Ship's Crew cheated out of Wages - Liverpool

For the second time this year the container ship Philipp is in the news. In April a fishing trawler was badly damaged when it was in collision with Philipp near the Isle of Man.

In October it was alleged that workers were only paid approximately 1/3 of their wages. This type of scam is known as double book-keeping, where there are two sets of accounts, the official one and one that says how much was really paid.

The situation was discovered by ITF/Nautilus union inspector Tommy Molloy during a routine inspection of the vessel in Liverpool. "We often suspect double book-keeping is being operated on vessels we inspect", said Molloy, "but it is unusual to get both sets of accounts - the fake accounts showing what the crew should be getting paid, and the real accounts which show they actually get paid approximately a third of what they should.

On a subsequent visit Tommy Molloy discovered most of the crew no longer had their money, "When we arrived back on board it became immediately apparent that the company had taken back the wages they had so recently paid out. The company did not deny they had the wages back but insisted the crew had returned the money voluntarily."

The vessel is operated by Vega Friedrich Dauber GMBH & Co KG and its subsidiary, Vega Manila Crewmanagement Inc

Vessel Summary Info
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Name: Philipp
MMSI: 236459000 [GI]
IMO: 9353735
Callsign: ZDIM2
Size: 155m x 21m x 6.4m
Gross Tonnage: 8,971 M.T.