Thirteen Filipino seafarers have made it home after more than five months aboard an abandoned livestock carrier ship, the Yangtze Harmony, thanks to the intervention of the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF).
The ship’s owners abandoned the vessel and its crew after the ship was arrested in October 2022 in Singapore over an unpaid fuel bill. That is when the shipowner also stopped paying the entire crew, leaving them without wages or a way to get home. By April, the crew were owed $429,972.
The ITF said the Yangtze Harmony’s Hong Kong-based shipowner had a long history of abandoning crew, and its vessels have been detained before for violating safety and crew welfare rules.
But what the ITF’s inspectors didn’t expect, however, was that the shipping company would abandon another crew in addition to the Yangtze Harmony at the same time.
Between the Yangtze Harmony and the Yangtze Fortune, the ITF’s months of advocacy would recover $1m in backpay owed to the crew, as well as flights home for the 43 seafarers.
Soar Harmony Shipping abandoned the Yangtze Fortune after the Harmony’s sister vessel, also a livestock ship, was seized by the Australian Federal Court at Portland, Victoria over the owner’s refusal to make urgent repairs.
While the Australian case was resolved relatively quickly, the ITF hit out at Singapore’s legal system which leaves crew in limbo.
On October 25 last year, the Singapore Sheriff court seized the Yangtze Harmony on behalf of Glander International Bunkering over an unpaid fuel bill. That began a legal process to sell the ship and pay off its debts, including the $429,972 in unpaid wages owed to the crew.
“It’s a complex process in any jurisdiction when a shipowner defaults on payments,” said Steve Trowsdale, the ITF’s inspectorate coordinator. “But authorities must realise they have a clear responsibility under international law to act swiftly in cases where crew welfare is in jeopardy.”
Singapore ratified the Maritime Labour Convention (MLC) in 2011. This specifies how cases of abandonment should be handled. Trowsdale argued that in delaying proceedings for more than five months, Singapore may have contravened the MLC.
