ÐÎÑÑÈÉÑÊÈÉ ÏÐÎÔÅÑÑÈÎÍÀËÜÍÛÉ ÑÎÞÇ ÌÎÐßÊÎÂ
SEAFARERS' UNION OF RUSSIA
A NON-UNIONIZED SEAFARER
IS AN UNPROTECTED SEAFARER
Back
The Court of Appeal upheld the decision of the court of first instance, which ruled to satisfy the claims of the employee filed against the Northern Shipping Company and to recover from the company in his favor RUB27,830 - the unpaid surcharge of the currency component instead of per diems for the period of the foreign voyage. The seafarer was represented before the court by Igor Telyatyev, legal adviser of the Northern Territorial Organization of the Seafarers’ Union of Russia (NTO SUR), and NTO SUR chief legal inspector Andrey Sidorov.
Recall that, the seafarer first applied to SUR Primary Organization of the JSC "Northern Shipping Company" in February. He had worked on board the m/v "Inzhener Veshnyakov" for five months and received less than RUB27,830.
The debt to seafarer accumulated due to the fact that the employer, without giving any reason, reduced the USD 14 in foreign currency to be paid instead of per diems according to the terms of the employment contract to USD11 per day. As that, the seafarer received the agreed by the parties amount of USD14 per day only for one month of work. According to Sergey Portenko, the Chairman of SUR Primary Organization of the JSC "Northern Shipping Company", the entire seafaring personnel of the company found themselves in a similar situation.
Having received an appeal from the seafarer, the union representatives first sent a notice demanding to terminate the violation of labor legislation directly to the employer, but the shipping company refused to acknowledge any violations. An appeal to the State Labor Inspection for the Arkhangelsk Region and the Nenets Autonomous District did not bring the desired results either. There were no details of the verification in the response letter. It only stated that the trade union's appeal did not contain information about citizens' immediate threat of harm to life and health , as well as about such facts.
The letter also claimed the company was issued a warning on the unacceptability of violating the law, without specifying in relation to what.
As the issue could not be resolved in that way, the trade union decided to apply to the Lomonosovsky District Court of Arkhangelsk. Although the representative of JSC "Northern Shipping Company" disagreed with the seafarer's claim, arguing the plaintiff had missed the deadline for filing a lawsuit, the Lomonosovsky District Court, and then the Arkhangelsk Regional Court sided with the employee as a result of the appeal's examination.
Under the law, the employee is entitled to apply to court for resolution of an individual labor dispute on non-payment or incomplete payment of wages and other payments due to him within one year from the date of the established deadline for payment of these amounts. In the present case this condition was met: the seafarer had not received wages for October 2021-January 2022, and he applied to the court already in March 2022.
"The court of first instance arguments thoroughly examined the arguments stated there were no violations on the part of the employer, since the payment in question was not a component of wages, and conveyed the invalidity of these arguments in the court ruling", - the appeal ruling of the Arkhangelsk Regional Court stated. So, the court did not allow the appeal filed by JSC "Northern Shipping Company".
According to Sergey Portenko, the Chairman of SUR Primary Organization of the JSC "Northern Shipping Company", in early April the seafarer get the appeal court ruling on hands and the company finally paid him the debt. “In the near future we are going to file a claim for compensation for the delaying for more than a year of wages”, - Sergey Portenko said. “We are also ready to assist all other seafarers faced with such problems and to advocate their interests. As can be seen from this case, this is quite a feasible task.”
Photo – Marine Traffic
Up