews were preparing to (or had) reduce manning onboard their vessels below the legal minimum resulting in an unsafe situation. The proper initial action was for the respective COTPs to do exactly what they did - remind the masters of their legal responsibilities in regards to safe manning of the vessels. If compliance is found to not be happening or, god forbid, an incident occurs, then they will take further action. Meanwhile, everything else (wage/lien related) is a matter of civil law to be handled in federal court.
Despite the “sea lawyerness” of so many around here, there is nothing that has happened here which is not part of the due process of law.
BTW I say all of this not in any means as a defender of BTC or their notoriously bad behavior. I actually work for their competition.
The most plausible scenario is that the Bouchard crews want to keep their high paying jobs, and go with the vessels when they are sold, or Bouchard is put under the control of a trustee. They also assume that they will eventually be paid. Thus, they really are not trying very hard to get off the vessels.
Remember that this is setting a precedent. Lots of owners are watching. If this method of threatening the public good to get indentured service from a CotP is successful then what’s to stop the next company from doing it? Your company?
We all know what’s going on here. Lawyers have figured out how to manipulate the situation to their clients advantage. Now you advocate the mariner victims do nothing but hire their own lawyers?
Those mariners need to threaten the public good as well. It should be legal. Obviously destruction of property isn’t legal. But a hunger strike is. (It might even help get media attention.) It would show the CotP the mariners are desperate and need resolution.
I love how everyone is a maritime lawyer all of a sudden. This is yet another thread that has spun out of control with redundant suggestions about things that are already being done. Can’t we have one thread kept to facts about the vessels/logistics and perhaps ways we can assist the stranded crew?
Example:
I live in NYC. Does anyone know if the local vessels need/would appreciate anything in particular? Couple cans of dip, a box of pastries? Need something mailed out to their family for them? Let me know and I’ll make it happen.
That’s what you call being helpful as opposed to being a useless keyboard warrior. If anyone is on these vessels (Port of NY/NJ) or knows someone on these vessels please message me.
The useful practical solutions have been mentioned. Get a lawyer, call your elective representative, seek media attention. They have been exhausted and have still not worked. Maybe it’s time for extraordinary solutions.
