Port State Control - CIC 2024 on crew wages and seafarer employment agreements under MLC

This year’s Concentrated Inspection Campaign (CIC), running from 1 September until 30 November 2024, prioritizes seafarers’ basic rights on board ships, and will be carried out on the topic of crew wages and Seafarer Employment Agreements (SEAs) under MLC. Read more about the CIC in this news.

Technical News 15

Relevant for ship owners and managers as well as authorities.

CIC – Crew Wages and Seafarer Employment Agreements under MLC

Each year, PSC regimes identify a specific focus area to be checked during regular inspections. For the current year, the Paris and Tokyo MoUs agreed to run a CIC on the topic of crew wages and Seafarer Employment Agreements under MLC. It is expected that the financial security requirements under the 2014 amendments to the MLC are also covered by this CIC.

The majority of PSC MoUs have confirmed their participation in this year’s CIC. It will be carried out between 1 September and 30 November and will be covered by an additional questionnaire during routine PSC inspections.

This additional questionnaire is usually published in early August. Once the final questionnaire is published, DNV will issue an additional newsletter.

What’s more, DNV is offering a webinar on 20 August 2024 during which our experts will give background information on the additional questionnaire and you will have the chance to ask questions. Registration is already open here.

Our internal statistics reveal that, across three different topics, most findings in this area align with the following examples:

Wages 

  • Wages are not paid monthly
  • No details about paid wages in the SEA
  • Wages paid not in accordance with the SEA or the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA)
  • No monthly account issued to seafarer 
  • Deduction for wages not in accordance with the MLC

Seafarer Employment Agreements (SEAs)

  • Original SEA is not available to the seafarer
  • The SEA is not available in English
  • The SEA has expired or been extended without consent from the seafarer
  • Amendments to the SEA have not been signed by the seafarer 
  • The SEA is not in accordance with the MLC requirements
  • The seafarer is in a higher or different position as agreed in the SEA
  • No information is available about the employment agreement in the SEA

Financial security 2014 amendments

  • The certificates of financial security in the event of repatriation or the certificates in the event of compensation for death and long-term disability are not available on board
  • Certificates are not posted on board

It should be noted that the CIC is part of regular PSC inspections, and the attending PSC Officer may extend the inspection to other areas of the ship or crew-related matters, such as rest hour records or familiarization. Furthermore, several non-detainable MLC-related deficiencies can likely trigger an ISM deficiency (PSC Code 15150), even as the only ground for detention.

Management systems and PSC

Due to additional international requirements, a PSC inspection will not only focus on technical issues but also take a more systematic approach to evaluate the vessel’s management system implementation. Evidence of improvement needs can be technical issues (e.g. malfunctions due to low maintenance level) as well as operational matters (e.g. familiarization by / training of crew or unawareness of malfunctions). Over the past years, ISM deficiencies have consistently ranked as the most common detainable issue during ship detention.

Owners should prioritize having well-implemented management systems for ISM, ISPS and MLC. These aim to maintain the awareness of the vessel’s status and to promptly implement effective mitigation actions, if necessary, ideally ensuring compliance at all time.

DNV recommends that companies conduct root cause analyses, including corrective and preventive actions, for individual PSC deficiencies. This data, statistics and resulting improvement needs should be included in the annual management reviews for the evaluation of effectiveness.

DNV supports your improvement efforts during annual DOC audits.

Additionally, DNV offers various information on our PSC webpage to support you during your daily business, such as the PSC Planner. From the end of August until December, the PSC Planner will also include the questionnaire for this CIC for easy reference and preparation by the crew and vessel management.

DNV would like to remind customers that besides this CIC, other unscheduled local focus inspection campaigns might be carried out at the same time. For the still-ongoing campaigns in China or the USA, please refer to our news from 28 May 2024.

Recommendations

Owners/managers should make sure that all the necessary and required information about working arrangements and payment are available to crews. Masters should be informed about the planned CIC and which documents are expected to be requested during inspection.

As deficiencies about MLC are directly linked to the implementation of the Safety Management System (SMS), the SMS should be reviewed for any necessary updates. It is also recommended to perform root cause analyses for individual PSC deficiencies.

We likewise recommend joining the webinar on this topic, offered on 20 August.

Customers should also consider using DNV’s PSC Planner for their preparation of expected PSC inspections. The checklists available in the PSC Planner show focus areas to be checked, based on previous deficiencies of the vessel, port-specific focus areas, the DNV Top 18 items and the CIC questions, when applicable.

References

Contact

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