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This is crazy. I’d think as soon as they stopped paying him he does not work for them, and they’ve abandoned the ship unmanned. He could claim the ship as salva
by _yb2s 2y ago
This is crazy. I’d think as soon as they stopped paying him he does not work for them, and they’ve abandoned the ship unmanned. He could claim the ship as salvage, sell it, and sue them for his back pay for anytime he did work.
- sidewndr46 2y agoA ship has to be found unmanned in most cases to claim salvage. If it is a hazard in navigable waters and you get permission from the local Coast Guard (or whatever authority) you can put a lien on a ship that you safely remove from those waters to restore normal traffic. And yes, he can sue his employer. That is likely as effective as trying to get blood from a turnip
- hedora 2y agoIf I wanted one of these ships, what would maritime law say if I were to dispose of a few thousand gallons of diesel into its tank, and the crew decided to move it into international waters then abandon it? Presumably, it’d be up to the employer to recover damages from their former (aka my current) employees.
- michaelt 2y agoI believe that would make you a "pirate" and the crew "mutineers"
- wiml 2y agoI don't think that follows. The crew would be acting in accordance with the ship's master (remember, everyone on board is abandoning ship in an orderly manner). Someone would surely be liable to the ship's owner but that sounds more like a random tort / breach of contract than a mutiny. In a military they might be AWOL or deserters or something, but they're not in a military. I think you're right about piracy though. Hedora could salvage the now-abandoned ship but I don't think that transfers ownership - it produces something vaguely like a lien. (Presumably space law in _The Expanse_ is different, or maybe the Roci was technically a prize?)
- lazide 2y agoThe power imbalance here is significant. To use the ‘expanse’ example - how long (and what did it take) before the Martians were interested in doing anything but trying to capture or destroy the Rocinante on sight? Good luck doing any of that as a random Ukrainian or Thai sailor stuck at sea.
- sidewndr46 2y agoit is complicated, but if it as a berth and paying fees to be stored there you likely are in the wrong. But if the owner stops paying berthing fees, the berth owner has a case against the ship owner. At this point it becomes legal to remove the boat by cooperating with the berth owner. A court is unlikely to grant you ownership of the ship outright however. Facts like these are what are missing from these stories. They always say something like "the company was going bankrupt" or whatever. Somehow they paid for fuel, berthing fees, port entry fees, docking fees and a host of other stuff you need to do international shipping. They quit paying the crew because they can get away with it.
- gopher_space 2y agoYou mentioned liens in an earlier comment, and I've been wondering what it would take to apply a worker's or mechanic's lien to general wage theft.
- sidewndr46 2y agoit would be dependent on the country the ship is registered in firstly. Secondly it is based on the country the owning company is in. Basically as an employee you can go either the maritime court route or whatever civil court system the country has. Most ships are registered in Liberia, so good luck making and collecting a claim based off their law.
- giraffe_lady 2y agoI don't know much about the particulars of maritime law but it's a venerable domain with a massive body of precedent and historically a very high level of routine perfidy to base case law around. I don't imagine this would be the clever loophole you're hoping it is.
- jdietrich 2y agoAs mentioned in the article, many older ships are literally worthless - the cost of cutting them up for scrap matches the value of the scrap metal.
- Suppafly 2y agoIt seems insane that cutting up a ship costs more than mining and refining the steel in the first place.